Ancient writings

Ancient writings, Musings, Remembering, Verse perverse

The redness of Sindhoor – 1

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

O Gentle and Patient Reader,  I take the liberty of posting an article—a lament of sorts—written by my dear and departed friend Ghatotkacha in late 2008, soon after the terrible attack by Pakistani-trained terrorists on Mumbai on 26th November 2008. Ghatotkacha was my guide, my teacher, so close to my heart, in a very real sense my alter ego. I empathized with and endorsed every word in his article then. as I do now.

I post this the day after India’s Independence Day, 2025; a time when India and Pakistan still obsess over Operation Sindhoor, the name given to India’s short but devastatingly effective military campaign against Pakistan-based terrorist and military  infrastructure in  May 2025.

I post this article even though it is filled with anger and bitterness. I post this for the simple reason that I, like my fellow Indians, am conditioned to ignore and forget my own history…and worse, to eagerly seize upon and adopt, on continuous basis, others’ versions of my own history without a care.

I believe we must be brave enough to remember and come to terms with all that we ever really were, and really did, and really experienced: whether right or wrong, good or bad, sublime or horrific.

Because only then can we learn, only then can we act. With neither self-loathing nor hatred. But with Equanimity.

Only then can we heal ourselves, and move on…

[That’s what another old and eternal friend Krishna counselled…]

Happy Janmashtami! May the Playwright of the Eternal Drama

Bless us, illumine our minds, guide our actions

So we don’t forget our lines, lost control of our passions

Or trip and fall, arse over elbow, on this Great Stage of Dharma

Boil the Pakistani frog

26/11, Mumbai: In Memoriam

[© Ghatotkacha Hidimbi Bhimasena (late): December, 2008]

First there was the rage.

Fury poured out on to the streets of Mumbai post 26th November 2008, fiery words spewed from the mouths of countless anchors on a hundred TV channels. There was much talk of retaliation, of revenge, of this latest atrocity by Pakistan-sponsored and Pakistan-supported and Pakistan-sheltered and Pakistan-trained terrorists being the last straw.

“India has been restrained all these decades…but enough is enough!” These words about summed up the collective feeling of the Indian people after 200 innocent men, women and children were slaughtered by 10 murderers from Pakistan. Murderers helped overtly and covertly by the Pakistani military, the Pakistani establishment.

The evidence of Pakistan’s complicity was clear.

The world witnessed the massacre of innocents, on live TV.

The world awaited India’s response…as the Indian people did.

Two weeks passed, during which for the first time in memory the Indian political establishment actually appeared to have achieved the unimaginable – namely, to unite and speak as one in national interest.

“We are with the government in combating this evil force that has attacked our nation, that threatens the future of India,” said Opposition leader and BJP member (late) L K Advani on the floor of Parliament.

The Congress-led UPA leadership, in a symbolic move, sent the derelict Home Minister Shivraj Patil home and appointed the inflationary and inflated-ego Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his place.

In a rare and refreshing contrast to the Congress’ customary rodent-like squeak-speakers, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee fumed and fulminated against Pakistan and its deceitful references to the attackers as ‘non-state actors’, at one point memorably asking: “Do these non-state actors come from heaven?”

Equally remarkable was the fact that during these two weeks the Indian media collectively stayed with the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack story – that too sans the usual faffing in politically correct journo-speak, which requires that any atrocity by any kooks who claim to be ‘Muslim’ can only be reported as such when it can be ‘balanced out’ by reportage on a similar atrocity—real or imaginary— committed by kooks claiming to be ‘Hindu’. [This is, of course, the famous Balancing of the Kookery Equation Principle formulated by British sociologists in the 1850s, refined by the Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) post-Independence, and taught as a foundational course by mainstream Indian media houses to trainee reporters and journalists.]

Curiously, the English-language Indian media (seriously! That’s what they call themselves, and we call them) named the atrocity ‘26/11’—because ‘26/11’ resonates so well with the USA’s ‘9/11’—and so this name has stuck, even though it blithely ignores the fact that for the Americans, ‘9/11’ actually stands for September 11th (and not 9th November); by that logic we Indians should have called this Mumbai attack ‘11/26’. 

But then, what’s in a name, no?

At least for a change, there were no cut-and-paste editorials in the newspapers and magazines on how India must exercise ‘restraint’, no pious and ponderous platitudes on why India must follow the process of ‘dialogue’ and ‘negotiation’ with Pakistan rather than that of ‘confrontation’…

For the first time in history we were spared the logorrhea of human rights activists campaigning for the well-being of Ajmal Kasab, the sole Pakistani terrorist captured alive; spared, too, the hysterical outpourings of assorted pamphleteers drawing parallels between Mumbai 26/11 and Gujarat 2002 and Mumbai 1992/93.

By the time December 12th 2008 dawned, one actually dared wonder: had we, in India’s Civilian Street, finally discovered those rare qualities, Courage and Resolve?

Would the Indian political leadership, along with the bureaucrats and policy wonks and diplomats and strategic eggheads have the guts and the gumption to unshackle and unleash the calibrated might of our defense forces to strike and eliminate the sources of terrorist infection in our neighbour Pakistan’s ailing body? To strike not to destroy Pakistan, but rather to strengthen the Pakistani people in their silent, six-decade-old war against the Pakistani religious fanatics who rule them with fear; the monsters in clerical and military uniforms who have created schools of pain in the name of God, schools in which they have brutalized innocent young Pakistani boys and transformed them into the twisted, hate-filled murderers who call themselves Al Qaeda, Lashkar e Tayyeba, Harkat ul Jihad Islami, Jaish Mohammed?

