The gardener turned king

 

Two millennia before Christ, the people of the Mesopotamian city of Babylon had an interesting manner of celebrating the new year. Commendably they had their fixed twelve-month calendar that allowed them a sense of managing time. So they would have their new year, allowing them celebrations for a new start. A common person would be crowned ‘king for a day’ in the morning. The one-day king would be exposed to all the luxurious delicacies of royalty. But before the day end the one-day king would be sacrificed to appease the Gods. Maybe they believed that the Gods would feel pampered over having a king sacrificed at their feet. Then one year, Enlil-bani, the king’s gardener, got his term to be appointed as one-day king on the first day of the new year. Possibly the Gods got fed up with one-day kings’ sacrifices and decided to have the real taste of royalty. Before the sacrifice, the real king fell ill suddenly and died. As luck would have it, the one-day king turned into almost a quarter century long king. The gardener turned king ruled for two and half decades with wisdom and practical acumen. At least he must have focused on flowers and gardens because there are some poems eulogizing him for his good work.

A kind, gentle charity-seeker

 

He is a small man, himself carrying very dismissive air about his own persona. No wonder he walks so lightly and looks at ease with himself. He visits the village asking for donations for a blind school they operate. Most of them are fake, so even a few genuine social workers get repulsed from the doors. He has a pad of receipts bearing the address and contact numbers of the said school. The nice thing about him is that he does not show you any sign of disappointment, disgruntlement or irritation. As you say ‘no’ he would give you a smile and move on. It seems like a concession to you because normally charity seekers haggle with you and won’t leave your doors before making their disappointment all too evident to you and making you feel guilty or angry. I have said a firm ‘no’ to him a few times and every time he did not say a single word and left with a smile. He has been giving me a free smile. I somehow feel indebted to him. As social animals you want to reciprocate on an impulse. His nice behavior, his concession by not haggling or showing any visible traces of any irritation, gets me in compliance finally. I give him some money. He has earned it by leaving me with the feeling of indebtedness by giving me subtle concessions, pulling me into compliance mode finally.

The simian sense of independence

 

The monkeys got up earlier than me to celebrate August Fifteen. As I came out into the garden they had left after their simian celebrations. The trees and plants immediately complained pointing to many a broken branch. A few birds—tailorbird, spotted munia and babbler—also lamented, their grassy homes lying on the ground. I had fixed a small looking-glass above the washbasin outside the bathroom wall. One of them—very looks conscious surely—took it away as well. Maybe he is freshly in love and is concerned about his face. It is irritating. But it’s a grand occasion. We are celebrating our seventy-sixth year of independence and their misplaced enthusiasm can be pardoned. I take these activities as Independence Day celebrations. Things are what we interpret them as.

The black and white television

 It was almost a milestone in the village history when Father brought home a small 18 inch, black and white ET&T TV set. There were just three or four TV sets in the entire village. The unfortunate bearers of these TV sets were under real assault on Sundays for the weekly movies because people seamlessly barged in despite all protests. Once the room was full and the door shut, the rest tried to catch the action by hearing dialogues from outside.

A kind TV owner thought of larger good and put his coveted item in the street for a public screening. The entire street got jammed to a long extent with the kind of crowd that you see at Rajiv Chowk Metro Station in Delhi presently. Then someone threw a pebble that landed dangerously close to the precious item. The owner shouted profanities that would surpass all the nasty jeers of all the villains in the film industry. The show went off.

The TV owners turned very guarded and suspicious after this incident. It was then Father decided to get us our little black and white television set. Doordarshan was kind enough to give us Wednesday chitrahar and Sunday movie. An antenna looked like a crown of the house. A house with television antenna was held in high esteem. Thank god, the village was monkeyless during those days. The frequency was slippery. Little elements of wind and clouds had the capacity to spoil all entertainment. Holding the antenna in an ideal position was a big challenge, almost an art in fact.

Then the path-breaking serial Ramayan started. By this time there were about two dozen television sets in the village. So the pressure per TV set had eased a bit. But the electricity would go off, leaving people in a puzzle if life was really livable anymore. I remember it was a much anticipated episode, maybe Lord Rama’s marriage with Mata Sita. The entire village looked up to celebrate the marriage. A day before the episode the electricity transformer gave sparks and got blown out. The village went into mourning. But there was a glimmer of hope.

Father had stealthily smuggled in a rechargeable battery with enough voltage to play the tiny television set. The news spread throughout the village. Our house was attacked. Never ever I will see so many people in a small house. The people got  onto whatever perch they could manage. I saw heads almost touching the ceiling. Potatoes were crushed. Some of our old brass utensils still bear the marks of that assault. The house would have burst out that day.

An old woman who could not squeeze in went lamenting through the street. She knew where Grandfather spent his days smoking hookah in a gathering of elders in a chaupal. ‘You smoke hookah here, but when you will go home you will walk over its rubble,’ she howled and hollered. Grandfather was around eighty-five at that time. He ran on his rickety legs to save his house. Then he gave the all-time best performance of his life in both words and action. He threw bricks, clods, sticks, fists, kicks amply accompanied with suitable tongue-lashing to clear off the door and continued throwing whatever came in his hands. Heavy brass utensils came very handy as weapons. His old-age burst certainly made it a war scene. People must have thought he was haunted by Ravan’s spirit that day. But full marks to Grandfather’s spirit. He created a stampede and forced the crowd to run away from the scene. Our small humble house bore the look as if a few bulls had fought inside it. And there he stood, fuming, but proud to have saved the house. ‘If you people go like this, you will find yourself on the open road one day,’ he admonished. That day Father had to be on the back-foot and Grandfather gave him a big load of advisory, admonishing hearing.

The law of reciporation

 

It was dreadful in the trenches during World War First. Millions of soldiers waited in anticipation of death or killing. There was a kind of no man’s land between the trenches of the opposing armies. Across a slowly smoldering front between the German and the allied troops in Europe, a German soldier was reputed for his stealthy prowl. He would stalk the enemy fleas like a predatory lizard across the buffer zone and preyed upon some lone soldier, disarmed him and forced him to crawl back to his side. He had completed a dozen such successful missions. On one such  mission in the dark of night, he overpowered an allied soldier. The allied soldier was eating bread. The initial impulse is to resist your enemy. Had he done so, his fate would have been like others who had been kidnapped by the German soldier. As the German soldier started to disarm him, the captive allied troop offered his bread to the enemy. If you offer something to someone, you put that person in an obligation, almost indebted to you. You feel like paying back. This law applies to all cultures and is one of the basic laws of human society. The German soldier found himself detained by the subtle chains of this law. He spared the soldier and returned empty ended.