Lightning Quick!

Quick Light (Tez Roshni)

How quickly time flies! They say it travels at the speed of light.

I am reminded of the good man, Olaus Romer, an Earthling who was born 372 years ago and died 306 years ago.

One balmy afternoon, when a weak sun was shining its light down and a light breeze was playing about, our friend, as the story goes, was lying under his favourite tree contemplating life. There were no apples hanging from the tree as it happened to be a jackfruit tree. He was fortunate that no jackfruit fell on his head, or else there would have been no telling what the gravity of the situation might have been, and the good man escaped by the skin of his teeth. Ah!

Just when he had begun to doze off and the opening credits of his day-dream began to roll, he was startled into wakefulness by a call from his favourite aunt on his smart phone. She asked him what he was doing and he replied somewhat testily, for he was forced to pause the dream, “Contemplating Life”. And Aunt Matilda, who was a little hard of hearing, misheard him and said, “What are you contemplating light for? Don’t just lie there and contemplate light. Do something about it. Light! Pah, bah and tchah!”

And Olaus was always in mortal fear of his Aunt Matilda for she was the one who, when he was a boy of four, scared him by switching off the light without warning during story telling sessions when she spoke of spooks and things that move in the dark. He always wished that he would be able to catch a fistful of light and keep it in his pocket so that he would never be in the dark. But, try as he might, he could not. It always managed to slip through and was too quick for him. Hah!

He decided to find out just how quick light was.

Now, he was familiar with the planet Jupiter in the sky. Among its sixty seven moons was one called Io (pronounced “Ayyo”, and rightly so). Io had a habit of playing hide-and-seek with Jupiter, going off every now and then into its shadow. Olaus started off by timing the eclipse when Io suddenly moved into the shadow of Jupiter and again when it suddenly moved out of it. Don’t ask me how, but with the help of a stop watch and by a clever mix of observation, logic, mathematics, trigonometry, some intrepid calculations on the fingers of his hand and remembering the carry-forwards in his head, he was able to derive a figure, rounded off to a hundred and forty thousand miles per second, as the speed of light. This was later discovered by other clever mixers to be off the mark by a slight margin of some forty-six-thousand-odd miles per second but it was close enough for everyone to pat him on the back during their next Friday club get-together. Wah!

(One intense trignomerist, or whatever you call those astronomers who use trigonometry to bring them up to speed, patted him a little too hard, causing him to exclaim, “Io”!)

It is already three hundred and forty years since Olaus was thus patted on his back. Since then, other noteworthies have sat down singly and jointly, gallons of coffee* at hand to keep them awake, and have calculated the speed of light to a nicety. And the conclusion they reached was that light travelled too fast. At the rate of two hundred ninety nine million, seven hundred ninety two thousand, four hundred fifty eight metres every second, to be precise! That’s mighty quick.

Sudden, what?



* I wonder if the coffee they had was the South Indian filter variety, strong, sakkare kadimeˊ !

© - Shiva Kumar – 07 Dec 2016

Courtroom Drama

The Face in the Court

Monday morning. The clock in my head said 10:23, which was more or less the right time because this clock is right most of the time (except on Sundays and public holidays). The Court Complex in the heart of the city. Bustling with activity. Black-coated and black-robed lawyers rushing to and fro, looking extremely busy, some looking like they had just been para-dropped into the court grounds, their black robes billowing behind them and hair carefully mussed up. Flustered assistants running behind them carrying piles of files and looking even busier, and clients with furrowed brows following close on their heels, hanging on to their every word and trying to get in that last request.

The court halls were starting to fill up with accusers and accused, plaintiffs and defendants, parties of the first part and parties of the second part and such like, and their relatives and friends. And, of course, their lawyers. Some are there out of genuine concern. Some are there because it is their duty. Some are there purely for the courtroom drama. And some, like me, are there without knowing why.

I was actually on my way to the city market planning to check out a fountain pen repair shop and a second hand book seller in the Avenue Road-Chickpet area and had just alighted from the bus at the stop near the court, intending to walk down from there to where the stationery stores, book shops, pen sellers and repairers, wholesale merchants and bargain shops are located, when I saw someone in a bright checked shirt waving at me from the court grounds just opposite. I couldn’t see his face but he looked very, very familiar. And that checked shirt too. Where had I seen it before? Curious to know who it was, I crossed the road and walked towards him. I could just make out the round face, the broad nose and full head of greying hair but couldn’t pin it down. As I neared him, he gesticulated and ran towards the stairs leading to the court halls on the upper floors. I ran after him and was just able to make out his form disappearing into the Court Hall No. 7 on the 1^st floor. Who was this gent in the bright checked shirt? Why did he run away from me? Curious.

