The Mysterious Hawker

 

This particular hawker’s selling-call has been an enigma for months. It sounds superposed by inexpugnable traces of secrecy. I simply failed to make out what is his product or service. The drooling notes of insipid loquacity turned troublous enough to niggle at my curiosity. But by the time I would come out to check, he was gone.

In my estimation he could be anything from a trash-picker to a cloth seller. There is a dog in the neighborhood that howls in response to all moods and situations. Its character seems to be interwoven with indissoluble sinews of sadness and misery. Give him the best bone, he will howl painfully as a show of his obligation. Get him engaged to the most beautiful feline girl, he will express his gratitude through an even more piteous howling. In fact, it will howl even while at the top of a weaker dog in a fight. But it would forget its whimpering—eighth wonder—at the sounds of this hawker. Maybe the hawker’s speech leaves him confounded.

Then one fine day, I found out the secret. I was standing outside and was lucky to witness his few seconds of hawking spree before he vanished around the corner. It’s a vegetable seller pulling his rickshaw cart. There is the feeblest of auditory resemblance to aaloo, gobhi, matar, pyaj in a rumbling jumblement of jittery linguistics. I think even a Tahitian coming to the outer world for the first time in his life would do better in his first attempt at pronouncing Hindi words for vegetables.

There he was vanishing on his royal march as if the buyers have the obligation to run after and seek his blessings. I raised my hand and harked from behind. The dog that was having a break in howling to bark instead looked at me and reverted to his howling position as if complaining over something. The vegetable seller was gone without paying heed to my accost. The dog kept howling with its usual finesse.

अब सिर्फ़ एक ही खेला

 अहंकारी और दमनकारी सत्ताधारी पार्टी का सत्ता के नशे में चूर बाहुबली सांसद ये कहता है की खेल का मेडल तो 15 रुपये में मिलता है, और सत्ताधारी पार्टी की तरफ से इस बयान का कोई औपचारिक खंडन नहीं आता है तो स्वाभाविक तौर पर इस मत को सरकार का मत क्यूँ न मान लिया जाए? इसका मतलब ये हुआ कि अब किसी भी खेल की कोई अहमियत नहीं है. भारत में अब एक ही खेला होगा, और वो होगा राजनैतिक खेला. बस इसी की चैंपियनशिप होंगी.  और इस खेल के नियम होंगे अंधभक्ति, मजहबी दंगा फसाद, तानाशाही, विपक्ष का दमन, मीडिया का अपहरण, सरकारी संस्थाओं का विपक्ष के खिलाफ गैरकानूनी इस्तेमाल. आज जब देश की बेटी अपना दिल, अपनी आत्मा, अपने मेडल, माँ गंगा में प्रवाहित करने गई तो हरिद्वार के पंडे उनको रोकने लगे कि वो इस तरह माँ गंगा का राजनीतिकरण नहीं होने देंगे. गंगा के किनारे सत्ता में चूर राजनेता तो अपनी विषैली आत्मा को साफ़ करने के साथ साथ राजनीति भी चमका सकते है. तब तो कोई राजनीतिकरण नहीं होता. खैर माँ गंगा खून पसीने द्वारा अर्जित मेडल को कहां गुमनामी की गहराईयों में डालने वाली हैं. धन्य है माँ गंगा की ये त्रासदी टल गई. अब मूल प्रश्न ये है जब देश का गौरव बढ़ाने वाली बेटियाँ सड़क पर घसीटी जा सकती हैं तो हमारे जैसे आम इंसानो को तो न्याय का सपना तक नहीं लेना चाहिए.

December Dallyings

 

The days have feeble sunrays across the hazy veil of misty noons. The sky looks gaping with stupefaction. And the winter ambling its way through December with a proud nonchalance. There is a pair of oriental white-eyes on the small curry-leaf tree. The tree may look small but it seems to be patronizing a lot of birds apart from the honeybees. There is a pleasant commotion defined by delicious preening chimes of these little green birds having a coquettish white ring around their eyes. Earlier they used to come for nesting in the garden but with the cats around they think better of nesting here anymore. They aren’t dumb like the doves.

The Parijat flowers now don’t drizzle like sad tears with the breaking of dawn and stay during the day as the trees have started to retain them to make seeds to spread their progeny during the next monsoon. Hovering with a keenly searching intensity, the purple sunbird couple goes into a tailspin of ecstasy as they raise a cheepish ruckus. They seem to be enjoying the love-bond to the limits under a delicious dose of sunrays on winter noons.

Outside the yard walls, a honeysuckle has crept high into the foliage of an acacia tree. The clinging shrub has spread its shoots pretty luxuriantly. A group of house sparrows roosts there for the night. When they are sitting together during the noon, they fall into a very heated conversation. Given the seriousness, it must be a very important issue. Did some dandy sparrow have a hit on someone’s partner? Then they realize that there are better ways of spending time and energy than peddle into a tug of war over issues related to amorous passions. A communal bath follows in the clay water bowl on top of the wall. The gossipy issue gets sidelined and bountiful play starts.

