AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CAR I am Jetta, a car manufactured by Volkswagen.

I have just been shipped from the factory to the dealer's showroom. Here I will be kept on display till some happy customer comes and buys me. From where did it all start? Ah, yes I remember. MY Company Volkswagen is a German auto-making giant. As everybody knows, the Germans are renowned for their efficiency, commitment to quality and passion for building exciting and innovative products. Any product that comes from Germany is valued and admired for its quality all over the world. My cousins at Audi too, would surely agree. So I too, was conceived in the German plant a few years back. But I was brought into the world, or as you call it, manufactured in an Indian company. Indians are known for their love and affection, so you can imagine the care and attention I got while I was being made in the factory. I could see tears in the eyes of my engineer parents, while seeing me off to the showroom. India has one of the world's largest automobile markets, and there is a lot of competition from rival cars. But I am no pushover. I have a sturdy engine which can challenge the best in business. My power steering and automatic transmission make for enjoyable driving. For safety, I have airbags fitted in me, and for comfort I provide soft seats and a lot of foot space. I also have a special climate control system. But above all, what makes me most desirable is my looks and style. My specially designed head and tail lights would have any car enthusiast fall for me. I am available in three glitzy colours, black, white and silver. But there are only two things that I fear. One is the bad condition of roads in India. Secondly, I shudder at the thought that some irresponsible fellow who drives roughly and would not take proper care of me, would come to buy me. Alas, it seems somebody has agreed to buy me. He looks like a rich businessman and his manners are pleasing. This gives me two reasons to cheer. One, I might get to live in the city and enjoy good roads. Secondly the chap would take good care of me. Hurray! I'm so happy.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CAT Hello there, my name is Johnson. I am a cat. My life has been a mixture of good and bad times, and now I'm at the ripe old age of 14, that's 70 in cat years. My fur used to be jet black with white socks and a white splash across my stomach, but now it's a sort of dark grey. My mother was a tortoiseshell, a species that has never ceased to amaze me, a blend of tabby, ginger, black, white and each tortoiseshell looks different. Not only that, but also the fact that all tortoiseshells are female. There have been a few conspiracy cases where people will announce they have found a male, but having conversed with some of these cats my selves, the owners are either lying or have very bad eyesight when it comes to urr... determining the gender of the cat, shall we say. Well, back to my mother, I remember she had a patch of tabby over the left side of her face, and her tail was completely ginger except for the tip, which was black. I never learnt who my father was. In my litter there were 6 of us, two black and white, another tortoiseshell, and two tabby's (another fascinating aspect of the tortoiseshell is that they can give birth to a mixture of species). My mother used numbers instead of names, so that when our owners came we could receive proper names and learn them quickly. I was given the number 4, and I grew especially attached to number 6, the other black and white kitten. She was easily the prettiest of the litter, an almost heart-shaped spot on her face, showing her beautifully piercing blue eyes and dainty pink nose. Her white socks were small and neat, with little pink pads on the underside. Her tail was quite long for a cat, coloured black, tipped with white, and she sat with it curled about her. But as soon as we were old enough, we were separated from our mother, and taken to the front of the house, an area we had never ventured before in our adventures about the rest of the house. The front of the house was a pet shop, or more accurately, a cat shop. Many small containers lined the walls of the shop, familiar to those found in a vet's, where they keep the patients. In each of these containers were one or two cats, and I was put into one with 6. Unfortunately the owners of the cat shop did not particularly care about the cats themselves, only the money that they profited from selling them. Therefore the living conditions were indeed, horrible. The newspaper on the floor of the container was never changed, and our excrement was shoveled out every few weeks. The food was satisfactory, but they never even bothered to put it in a dish, and occasionally they would remember to give

us some water. They never took us out to give us a bath, so our fur became dull and matted. One day the cat shop door opened and a woman with a young girl came inside, the woman looked about her in horror as she saw how we were being treated, her hand rising up to her mouth. But the little girl was oblivious to all this and only stared gazing at all the containers, then she spotted me and 6, and rushed over crying "Kittens!" in the most adorable voice I had ever heard.