I quickly entered Court Hall No. 7, but was accosted at the door by another gent with a handlebar moustache, looking official in white trousers and white half-sleeved shirt. He was obviously one of the court staff, the chappie who stands at the door and shouts out names of the parties to each case as they are called out by the clerk. He stopped me just inside the hall, his moustache fairly bristling as he looked me up and down three times sternly, making me feel like the party of the other part. But apparently he decided I wasn’t guilty until proven so because he told me to sit down quickly as court would be starting any moment and I should not make any “galaatta”. He made space for me between two aggrieved parties on the bench along the wall and I squeezed into it. The chap I had followed inside, the raison d’etre for my coming to this place, the gent in the bright checked shirt, was nowhere to be seen. Curiouser.

Just when I was thinking that I should get out from this place, the aforementioned white shirted official-looking gent walked up to the door behind the magistrate’s bench, threw it open smartly and announced in a loud voice, “OPEN COURT”. Every person stood up as a distinguished looking black robed magistrate walked in through the doorway, climbed up the steps to his seat, did a “Namaskara” to the packed Court Hall and settled himself in. The clock hanging on the wall facing the magistrate showed the time to be precisely eleven o’ clock. The clock in my head more or less agreed. I couldn’t very well leave at that moment, could I? So I sat down and waited.

There were lawyers everywhere. The early comers were seated around a U-shaped table below the bench. Those who couldn’t find a seat were standing behind the seated lawyers, hoping to take their places soon. Some more were standing behind the clerk. The benches along the wall were full with people waiting expectantly and there were more people standing near the door. ‘Jampacked’ is the word I am looking for.

As I looked around, I thought I glimpsed a familiar face craning around the neck of another just outside the door but it disappeared before I could zoom in and get a fix on the identity. He was there one moment and not there the next. The gent in the bright checked shirt checked out as suddenly as he had checked in. Curiouser and curiouser.

As the Court began proceedings, a hush descended on the hall. The magistrate uncapped a fountain pen, wrote something on the pad in front of him and nodded to the clerk who then stood up and called out the first case listed for the day. “OS numbar eks-woi-jed, Such and Such” (note that both are Such until one of them is proven Jhoot). The white-and-white gent, standing at the door, repeated the names called out in a loud voice, “SUCH, SUCH”. Two lawyers standing expectantly near the clerk with their ears flapping approached the bench and made a respectful submission that they were appearing for the plaintiff and the defendant, respectively. The magistrate quickly scanned the papers placed by the clerk in front of him, wrote something on the last sheet, said something to the two lawyers that I couldn’t follow, looked at a table calendar placed in front of him and pronounced a date for the next hearing. The two lawyers slowly backed off and retracted their ears. Next case. Similar action. And so it went on. Court was rushing through cases that were in the preliminary stages.

I sat through some ten or twelve cases and nearly dozed off. Then suddenly there was a lull as the clerk was getting some papers signed by His Lordship. I saw my chance. Before he could call the next case, I quickly stood up, thanked the two aggrieved parties for letting me sit between them, did a “Namaskara” to the Court and stepped smartly out of the hall. Mr. White-and-white glared at me but I was free and couldn’t be stopped. I glared back at him and walked off. And looked around. But could not see any sign of the gent in the bright checked shirt. He had vanished as if he had never been there.

I walked back to the bus stop ruing the fact that I had lost an hour for no reason at all. I was thinking that if I got hold of that checked shirt, I would wring the neck it encased. And as I was revelling in this thought, lo and behold, there it was! And there was the chap wearing it! I saw him waiting at the bus stop. I decided I would steal up to him and catch him unawares. But before I could cross the road, a bus rolled up, our man got in and the bus pushed off.

As I stood there shaking my fist, I suddenly remembered that I had a bright checked shirt identical to the one that chap was wearing. And a chilling realisation struck me amidships and sent me reeling – I knew where I had seen that face before. I had seen it in the mirror.

It was my own face!

© Shiva Kumar - Nov 2016

The Face in the Night

The Face in the Night

It must be some 6-7 or 8-9 years now after this singular incident took place. It happened when I was living in the first floor house where the ground floor was vacant, the inmates having escaped a couple of weeks earlier without leaving a forwarding address. No ground staff, only the flying squad.

