PASCO AND PEDRO

If we are too serious, we can't live in this world! 

And, if we have not 'lived' here, in this world, the heaven-gates will be shut for us!

Seriously!

There was this man by the name Pascal. All his life, he remained a celibate and he was extremely proud of this fact. One day, at a very ripe age of hundred, this virgin died, and as he had always expected, went straight to heaven.  

However, at the heaven's gate, Pascal had to encounter the heaven-in-charge, the grand-old-man - St. Perter.

"So Pascal, have you loved a woman in your hundred-year life?" Peter asked, straightaway.

"No, never... Ever," Pascal asserted, brimming with pride that he had never touched a woman, all his life.

"Have you not loved your neighbour?" the grand-old Peter quizzed.

"What? When I had chosen to live a clean life, how can you expect me to covet my neighbour's wife?" Pascal was annoyed at this satanic idea of 'desiring his neighbour, Lorry's wife!"

"What about the little children?" Have you not hugged them, kissed them? the Big Boss grilled further our already irritated Pascal.

"See Pedro, the whole world knows about my virginity... Now, you are asking whether I had' 'used'  little kids to satisfy my pleasure?" Pascal had reached the boiling point... Well, almost!

The task-master Peter persisted, "Tell me, Virgin Pascal, you must have loved some animals, at least... Were you not fond of them?"

"It is Blasphemous!" shouted Pascal, gone all crazy, by now, " How can you, of all the people, stuff such corrupt thoughts in your mind?"

"Alright Saint Pascal, tell me, at least, the Mother Nature?" Peter, the Rock, pushed, "Don't tell me, you have not been touched by her!"

"Enough of this rubbish, Pedro!" Pascal had gone nuts, "I can't take this any more." He blasted at the Old-man who had made his, what was supposed to be, a 'Grand Entry' into a 'Nightmare': "Don't forget Pedro, that it took me a hell lot of pain - a hundred years - to live like a Virgin there in that world!"

The grand-old-man Peter, running his hands over his knee-long beard, yelled at the Virgin Soul: "That's what I want to ask you, my friend... Why the hell did you take such a long time to reach here?" Shaking his head with shock and disbelief, the Keeper-of-Heaven declared, "Pasco, you have been dead, for ages!"

In the height of my 'seriousness', I replay this scene... just to remind myself:

 "Hello, my Virgin friend, the old-man Pedro will surely grill you at the heaven's gate. So, you better be prepared!"

GERALD D'CUNHA

Pics.:Anita Dongre