Just two weeks before the budget, a silver haired lady looked up from her writing as her economist husband approached her somewhere in the capital, “What are you writing this time?” he asked.
“Giving the finishing touches to my new work!” she said.
“Fiction?” he asked as she nodded, “Your books have lots of imagination, plenty of fantasy and make believe! When do you plan it’s release?”
“1st February!” she said.
“Expecting a huge turnout for the book launch?”
“Normally five hundred and forty-three people,” she said, “I’ll have to read the book to all of them!”
“You think it will be well received?”
“Most will,” she said, “a few may not!”
“Why?” he asked.
“They’ll say it has no facts and figures!”
“Does it?” he asked peering at her.
“Come on husband this is a work of fiction. It’s to lull people to feel good. Why should a fairy tale contain dull facts and figures!”
“So,” said the husband, “it may not sell? It may not be a best seller?”
“Of course it will be a best seller!” said the silver haired lady looking up, “Weren’t my last three books all best sellers?”
 “I read them,” said her economist husband.
“And…?” she asked looking at him.
“Great works of fiction!” he said looking at her, “You should try for the Pulitzer or Booker prize, I am sure you will win them hands down! Why don’t you enter it this year?”
The silver haired lady, looked up from her writing and stared at her husband, “You know I can’t do that. The people don’t know this is a novel!”
“But it is!” said her husband, “See, how often you have been looking at the thesaurus for better words for ‘future growth,’ ‘time ahead,’ ‘hereafter,’ ‘expected rise,’ all words novelists use to write bestsellers! Come let me post it for you!” said the husband of the silver haired lady as he made an attempt to gather the manuscript!”
“Don’t!” screamed the silver haired lady, “If it is ever published as fiction, I am finished!”
“Come on!” said her husband, “Someday, these yearly books of yours will be revealed for what they are; works of fiction! Then we both will go to Stockholm!”
“Stockholm?” asked the silver haired lady.
“Yes Nirmala, to get the Nobel Prize, for the best fictious work in the world, brought out for release every February, read out by the author herself..!”

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