As is my habit, I boo a dit of beading in red after dinner before nodding off to sleep. You know what I mean. By the time I bang the book shut, slam the lights off and quietly call it a night, the clock usually has slid past the twelve o’ clock mark. I generally manage to get my seven or eight hours straight and without a break, unless I have had that glass of water just before head hit pillow.

This night was no different. I read my constitutional twenty three pages till my eyes were barely able to stay open. My brain was starting to fog up and stray out of focus. I snapped the book shut with a snap, reached out and flicked the light switch off with a flick. As the room went dark, I closed my eyes, rolled over to my right and made a dignified exit to slumber-land. I think I went out like the light I had just flicked off. All had become silent in the household except for the odd snores emanating from time to time.

Suddenly I came awake. One moment I had been out as described above, in a state of suspended animation as it were, the next I came alive, into a state of animated suspension. I tried to reckon the time, but the clock in my head, which is usually reliable and correct to the minute, was on temporary leave of absence, its mainspring having broken off from its moorings. But I reckon it must have been close to three o’ clock. Very oily in the moining.

I blinked my eyes open but made no other movement. It was as well. My bed was right next to the window whose shutters were glazed with translucent figured glass with a kind of serrated design. There were no curtains covering the window. As my eyes settled on the window, I saw a face!  

Yes, I saw a face. It wasn’t a reflection of my own face; I know my face well and this wasn’t it. There was another face outside, trying to peer into the room through the glass! When my eyes slowly focussed, I could see the whites of the eyes as it tried to look inside. It was pressed close to the glass with the hands held on either side. It was fairly lit by the outside street lights but I could not make out the features. Whoever it was, was trying to look inside but not succeeding because the inside of the house was in darkness. Hardly four feet away from me.

I was fully awake now. I knew what I should do. I slowly sat up. I breathed in deeply but silently, inflating first my left and then my right lung to the full, put my head as close to the window as I could without moving my body and looked straight at the face. And I bellowed.

It came out as a deep roar, gathering force as it exited my throat, a boom of thunder rolling out and hitting the window pane with a fearful punch. I don’t know if it woke up the entire neighbourhood, but it certainly jolted my wife from deep slumber to wakefulness.  

“HOOAAAOOOOYYYY!”

My vocal performance produced impressive results outside the window. For a second after the reverberation died down and the window panes stopped rattling, nothing happened. Then the face disappeared from the window as if wiped off, there was a loud “THUD” of something heavy falling to the ground and I heard someone groan “AYYO”.

I realised then that that face was part of a head which had a thorax and an abdomen joined to it. In other words, there was a body below that head. And legs attached to the body. The blighter had been standing on the “chajja” (“chad ja” for him?) or sunshade of the ground floor window just below my window and trying to peer inside. Who was he? Thief? International spy? Peering Brosnan? I don’t know, but I do know that I had startled him and upset his delicate balance, causing his downfall. I had scared him right off his perch.

I quickly picked up the stout bamboo cane with the bent root like a hockey stick which I keep next to my bed and ran out on to the balcony, hoping he had broken a leg or something and was lying in the narrow passage beside the compound, unable to move. I was disappointed. The blackguard had disappeared.

My wife was sitting up, looking dazed. She found it difficult to believe what had just taken place but having been in the room while it happened, she had to.

All in all, a very satisfying bellow. I should use it more often.

-          © Shiva Kumar 2016

May Shri Ganesha clear all your obstacles!

The Story of Abdul Hamid

                                                                                        (image taken from Wikipedia)

The story of Abdul Hamid

My favourite radio station is Vividh Bharati service of All India Radio (Akashvani) which plays some of the finest old Hindi film music heard on radio. My car radio is always tuned to this station. Not for me the mindless chatter and commercial-filled private FM stations. Vividh Bharati does not have too many advertisements and its announcers speak in a composed manner. They are “announcers”and not “radio jockeys” as the others prefer to call themselves. In fact, these radio jockeys are most of the time unintelligible and seem to be always in a hurry to finish and go somewhere.

Vividh Bharati has been doing yeoman service to our armed forces by dedicating programmes specially for their listening pleasure. One such programme is Jayamala which is broadcast every weekday evening from 7:05 to 7:45. I cannot remember any other programme in this time slot. In the days when there was no mobile telephony or internet, the radio would have been only handy source of news, entertainment and solace from the outside world available to our brave jawans stationed on our borders, sitting in their tents or bunkers on some remote mountain top at temperatures below freezing or in the desert in scorching heat, away from their families.

