Electrical upgrade and farmers' mood degrade

 

So the electricity department decides to install meters outside the houses to bring down the volume of electricity theft. New poles are being dug in the streets that will bear cables instead of the naked wires of earlier, which allowed the farmers to steal electricity at their will. Why do the farmers steal electricity from the wires and irrigation water from the canals? Because their income hasn’t increased over the years. To somehow make the ends meet, they have to keep buffalos and cows and for that they need fodder cutters and flour machines. These consume lots of electricity. If the farmers pay fair and square, the electricity bill will itself cover the entire monthly budget available. So now when the department is taking strict measures and installing cables and fixing meters outside on the poles in the street, the farmers obviously are very worried. As the brand new sturdy-looking cables are drawn across the new poles, the farmers are already having nostalgic hiccups for the past when the naked wires smirked with a friendly mischief for taking out unmetered share from the flow. It helped them in making their ends meet.

I’m not promoting electricity theft. The best solution is to make agriculture feasible. There is a rumor that if you have an electricity pole near your roof, you might have a little chance of taking out unaccounted units by harnessing a little chink of possibility at a joint high up on the pole. It serves as the sole beacon of hope for the overstretched peasantry. So the farmers have gone berserk. Neighbors who shared a nice evening talk only yesterday have turned foes and are fighting to get the pole dug at their point of convenience. Brawls have compounded to assaults. In one such fight, a lame woman gave a flourishing display of guts to engage in a real fight—almost an unsullied and untouched spirit to take the matters to her hardened palm, the palm that has thwacked buffalos thousands of times. As her young son got into a scuffle, she lurched forward and very soon turned the scales in his favor. Giving plenty of airy spaciousness to the angry mother in her, she started slapping randomly. Her tongue also gave a suitable company to her hands as she hurled gems of obscenities. Thin and anemic in looks, she but showed disproportionate strength and stamina. Her ostensible moustache twitching with anger, by the time the heady round was over, many cheeks carried the print of her palm’s authority.

It was disastrous for the poor laborers, as she rode roughshod over their already miserly fates. Most of them carried deep purple cheeks. Relentlessly grappling with anger, she then lunged forward to grab an iron pipe of very suitable length and weight to effect amazing punishment to human flesh. She needed this weapon to dispense justice on their bones after giving the cheeks their due share. They had to throw the weapon on a roof to avoid further blood. Who can understand the passionate nuances of motherhood? But the laborers surely can gauze its depth because they got unnecessarily beaten. So all in all it was a very busy, brawly day.

It’s followed by an early twilight under an overcast sky, a very slight drizzle falling like robust mist to provide a seamless link between the night and the day. The monkey is in a position to strategically synergize his mischief to thrilling proportions. Beyond remotest concern of any type, he sits on a parapet wall on a roof, as if on lordly edifice, just five or six feet below the pole’s top end. The earth is wet due to the rainy season. The soil is loose after being dug out and filled in hastily after putting the pole in the hole. Like we humans the simian world is also not stuck on the promotion ladder of mischief—like the rest of the species are. These two do things not just for necessity, they do majorly for vanity.

The monkey has an enlivening inspiration at the fag end of this rainy day. Imaginative pedagogy unfolding copiously. He stands on his hind-legs—like humans—holds the pole with his hands bearing highly active fingers and gives a serious shake to the pole’s top end. The pole sways as the simian momentum spreads across the new cable lines. He then watches the slow swaying with a contended muse, a fine mist-like drizzle caressing his coat. He looks so relaxed as if sitting over a splendid coffee table book. He bears a wonder-tinted look. The pole is a toy to him. When the gentle swaying of the pole and the lines stops, he gets up again and pushes and pulls the pole to restart his toy once more.

It’s the same thug who marauds our kitchen. I watch him from my yard. He is steeped in this fun for the last at least twenty minutes. It’s fun for me as well, so I don’t get catapulted into malice at his sight this time. All the villagers would welcome any chance of harm to these new poles. For obvious reasons—they have disturbed peace in the village. I’m enjoying the sight of it as much as he is enjoying the act. We might have a human-ape hybrid future—don’t forget that movie where Moi and Noah tried to find a common ground for the humans and the apes. Getting sensitized to this reality, I offer him a banana that I won’t eat without concern. It’s not in perfect shape. I hold it for him using friendly words. But my glaring mask of dogmatism isn’t enough. We have had very acrimonious brawls in recent past. He is happy with the pole-swaying game and doesn’t spoil his fun for a quarter-rotten banana offered by an enemy.