Respected Madam/Sir,

How are you? Any health emergency or everything is ok?

Shall I put one philosophy? Please listen carefully. Sometimes good luck is bad luck. Sometimes bad luck is good luck. This is the life.

Maybe you are thinking ok, old man has started giving lecture from first paragraph of letter itself. Non-stop lecture. Morning to evening Mathrubootham is giving lecture only as if life is Brilliant Tutorials.

Madam/ Sir, you mind it. In this country actually doing work means useless. Giving lecture means you can become prime minister also. People will say aha oho look at beautiful lecture, anyone has given such lecture before? Work and all is nothing compared to lecture. Come let us beat bucket with spoon.

So you please don’t give lecture about lecture okay? Okay.

Yesterday I decided suddenly to watch DVD of superhit film Escape to Victory. Have you seen? If you have not please immediately submit resignation letter from your esteemed newspaper and procure one DVD. But where is my DVD? Is it under TV? No. Is it inside bookshelf? No chance. Is it inside box in almirah? Never. So where is it?

I am looking and looking and looking and looking, not even dust of the DVD is available anywhere. But then suddenly one good luck happened. Inside one drawer in the dining room what did I discover? One birthday present from last year for Mrs. Mathrubootham. Totally forgotten. It is simply sitting inside the drawer. What is the gift?

It is one ₹5,000 gift voucher for Amazon website. Madam/ Sir, just imagine the excitement going through the mind of Mathrubootham. Too much excitement. Immediately I ran to Mrs. Mathrubootham and said, “Kamalam Eureka! Look at this gift voucher. What shall we purchase from Amazon? I am not able to control only.”

First she said, “Old man, this is very mysterious. Who is sending this voucher?”

I said, “Kamalam when mango is so delicious why you are asking for name and address and PAN Card and Aadhaar Card of mango tree? Nonsense.”

She said, “Ok this is wonderful news. Let us do one thing. Have you seen our vacuum cleaner? It is model from Indira Gandhi period. Shall we buy one new one? New model is less than ₹10,000.”

I said, “Kamalam Kamalam please, this is more boring than Carnatic music concert. Think some exciting things no? Shall we purchase new DVD player? New Alexa? New mobile phone? New wireless headphone for watching TV?”

She said, “First one request, please give me your purse.” I said, why? She said, so that I can take it to kitchen and put it on gas burner. I said, Kamalam, whether you have put one quarter brandy? She said, no, no, I only wanted to help you waste money nonstop.

Then what happened for next 20 minutes? Nonstop fighting. I said, novels? She said, no. She said, new table lamp? I said, no. I said, new mixie for making juice type items? She said, no. She said, new wifi router, old one is mannangkatti. I said, never.

And then finally we decided no more fights. I will use ₹2,500, she will use ₹2,500. And then we went to the computer, and carefully put all details and then website is saying hahahaha muttaal fellows gift card is expired last month itself hahaha.

Card is gone. Fight is gone. Argument is gone. Life is back to normal.

That is why I said Madam/Sir. Sometimes good luck is bad. And sometimes bad luck is good.

Yours in exasperation,

J. Mathrubootham