On Saturday evenings, Vividh Bharati broadcasts Vishesh Jayamala, a special Jayamala programme in the same time slot of 7:05 to 7:45, where personalities from the Hindi film industry are invited to speak to the soldiers and play some of their favourite songs.

Last Saturday, as I was driving home from work, the Vishesh Jayamala programme was on and it was not someone from the film industry speaking. Instead, it was a run-up to our Independence Day celebrations and the baritone voice of the announcer was telling us the story of Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid. Listening to the poignant account, my eyes misted over as I tried to feel and understand the sacrifice our soldiers made and continue to make.

Abdul Hamid was one such soldier. He hailed from a small village called Dhampur in Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh. He was barely twenty one years old when he was enrolled in the Grenadiers infantry regiment. He was later posted in the 4^th Battalion of the same regiment where he served all his short life. Hamid’s battalion had participated in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. After five years in the anti-tank section of the battalion, Hamid was promoted and became the Quartermaster, Stores of his company. But he was reverted to his earlier charge as the NCO commanding his battalion’s Recoil-less Rifle Platoon as he was the best 106mm recoil-less rifle shot in the battalion.

On 8^th September 1965, the Pakistani forces launched an attack on India on the area just ahead of Cheema Village on the Khem Karan – Bhikiwind – Amritsar road. Though the enemy made repeated attacks, the 4^th Grenadiers beat them off successfully. That day, Abdul Hamid destroyed two Pakistani Patton tanks.

Just two days later, on the morning of 10^th September 1965, Pakistani tanks once again attacked the Indian 4^th Grenadier positions in the Khem Karan sector. Abdul Hamid who was in a gun mounted jeep, spotted a group of Patton tanks advancing on his position. Without flinching in the face of the enemy shelling and firing, he advance towards the tanks and was successful in knocking out three Patton tanks. By then the enemy had spotted him and started concentrating fire on his jeep. Before he could engage the fourth tank in his sights, his jeep took a direct hit and he was mortally wounded. He lost his life but inspired his comrades to put up a fight and beat back the enemy.

Abdul Hamid destroyed a total of seven Patton tanks before laying down his life for the nation.

The Battle of Asal Uttar was one of the largest tank battles fought in the Indo-Pak war of 1965.This battle is compared with the battle of Kursk in the Second World War for how it changed the course of the India-Pakistan war of 1965 in India's favour. (Battle of Asal Uttar - Wikipedia)

Within a week of this battle that cost him his life, Abdul Hamid was honoured by a grateful nation with the Param Vir Chakra, the highest military decoration of the Republic of India. The award was announced on 16^th September 1965 and presented to his wife, Rasoolan Bibi by the then President of India, Sri. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, during the Republic Day Parade on 26^th January 1966.

I salute our brave soldiers!

The Param Vir Chakra citation on the official Indian Army website reads as follows:

CITATION

COMPANY QUARTERMASTER HAVILDAR ABDUL HAMID

4 GRENADIERS (NO 2639985)

At 0800 hours on 10 September 1965 Pakistan forces launched an attack with a regiment of Patton tanks on a vital area ahead of village Cheema on the Bhikkiwind road in the Khem Karan Sector. Intense artillery shelling preceded the attack. The enemy tanks penetrated the forward position by 0900 hours. Realising the grave situation, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid who was commander of a RCL gun detachment moved out to a flanking position with his gun mounted on a jeep, under intense enemy shelling and tank fire. Taking an advantageous position, he knocked out the leading enemy tank and then swiftly changing his position, he sent another tank up in flames. By this time the enemy tanks in the area spotted him and brought his jeep under concentrated machine-gun and high explosive fire. Undeterred, Company Quartermaster Havildar Abdul Hamid kept on firing on yet another enemy tank with his recoilless gun. While doing so, he was mortally wounded by an enemy high explosive shell.

Havildar Abdul Hamid’s brave action inspired his comrades to put up a gallant fight and to beat back the heavy tank assault by the enemy. His complete disregard for his personal safety during the operation and his sustained acts of bravery in the face of constant enemy fire were a shining example not only to his unit but also to the whole division and were in the highest traditions of the Indian Army.