The Story of Neighborhood Kaki

 

The neighborhood Kaki, during her youth, came to know of the secret of taming men in a hand-to-hand fight. In verbal assault, she would leave any sense of male chauvinism battered, bruised, bleeding, lacerated, torn, tattered and racked. But over the perilous crossroads of physicality, where the females generally shrink back on the defensive given the animalistic forces residing in the males, she once incidentally found the key to matching them in the raw power game as well.

She was returning from the fields one not so fine dusk. The shades of night loomed large with a much-vaunted singularity. The slack and tardy stretch of the dusty road across the isolated countryside brought an incendiary encroachment upon her dignity. Two men pounced upon her with a very, very wrong intention. Scared to the guts and haunted by the bewildering ramifications of their intention, God graced her with the chance key to save her honor.

To save her ijjat, she clung to the very same instrument of their bestiality. She gave a spellbinding squeeze to the both of her peasant woman’s strong fists. The attackers were left in a preposterous firmament of pain. The more they howled, the more pressure she applied. Kaki proudly dragged them by their weakness into the village.

This exquisite masterpiece left her much spruced up against the so-called physically stronger sex. It gave her huge encouragement to tame down men in family feuds, which were obviously very decent in numbers among the peasant families. Over the coming decades, she became a terror who could hold men from ‘there’ and after squeezing the life out of the male pride, she would pin them down and gloatingly sat on their chest to claim victory. As little children, we witnessed many of her victories. The rivals discussed the escape strategies and advised each other about keeping the middle part out of her grasp. But how far you will stretch your behind? One cannot keep one’s middle safe at home and go to fight. So obviously Kaki found her targets.

One particular branch of her extended family specially bore the brunt of her major technique. First the grandfather lost his honor in his dhoti, followed by his son in the pyjama, and now the grandchildren in their pants carried the ignominy to the third generation.

Kaki was ageing now and the young fawns wanted revenge. Two of them challenged her at the village pond. Kaki groped for her strength and their weakness. She failed in her grasp this time and they walloped her pretty soundly. She was howling with pain as she ran to the village. ‘They aren’t men! Had they been really men, I would have squeezed them into defeat!’ she went crying.

Well, the boys were very smart. They were wearing cricket guard, and below it tight langots, which the wrestlers use to guard themselves in close duels, when they challenged her. No wonder she missed the target this time.

The brief history of a moment in a little locality

 

An electric cable goes over the terrace. It dangles pretty low; precipitately close to my nose if I stand by it. It may be risky for my head but it has pleasant undulations for the birds that perch on it and jabber, prattle, babble and chirp. I requested my neighbors to do something about it a few times but they are a joyful family and don’t find it a serious issue. After much soul-searching and introspection, I learn from them that it really is not a serious issue. I also learn how to avoid getting a huge dent on one’s ego by little pot-shots of trivial issues. It also trains you in how to avoid downcast mood. Further, it’s training me in the art of alertness. I have to abandon my insufferably amateurish ways. Ever on the vigil, I duck down very carefully every time I pass through. It’s a nice stretching exercise. Further, one monkey in particular loves taking a quick, exhilarating swing on it as it passes over the roof.

Electricity fluctuates quite riskily at nine in the night; it’s a kind of sepulchral infraction upon the cold, limpid stream of darkness. Some problem with the lines, yes. It’s a monkey doing acrobatics, enjoying some mysterious cerebral delirium, on the electricity pole. They carry mammoth intrepidity in aerial acrobatics. The winter days are falling short in accommodating their profoundly bashing enthusiasm. They have an incontestable right for fun and frolics. So to compensate for short winter days, they have extended their work-hours into the nights.

By the dint of his special color, the blue-dyed monkey has a woman in his life. Maybe she is just curious or the type who wants an outstanding prince charming and be a part of the local simian folklore. In any case, love-rhymes have a lot of scope for experimentation.

Calmly carried by an inexorable sublimation of wits, the dove seems foolish in addition to being peaceful. Past lessons are of no avail. They are so lazy as if the God owes them amends. The very same little flimsy nest, a little step away from obliteration, and the scene of so many cat and eagle crunchy egg breakfasts and suppers, is again ready for another serving with a look of solicitude. Earlier it was the spotted dove, now it’s the turn of a laughing dove, with their delightful keynotes, to come and lay eggs in the house of tragedy. No wonder, the cat is in very good spirits. Lost in cold, warm and tepid dreams, he sleeps under the small curry-leaf tree. Let her lay the eggs, he will climb there as easily as one walks up the steps on a staircase. The doves are plainly lazy. There is hardly any plea in their defense.

Engulfed by the giddy immensity of childhood, little puppies just love barking. The days leavened with just fun and more fun before the chafings, gashes and bruises of growing young and then old take a firm grip on the wheel of life. Last night, this little puppy in the street didn’t feel sleepy at all. It led the chorus encored by at least ten to fifteen dogs. The moment they spent their lungpower and stopped to take a breather, the tiny puppy would again come with its lead lines. And the elders would again fall into the chorus. A very busy night in the paroxysm of restlessness. They carried the barking rigmarole well into the wee hours. The lead composer must have slept then, bringing an end to the orchestra.