The Great Story Maker

At Sarnath

Anyways, we always preferred our uncle’s highly imaginative explanation to dad’s realistic view. Moreover dad was fond of spending time in home peacefully reading books or newspaper while uncle came to me and my brother to take us to explore unknown places. Our mom also liked his simple but quiet unusual nature .He was like a sudden blast of adventure and merriment in a long monotonous life. Whenever any of our vacation started uncle would select one tourist spot, made every arrangement and would come just to order us to pack our travel bags. But after reaching most of the  places we would come to know he had forgotten to bring his essential things. Then he would to borrow my brother’s toothbrush ,mom’s sunglass, comb, dad’s underwear etc. Such acase was in Deoghar .One chilly morning he rushed through our hotel room and said ‘Too much cold and dry weather ..... I need a cold cream. But instead of giving us any moment to bring out our cream he was seen at once in a white ridiculous look applying our toothpaste all over his face.
P

erson generally learns from one incident, not to do such mistake again but the very next day he was seen in front of the toilet mirror with mouthful of bubbles trying to vomit. This time he had mistakenly used dad’s shaving cream instead of our toothpaste.
On visiting Sarnath, there was another incident when uncle himself was lost .We searched for him in every corner of the old library, Buddhist temple , around the deer park and the ruins but we did not find him anywhere.
The sun was about to set and we were late to return to our hotel at  Beneras .At last my brother pointed at him on a far away hilly rock, talking to his heart ‘s content  by moving hands with a middle aged man .
When we reached there, he had already walked down the rock and was coming alone along the way toward us but this time the other man was not there.
He smiled in a mysterious way and said, ‘My new friend whom I never met before’
‘But then, what were you talking about ?’
Uncle started to explain on our way back to hotel- ‘He’s not an ordinary man ...A  scholar and also a historian researching on Ashoka the great emperor of ancient India.’ Uncle continued proudly ‘I have given him much more information about the great emperor ...hmm… such as ...he loved all the animals mostly the deer but what kind of birds did he like most?...What kind of fabric did he wore? Which trees were his favourite to sit beneath and spend leisure?’
‘But ...but uncle!’ I interrupted. ‘Being a historian and a researcher your new friend has yet not known all about these..How could you know?’
‘Exactly, that sort of question he also asked .I could tell him that I was too a researcher and I also had a  thorough knowledge of him (we never heard that before) but instead I wanted to keep him in suspense and told him in a suspicious voice.’Because …  hmmm..My name is Ashoke. Surprisingly in a blink of a moment he started stepping backward and running towards the crowded market place.’