Fluffy Whites

Fluffy Whites

The Idli Poem

One urad dal, three parboiled rice

One spoon of salt, no sugar or spice

Soak the dal and the rice separate

For five hours let them hibernate

Grind the urad dal and grind the rice

Amalgamate them both slow and nice                                 

The spoonful of salt, mix it well in                   
Leave it be from evenin’ to mornin’                          

While you’re asleep, the batter’s workin’

Its bounden duty, never shirkin’

Come the morn, see how it has risen

Like flood waters breakin’ their prison*

Small handfuls of batter in a mould

Give them the steamer treatment of old

Out come fluffy white idlis, ready

Serve with sambar, chutney or podi

Reminds me of the tale of the bride

She sat in her kitchen and she cried

Her own self she began to despise

She couldn’t get the batter to rise

Till her husband walked in to enquire

What the matter was, what did transpire

She cried, "the batter didn’t grow higher"

He wondered “it needs water, or warmth, dear?”

You see, the crux of the whole matter

Is simply the fermenting batter

When it swells over like the high tide                                  

The heart swells with happiness and pride!

-          © Shiva Kumar

27^th April 2016

(*Acknowledgement: 
Thanks to Rudyard Kipling  for the phrase “the floods breaking their prison” from his poem An Astrologer’s Song)

Raavan ki Katha!

Raavan ki Katha!

It was the summer of 1966 (or was it 1967? My memory teases me sometimes!). I was eleven (or twelve, as the case may be). School was closed for the summer vacation and we children were enjoying our holiday in the small mining camp of Deogiri, up in the hills above the valley of the now infamous mining town of Sandur in Karnataka.

For us urbanites, Deogiri was a resort to beat all resorts. But the people who earned their livelihood from the mining activity there, like my father (who was the Mines Manager of the company operating the mines there) and his colleagues, found life rather tough and monotonous; it was a welcome change for them too when their children came there to spend their holidays.

And so it was, one day, when my father announced after breakfast that he would be going down to Sandur for a meeting. He looked at me and asked me, much to my surprise and delight, whether I would like to go along for the ride. I was surprised because my father was not known for making such tempting offers and delighted when I thought of the thrilling Jeep ride that awaited me.

I got ready in a jiffy and jumped into my father’s official vehicle, a maroon Jeep. Our driver hopped in at the back, for he knew my father liked to drive. The journey to Sandur took about an hour and involved going down a winding unmetalled road cutting through the forest and which had several hairpin bends. My father was an accomplished driver and negotiated the bends with ease while I watched from behind him with bated breath. We saw a few langurs of which there were plenty in this forest but otherwise the drive was without incident.

We reached Sandur a couple of hours before lunch and I was dropped off at my father’s friend’s (who was also a mining colleague) house. I whiled away my time playing in the garden while my father and his friend went about their work. They returned in time for lunch with another colleague and we were treated to a North Indian fare consisting of chapatis, dal and some dry kind of sabji. I heard my father’s friend suggesting that, since they had completed the day’s work, they could drive down to Bellary, which was another hour away, and catch a newly released Hindi film. My father, who was not an avid film goer, agreed reluctantly. For me it was an unexpected double bonus, coming on top of the Jeep ride. Having absolutely no knowledge of Hindi did not matter.

Soon we were on our way, my father and his two friends in front, me and our driver at the back. As we sped along the hot and dusty road to Bellary, the wind howling in our ears, I thought I heard my father’s friend say that the film was called Raavan ki Katha; I guessed it would be some story from the Ramayana and was excited at the visual treat in store, of seeing Lord Rama and his faithful band of monkey warriors led by his parambhakt Hanuman battle it out with Raavan and his army of asuras to bring back Sita.

We were running late and entered the theatre compound in a rush. One person ran ahead to get the tickets while the rest of us ran straight up to the doors. We were just a wee bit late entering the hall and the opening credits had rolled as we found our seats. The film, unfortunately, turned out to be a disappointment. I waited in vain for the battles between Hanuman’s vanara sainya and Raavan’s asura soldiers. Instead, there was some girl riding on a cart filled with hay and singing a song which had a catchy refrain with a couple of Holle Holles thrown in. There was a chap sitting in front looking somewhat petulant when the song began but the two of them come to some kind of understanding by the time it ended. The horse was also cantering along without breaking into a sweat. I tried to get interested but my not knowing a word of Hindi did not help much. I think I even managed a small nap during the show! All in all, it was a big letdown for me though my father’s friends seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed it.

As we came out of the theatre, I happened to look up at the huge hoarding advertising the film put up at the entrance to the theatre. And there I saw the title of the film and understood why there was no Rama or Raavan or Hanuman – the film was called not Raavan ki Katha, but Sawan ki Ghata!

