The Lazy Dove

 

An industrious cat will go for a rat. A lazy one will crawl among the trees to steal dove eggs, the easy catch. As we have seen, the lazy cat had an early dinner of dove eggs the other day. The dove cried the next day and to give herself some happiness laid another egg on the following day. By the way, they lay eggs in a little series, separated by a few days gap.

Everything is relative. The dove is still lazier than the cat, so it’s a win-win situation for the idle cat. It again crawled for another early dinner, too early this time. I was in the yard when the tailorbird raised a ruckus like a good neighbor. The honeybees didn’t have any issue like the last time. They leave it for the cat and the dove to sort it out among themselves. So they stayed neutral. I don’t think the honeybees and the cat compete for anything regarding food, otherwise they will also sting, if not speak out like the tailorbird. The cat doesn’t seem to have any appetite for honey. A lesson here. It’s advisable to have some common interests with one’s neighbors so that at least they speak out when you are in a soup. This repetition of crime got me into good neighborly emotions. The egg dropped with a plop followed by the lustily hungry cat. My stick dispensed justice and away went the cat scared out of its wits. It didn’t return the next day but I was sure of its return because it loved its milk bowl, being too lazy to hunt rats. It would maintain some distance for a couple of days and again get into the usual business.

A Dream of Peace and Pause

 

It’s a wish to go slow and continue writing peacefully about small, small things of life till a ripe old age. God, please don’t rock and toss my boat with sudden throws and challenges. I’m more like a dove. I don’t want to go too fast and too far. I just want to move slowly with a smile. The miles covered don’t matter. I just wish to be there like a sagely old tree with crooked, hollow trunk and still waiting for another spring for some more shoots and tender leaves on the hardened, dry branches. A little place of rest and repose for some old birds at least, if not the young ones.

The Neighborhood Liqor-lover

 

Beyond emotional unleashment on the issue, alcohol mints a lot of revenue for the government. With its firm moorings in history, the liquor industry is progressing really well. Now we have as many liquor-lovers roaming around during the day as we had earlier during the nights. The booze business is going great guns as more and more people lose their spirits. One of the liquor-lovers is determined to turn everyone deaf by playing the loudest music for 18 hours non-stop. Then he fell senseless around midnight. The tortured speakers got a well-deserved rest. But our ears carried the echo still drumming in our ears. And when it would come to an end, he would be back with a louder bang.

The Slow-paced Times

 

As per the theory of relativity, time was slower during our growing up years. It left much time at the villagers’ disposal to while it away in chaupal gossips and idle talks over hookah and cards. Grandfather loved mathematics. Since almonds strengthen the brain, from where the sprouts of mathematics originate, he loved almonds as well. So we siblings would break almond shells in the open yard in front of our house. In a bucolic world thirsty for happenings, it presented an interesting episode. The neighbors would creep out and sit around. They counted the number of almond shells broken. Then all of them had interesting bits of information to share about the best way to hit to break the shell cleanly. Just imagine the amount of time at our disposal during those years.

A Coin's Sticking Warmth

 

Those were diminutive, sleepy times in the eighties of our childhood during the last century. Now after almost four decades, little-little memories peek over gentle facades. I must be eight or nine. I was walking by the pot-holed district road on the way to our fields about a kilometer and half from the village. The little tales in schoolbooks with their moral lessons, at least during those times, laid a complex and experiential field to test the lessons.

I was also put into a predicament. I found a fifty-paisa coin. My brisk pacing got slowed down. I had to avoid moral bankruptcy. A fifty-paisa coin carried enough weight till that time. It would fetch ten sugar candies or even fifty little buttons of candies that came one for a paisa. I carried it in my firm, warm, moist, tight fist. Candies would make the day of any child any day in any age. I hope they still carry the same charm.

Still it wasn’t my money. I knew by rote learning that one should be honest and should try to return the lost money to the owner. I saw a group of girls cutting wood by the road and instantly the opportunity to clear my conscience arose. ‘Has anyone of you lost a fifty-paisa coin?’ I asked them. I was expecting a no but one of them said yes. It dumped my spirits. The coin seemed to be glued to my palm. ‘Tell me where did you lose it?’ I raised the level of my enquiry. She was a very intelligent girl. ‘Anywhere between that point and the village school on the road,’ she swiped her little axe along the road to cover two kilometers of stretch. Under the spell of mouth-watering candies, morals can be stretched. I elongated my next query along the lengthened morals. ‘Tell me the year on it,’ I asked. To clear my conscience she had to fail in the test. She hazarded a guess that came to be wrong. So there I carried my coin with a clear conscience and in full honesty.