The Kind Old Major

Sad times for a jailed writer! A Covid 19 quarantine poster on the neighbouring house. And a curfew-imposing bully threatening me to stay inside. Will our world, I mean the world of humans, see better days?

This bully who fully understands that we are on the back foot—and hence tries to claim more space in the human settlement, intimidating people and setting himself like a curfew guard—draws my memory a decade back. How I wish we had our kind old Major with us. The memory acquires even sharper notes as I see this ruffian sleeping in the open along with his clan —on the ground itself—unconcerned and unmindful of any transgression by we humans. To put it plainly, the criminal, goon bully cares a damn about us anymore. He is free. Corona is helping him copiously. How I wish we had our kind, old Major to teach this misbehaving tramp a nice lesson. Well, Major would certainly have dispensed justice for us, without delay, right there on the scene of crime.

The village was taking convulsive, irritated and helpless turns under the simian onslaught. The red-faced, red-bottomed and red-balled Rhesus tramps had bred profusely. All the females had babies stuck up to their tummies. To cock a snook at us, they mated shamelessly on rooftops, grimacing hideously at the onlookers. Then they would muster up more courage to molest women and girls, harass them, get after them, and snatch things from their hands. I specifically say that they took more liberty with women than men. I wonder was it simply their instinctive realization that they are softer sex and hence less threatening, or was it blatant sexism involving some raw sadistic pleasure in putting human females at discomfort. If it was the latter, the crime then turns unpardonable. 

So instead of stooping low to their rascally level and fight on their terms, someone had a more elevated idea. Get a Langoor man! If the offended Homo-sapien in you can’t get over the feeling of taking revenge against the errant ancestors of ours, wait! Before you think of any drastic measure—thus degrading you to the level of lawless goons themselves and thus go into regression to be what we were sometime back in the chronological book of evolution—think like a human. Get a Langoor!

An enemy’s enemy is my best buddy. I just love this majestic silver-furred black-faced angel. It’s far bigger, more on the stoic side, doesn’t waste its energies in unnecessary shit like the recklessly red-faced, shamefully red-bottomed and funnily red-balled smaller Rhesus does. Its tail can hold multiple pink balls of the shameless Rhesus macaque and throw them to winds. The forever law-breaking Rhesus is terribly scared of the stoic grandpa of the simian world. He usually holds them by their tails, tosses them around and gives hard slaps by holding their ears. Vow, ahha, what a sight! Mere visualization gives me multi-orgasmic pleasure. I would abandon most of the luxuries of life to re-experience the scene. A cowardly Rhesus isn’t as afraid of a AK-47-wielding funny human as it is of the saber-rattling grimace of a Langoor.

So our kind, old Major arrived on the scene. Well, he didn’t arrive as Major. He arrived on the scene as a nameless Langoor as the sturdy fun-loving farmer got it more out of fun and less to alleviate the women’s woes in the village. Had it been about the alleviation of female miseries in the patriarchal society, most of the men would have been summarily executed long before the red-balled rascals.

So the stoic grandpa on the scene, and LO there was a panicked stampede among the cowardly Rhesus horde. They ran helter skelter. The little battles were no match for the majestic Langoor. He won the battle. One enthusiastic uncle, who had the glory of winning the war for India against Pakistan in Kargil found real camaderie with the Langoor. Uncle had fired one solitary shot in the famed war. Well, it was shot in the air in celebration, far down inside the Indian territory as the advanced platoons pushed back Pakis at a great cost to their own lives. But then Uncle’s shot in the air must have scared a few Devatas of ours hovering midair to congratulate on our victory. Uncle was proudly rewarded with the honorary title of a Major on his retirement. Now the proud soldier thought it suitable to put up the strips of valor on our Langoor friend also. So the Langoor became Major. People just loved to call him Major.

Victory brings laurels and rewards also. The farmer’s sun passed his evening in the spacious barn. Now, something about the Jat boys, the majestically proud farming clan who keep their ego always on Mount Everest. As they get heaved by the hormonal storms of youth, they do wrestling, drink pitchers of milk, eat mounds of butter, loaf around with all the air stuck up in the chest, eve-tease girls, think of sex 24x7, drink liqueur, play cards, smoke hukka and spend the still left out surplus energy in lewd funniest talk.

So the young peasant and his cronies were no different. They created ruckus late into the night in the barn as a sullen Major, tethered by a rope to the charpoy, would watch sullenly, his sleep disturbed, the proud medallions of his bravery not sufficient to tame the rampantly straying energies of the farmer youths. On one occasion, in the diluted spirits of mischief and forgetfulness, one rascal found sympathy on the face of a sleepy Major. ‘Major also wants to drink!’ he proclaimed. They cackled with consent. The best thought of their lives possibly!

A peg was made for the brave Major. Like a soldier has a right to drink anywhere in the world, our brave Major also availed the facility. One of them took a heavy Patiala peg in a glass. Major simply took it as matter of factly. Was it in irritation, or had he been waiting all along for this, I don’t know. He simply gulped it down in one terrible swig, shook his head vigorously, gave a few rounds of sneeze and threw the glass onto the ground breaking it. They didn’t mind the glass at all because they had an addition to the drinking party. They just hugged him like they hadn’t hugged anyone in their lives.

Next day, a solution was hatched as even in their free spirits they couldn’t afford to lose a glass every day. A steel glass was reserved for our retired Major. He would of course gulp the nectar in one big swig, shake his head profusely, sneeze and throw the glass on impulse. The metal glass would just give a musical background to their hideous rounds of laughter. So our Major, having won the battle for us, wining the medal of bravery and rationed with whisky spent his evenings in the barn. What a retirement! Peace be on his soul!

How I wish we had our kind old Major even now! This intimidating rascal would have turned a sissy monkey and gone running out with its funny shack of a tail stuck to its red balls!

PS: The curfew man has already misused his powers by throwing around the bricks. Well, he has a right. We are on the backfoot, eh!