© Shiva Kumar 2014

PS: I don't even know if the title is grammatically correct!

The Ass and the Grasshopper

The Ass and the Grasshopper

The fable by AESOP:

AN ASS, having heard some Grasshoppers chirping, was highly enchanted; and, desiring to possess the same charms of melody, demanded what sort of food they lived on to give them such beautiful voices. They replied, “The dew.” The Ass resolved that he would live only upon dew, and in a short time died of hunger.

The new fable by SHIVA KUMAR, An Eccentric Silly Old Person.

Upon a grassy knoll on the edge of the world there once lived a grasshopper. He spent his time playing in the grass with other grasshoppers and hopping to and fro. For his food he depended on tender blades of grass and more particularly on the dew which collected on them every dawn. By the time he completed three months of age, which is one-fourth the average life span of his species, the grasshopper was sick and tired of the knoll. He felt like an ass. So much so that frequently he caught himself laughing at himself. Once he even got angry with himself and stopped talking to himself for a whole day.

Having seen the entire knoll twenty three times, one fine morning the grasshopper decided that enough was enough and he would now explore the world outside. He did not know that the knoll was situated at the edge of the world as he had not ventured beyond the last line of grass. He decided he would go beyond this line. So he said his goodbyes to his friends before leaving, by waving his left antenna, and they responded by waving their left antennae back. He said goodbye to the blades of grass and they simply waved back. Actually they did not wave back to him. It was a gentle breeze which moved them. So moved was the grasshopper by this collective waving that he decided he must be moving quickly. He also said goodbye to the shrubs and bushes under which he spent the hot afternoons and cool nights. Of course they did not reply, not because they didn’t want to but because they couldn’t. Shrubs and bushes don’t speak. They rustle in the wind and make a kind of rustling noise, but they don’t speak. This doesn’t mean they are dumb. They are not dumb, but they don’t speak.

Soon the grasshopper was on his way. It took him the whole day to reach the last line of grass and the sun was setting when he decided to take a break. So he took a break. All along the way, he had not met any other animal or thing, not even another grasshopper. He was tired of chirping to himself and went to sleep feeling like an ass. He dreamt of an ass which had a grasshopper’s face and was chirping loudly as it hopped about. The dream was so funny that it made him laugh in his sleep.

He woke up early the next morning (truth be told he did not know it was the next morning – it could have been three or even seventeen days later – he had no way of knowing, but he thought it was the next morning and we’ll take his word, no, his thought, for it) and broke his fast on a drop of dew formed on the sixth blade of grass to his left. He always chose the sixth blade because liked to call himself The Sixth Blade Adventurer. Having strengthened himself thus, he set out once again, hopping this way and that. He made slow progress because he did not move in a straight line but in a diagonal movement, rather like the bishop on a chess board. He was tired and decided to rest under a bush. Soon he went to sleep. He did not know it then, but he was very close to the edge of the world and to a turning point in his life.

The grasshopper woke up with a start. It was a terrible rumbling, earth-shaking noise which woke him up. He looked up and saw flashes of blue light dancing across the sky and at the same time heard a crashing, rolling sound. He had never seen such a fantastic sight or heard such a deafening sound before! It was his first experience of lightning and thunder and frightened him to such an extent that he stuffed his ears with cobwebs from an abandoned web, closed his eyes tight and cowered under a creeper with only a passing spider for company. The spider was watching him unblinkingly, as if sizing him up for breakfast. As they didn’t know each other’s language, both remained silent. Not that it would have mattered much, on account of the thunder. Soon the spider, possibly deciding that the grasshopper was not a healthy breakfast option, crawled away to look for another prey. All of a sudden, there was a deluge and rain came pelting down like the dickens. The Sixth Blade Adventurer had never felt so scared in his life. The storm lasted an hour and, by the time it ended, he was totally wet, bedraggled and terrified out of his wits. He stayed curled up under the creeper through the day and the night which followed. He wished he were an ass. That night, once again, he dreamed of an ass which was so wet it was shivering. It couldn’t bray or even chirp. It croaked.

The croaking seemed to become louder and louder until it became unbearable and woke him up. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the biggest mouth he had ever seen, with a pinkish grey tongue slowly unrolling towards him! It was a toad! He had never seen a toad before but some of his friends had and they had described one to him. This toad was exactly as they had described, only much bigger. The grasshopper stopped breathing and watched without moving. He did not even blink. The toad’s tongue stopped short of him just as he thought it would pick him up and he would be swallowed. It probed this way and that for a moment and then rolled back into the toad’s mouth. The toad had not seen the grasshopper! It gave a loud croak which made the grasshopper leap up and bang his head on the creeper’s stem, and then it turned and went away.

