Once upon a time...

I remember when i was 5 years old, i had this habit of asking my dad to tell me a story every night before i went to sleep. I would refuse to go to sleep, until i had my daily dose of a bed time story. And funnily enough, my dad used to recite me the same story every night. The story about the monkey and the crocodile. How they were friends and how the crocodile one day decided to decieve the monkey and eat it but was outwitted by the monkey. Though the story was the same, he had this magical gift of spinning a beautiful yarn around it to make it interesting every time i heard it. I also have a faint memory of one night, when i was throwing up my usual tantrums, complaining to him how he fooled me with the same story every night and told him that i wanted to hear a different story. He gently patted me on my forehead, moved the strand of hair from my face that was tickling me and in his usual soothing voice, said, "Once upon a time, in a jungle far away, there lived a monkey". And i forgot all i had wanted. I once again drifted in to the magical world he had created for me and eventually dozed off. With time as i have grown older, there are no more bed time stories. The mystical land of stories seems to have been lost or maybe i have drifted too far from it. But the memories have stayed with me. And so has this one story which never failed to enchant me with its simplicity !