An autobiography of a butterfly I am a beautiful Monarch butterfly. My name is Jolly. My mother laid some eggs on the leaf of a milkweed plant. After several days we hatched into tiny black and white larvae. At this stage we were called tiny caterpillars. We moved about the plant and fed on its fleshy green leaves. Since we ate all the time, most of the leaves on the plant were destroyed. We grew so fast and soon, that we were too big for our skin. Then we had to go through a process called molting. When we grew new skins and then crawled out of the old ones. We then turned into large grey, yellow and orange striped caterpillars. My next stage was the pupa stage. I crawled under a leaf of the plant and spun a pod of silk and fastened myself to the pod. I molted once more, but this time instead of getting a new skin. I got a green bag. When the right time came for me to emerge out, the bag changed its color and burst open. I flew out of it into the world. I was a fully grown Monarch butterfly. My wings were beautifully colored. Wherever I flew people stopped to admire me. I felt very proud of myself. I fluttered from toflower feeding on the nectar. I made my home in a beautiful garden. The old garden keeper loves to admire me. His eyes would brighten up at the sight of me. One day I laid some eggs on a hibiscus plant in the garden. My life span is short. Soon I will disappear from the face of the world. But more Monarch butterflies will hatch from my eggs.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FOOTBALL Hello everyone. I am a soccer ball. A used, injury-ridden soccer ball. At present I am at the retirement stage and as if right on cue, my creators have started looking for a substitute to be used in my place. Someone told me about the concept of "Autobiography", about how we can recount our personal experiences and sometimes even our entire life. So before I get dutifully kicked off and fate in the form of my creators interferes and decides my life, I would like to present football as viewed from the eyes of the "Ball." "Soccer" is called the king of sports although in my entire life, I have not understood who gave the concept of 22 players toying with an innocent, rotund thing; the sobriquet of "King?" From the time I was born [or created], till now at the retirement stage, all I have endured is kicks and butts in every nook and cranny of my body. You humans may argue that a ball is a sphere, it has no edges and all the geometry that you have learned, but we have feelings you know! The idea of kicking a poor defenceless "Non-living" [as you call us] might be fun in your eyes but for me and my extended family members [the so-called spheres that you use in other sports] it is pure agony. Try to imagine my plight. From here to there, from this post to that, I am mercilessly prodded; without any interest from my side. Not to mention, when one of those 10 "Idiots" puts me past the cage you refer to as the "Net" and the 11th idiot guarding me from it, everyone erupts whooping with the ecstasy of a five-year-old. And then, the person who was firstly responsible for throwing me into the net, grabs me and kisses me. Oh! His audacity! If I had hands, I would wrangle his throat without any pang of guilt affecting me. Wait a minute...I almost forgot...there are these people known as referees who are positioned there to look after the proceedings. They act as the law too, in case one among the 11 injures or trips another from the other 11 lot. They met out punishments also. Weird, isn't it? Here I am tossed around like a dirtbag without a merest passing thought about my health and the people who thrash me get the most pampering. What a biased nature!

You know, I suffer from a medical condition known as "Acute Vertigoisis" wherein the patient feels constant sense of jolts and movements, irrespective of whether he is moving or not. Its not an uncommon disorder among us Soccer balls but my doctor tells me that in my case, its quite advanced for my age and considering the age of Soccer balls, I have not yet entered my teens and I can fall dead to the ground at any time, outrageous! I sometimes feel, what if I wouldn't have been a soccer ball? Would my life be better then? Unfortunately for me, I don't know the answer to my own questions. Towards you humans, I don't bear any malice and completely appreciate you guys loving the game, but just would like to add, next time you watch your favourite pin me [or my substitute] to that wretched net, spare a kind thought in our direction. After years of entertainment and servitude, I guess we owe at least that much from your side. And a final parting shot to my whole bunch of related Soccer balls waiting to be bounced. This is one mistake you will regret for the next of your living life; but at the same time, I also know that you didn't choose your future no more than what I did!