By and by the grasshopper started breathing again. His heart, which had become entangled with his tongue, disentangled itself and resumed beating. He waited for what seemed like a few hours, though it was only about a minute, watching the toad’s back and waiting for the painful lump on his head to subside. When the toad was no longer visible, he slowly crept out from under the creeper, thanked the creeper on bended knees for protecting him and took one hesitating hop-step. His wings had dried sufficiently for him to take short flights, so, starting off with a couple of running steps, he launched himself into the air. Just then a gust of wind came along and bore him aloft. He soared high into the sky, and, looking down, could see a couple of ants which looked like specks. Actually, they were tiny ants to begin with and he was only about six feet above the ground but it seemed to him that he was soaring because he had never gone so high!

Gradually the wind carried him away from the ground and over the edge of the world. Suddenly, the grasshopper could not see any land below him, only a black emptiness. The wind also died and he found himself dropping, dropping, dropping … he had crossed the edge of the world (though he still did not know it)!

The grasshopper continued to fall for some time. There was nothing in that space absolutely to stop him. He found that he did not have to flap his wings to fly. He just floated along. He could only breathe gently because there seemed to be very little air, but he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable.

After some time, he found that he had stopped falling but continued to float along horizontally. When he turned around and looked, he saw what looked like a huge flat platform whose two sides and far end he couldn’t see. He could only see the edge facing him. With a shock he understood. It was the edge of the world! It was not far away but it wasn’t near either. He could see the grassy knoll which had been his home and it looked beautiful. He could see the tiny ants and they had become tinier. He even saw the big toad. It looked small and harmless and quite friendly from this distance. It seemed to be waving its tongue at him in an affable manner. How he wished he could go back there and wave his antenna back at the toad! He flapped his wings but was not able to create any lift. He tried to chirp but no sound would come out of his mouth. For a moment he panicked and started hyper-ventilating. But since there seemed to be little air around, hyper-ventilation was of no use.

Gradually he calmed down and allowed himself to float along. After a while, he even started to like it. There seemed to be some sort of attractive force which kept him on a path parallel and quite close to his world. As he floated along, the knoll slowly went out of his sight and he could now see a forest with lots and lots of trees, some so huge that their tops were not visible.

Out of the forest came an ass. The grasshopper knew it was an ass because it had appeared in almost all his dreams. The ass came right up to the edge and looked at him. It saw him and opened its eyes wide as if recognizing him. Perhaps he had appeared in the ass’s dreams! The ass brayed loudly and gesticulated at him. The sight of another animal, albeit an ass, after so long made the grasshopper happy. He gesticulated back. The ass trotted to keep pace with the floating grasshopper. Then, with another loud bray, he started to swing his tail in the direction of the grasshopper. On the third try, the tail swished past and the grasshopper just managed to hold on to its tip. Thus hoisted aboard, the ass soon pulled him back out of orbit to safety. The grasshopper was overwhelmed with gratitude and tried to show it by going on bended knees but the ass, being an ass, did not recognize it as gratitude and tried to kick him back.

Nonetheless, the two became friends. They were always together, criss-crossing the forest and whiling away their time braying and chirping, that is to say, the ass was braying and the grasshopper was chirping. The grasshopper did not think much of the ass’s braying – the voice had a rough timbre, it was too loud and he could not understand what the ass was trying to say. Added to this, the braying was out of tune and did not maintain any particular beat. “Sounds like a silly ass”, he said to himself whenever he heard his friend bray.

But the ass, on the other hand, was simply enchanted by the grasshopper’s chirping and wanted to have a voice like that. But, try as he might, the intended chirp always came out as a bray and it made him feel like an ass. “Silly ass”, he would chastise himself.

Time passed and the two friends learned to understand each other’s language sufficiently to be able to make casual conversation.

So one day the ass asked the grasshopper, “My dear friend, you have such an enchanting voice. What is it that makes it so beautiful?”

And the grasshopper replied, “You see, my friend, it is the dew I live on. Get up early in the morning, when the dew is formed on the grass and imbibe it. You will find your voice growing sweeter and sweeter. Go ahead, try it. Have all the dew you want. But beware, every sixth grass and the dew on it is mine. I am a Sixth Blade Adventurer, you see. Six, six, six!”

The ass did not know what six was and looked bewildered, just like any ass would look if you went and said “six” to it. The grasshopper managed, by using sign language – a sort of wild gesticulation with his antennae and simultaneously rolling his eyes – to explain the sixth blade concept to the ass. He also taught the ass how to count from one to six. Soon, the ass became adept at ‘dewing the dew’ and, if one had happened to have visited the enchanted forest at dawn on certain days just past, one would have heard a hoarse, asinine voice braying “waa, foo, free, fo, fy, slurp, … sorry, skip, …”

With every passing day, the grasshopper’s chirp seemed to become chirpier and chirpier. On the other hand, the ass’ braying was growing fainter and fainter. The reason was not far to seek – the ass was surviving only on dew and it was hardly enough to even wet his tongue. He had lost quite a bit of weight and had started to look like the skeleton of a thin and impoverished ass. Which he was.

One morning, when the grasshopper woke up from his sleep, he found the ass sprawled on the grass beside him, looking quite dead. The grasshopper hopped to and fro and tried to wake him, but the ass did not stir. The grasshopper desperately sprang onto his left ear and chirped loudly. Whereupon the ass opened his left eyelid and looked balefully at his tiny friend. “I think I am going to die” he brayed softly. The grasshopper was sad when he heard this and didn’t want to be left alone. Nor did he want to leave his friend alone. He thought for a while and then chirped to the ass, “look, listen, somehow drag yourself to the edge and leap off, you will find it easier there”. So saying, he leapt up to the ass’s back and guided him to the edge of the world.

The ass somehow dragged himself to the edge and, summoning all his remaining energy with a super-asinine effort, he took a big leap and went flying out of the world, the grasshopper clinging on to his left ear. Soon they were floating along in space, within sighting distance but just out of reach of the edge of the world, with no one to help them back. They were doomed to remain there.

Time passed. They stopped eating because there was nothing to eat. They stopped talking to each other or even to themselves because they had become weak and their voices couldn’t be heard. They soon stopped breathing because there was very little air. Life slowly seeped out of them. They floated along, quite lifeless but quite inseparable. And there they are, for all eternity.

If you look up to the northern sky on a clear autumn evening, you might, if you are lucky, be able to see a cluster of seven stars aligned in the shape of an ass with its tail stretched out. That would be the ass. If you look carefully above the ass’s left ear, you may also be able to see a sort of a glimmer formed by six tiny stars; that would of course be the grasshopper, clinging on. They remain that way, to this day. True friends.

© Shiva Kumar 2016

Unwelcome Visitor

UNWELCOME VISITOR

I remember it was on a Friday morning, a week before Deepavali a few years ago, that we had this unexpected visitor at home. I was in the office, getting into the thick of things, when my better three-fourths called me up and told me to hurry home. The visitor had turned up most unexpectedly and my wife wanted me to turn him away.

I left the office in a rush, thinking dark thoughts about the unwelcome visitor. He had come home on a working day without prior intimation and it was quite annoying. My work was totally disrupted and I would have to forego my weekend R & R to make up for the lost time.

He probably wanted to surprise my wife and so did not announce himself at the main door but chose to drop in through the dining room window which was left open. My wife told me that he promptly hid behind the fridge. She had spotted him, though.

I called up Anees, who knew him and several members of his extended family quite well. Anees told me he would be at my house within half-an-hour and would be happy to take care of our “friend”. Meanwhile, having reached home, I decided to keep a discreet watch.

Anees was as good as his word and reached within the promised time. His first question was whether the intruder had showed himself. I replied that all this while he had stayed put behind the fridge, maybe waiting for an opportune moment to spring out.

Rather than wait for our guest to show himself, Anees went straight to his hiding place and without much ado pulled him out. Our friend was annoyed and tried to wriggle out. But Anees held him firmly by the scruff of his neck and put him into a cloth bag which he had brought with him!

He was quite, er, tall, at least a seven-footer, well built and dark complexioned. And, well, some would go so far as to call him handsome too!

“Wow, a big one, Sir, at least seven feet! A fully grown rat snake. Not poisonous, but he has a nasty bite, quite painful. He can climb 3-4 feet walls easily. You must be careful, there are many snakes in this area. I will release him in the Bannerghatta forest. And now I must be leaving because I have two more calls to attend to.” So saying, Anees put the cloth bag with its wriggling contents into his van and drove off.

And that ended our tryst with our reptilian visitor!

© Shiva Kumar