We hoped so. The signs were good.

Alas, it was a futile hope.

In the two weeks since December 12th, 2008, the great show of bravado put up by our politicos and the media has all come unstuck faster than the dhoti of a certain senior Congress leader with a penchant for flashing.

As of 26th December, 2008 – exactly a month after the attack on Mumbai – India’s measures to avenge the Mumbai atrocity and cleanse Pakistan of terrorists comprise the following key elements:

  • Our nominal and notional PM, Manmohan Singh, has repeatedly appealed to the US, Britain, Australia, and any other country that might listen (and there haven’t been too many) to urge Pakistan not to send terrorists to India.
  • The PM and the Minister of External Affairs have repeatedly appealed to the United Nations to tell Pakistan not to send terrorists to India.
  • The PM and the Minister of External Affairs (as well as assorted Ministers of other Infernal Affairs) have repeatedly expressed disappointment that the international community is not telling Pakistan not to send terrorists to India.
  • The de facto PM Sonia Gandhi has repeatedly declared that India will give a ‘befitting reply’ to terrorists who think they can divide India on communal lines. (She is, apparently, even now drafting out the befitting reply on a standard-issue Congress party greeting card, which will doubtless be sent duly by Registered Post (with Acknowledgement Due) to Pakistan’s notional President Asif Zardari with copies for information and necessary action to Hafiz Muhammad Sayed of Lashkar e Tayyeba and Masood Azar of Jaish Mohammed..
  • The PM and the new Home Minster have announced the formulation of a new anti-terrorist law that will also include, in its ambit, heinous offences like smoking ganja and abusing politicians (might as well turn myself in).
  • The Hon’ble Union Minister A R Antulay has declared that the entire Mumbai atrocity was just a pre-planned strategy by Hindu fanatics to conceal the assassination of certain Mumbai police officers who were inquiring into bomb attacks targeting Muslims in Malegaon, Maharashtra by their brethren Hindu fanatics.
  •  The MEA has denied Pakistani media allegations that India had a hand in a car bomb attack in Lahore on 24thDecember – and continues to deny it even after the Pakistanis lost interest in the case after a Taliban splinter group claims responsibility for the Lahore car bomb attack.

Saddest of all, the print media editors, the TV talk-show hosts and their attendant analysts, the academia and intelligentsia and not-so-intelligentsia,  caution the Indian government with increasing shrillness and anxiety, about the dangers of any kind of strikes against a ‘nuclear-armed Pakistan’.

It makes one wonder:  why doesn’t Pakistan ever worry the same way about striking against a nuclear-armed India?

How the late and much-unlamented Paki dictator Zia-ul-Haque of the ‘boiled-frog’ strategy must be chuckling— even in his special cell in Shaitan’s Eternal Abode— at India’s self-imposed paralysis following the attacks of 26th November.

And so India’s leadership will wait—as always.

And so India will wait, as ever making a virtue out of inaction and passiveness; wait for the next attack by Pakistani terrorists…

http://creative.sulekha.com/boil-the-pakistani-frog_383941_blog

Ancient writings, General ravings

The Rain of Terror [or, Electricity Department Blues]

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

Please do forgive me for my long silence, O Most Loyal Reader…for Clouds of Angst have filled my deranged mind ever since the Lok Sabha polls, especially because the Aam Aadmi Party candidate for whom I voted—whose name I have forgotten, if at all I ever knew it—lost his/her/its deposit.

But now, as I struggle to cast aside Writer’s Block and emerge from the churning brown Monsoon waters that have turned Delhi into a mosquito-and-politician-infested swamp,  the Gates of Memory briefly open to reveal a dreadful yet inspiring tale I narrated 22 years ago; a tale that I inflict upon Thee now (with some slight modifications), in the hope that it might relieve Thee too of any depression with its moral message—that even within the deepest Pits of Darkness, we may find the Lights of Optimism and Good Cheer….    

Pits of darkness

Amid the fire and brimstone raised by the recent debates in Delhi and indeed across India over collapsing buildings, flooded streets, and rewriting our history books, an archaeological discovery of immense significance escaped public attention—much to the relief of an embattled government! Indeed, it was only with the greatest reluctance, and that too on conditions of strict anonymity, that a senior archaeologist attached to the Department of Ancient Monuments agreed to reveal details of their extraordinary find.

“The MTNL chaps unearthed it,” he began, “while digging a trench during a routine cable-laying operation in West Delhi. As soon as they alerted us, we rushed to the site to investigate what they’d found. Careful excavations at the site eventually revealed a large rectangular room with a single doorway. It was buried two metres below the surface, and built entirely of a sickly yellow material, that upon chemical analysis turned out to be a kind of inferior grade cement…”

“Cement?” we broke in, startled.  “How could that be…surely cement is a modern construction material…?”

“Exactly!” he cried. “We, too, were excited at the idea that we might have stumbled upon a facet of some hitherto unknown, technologically advanced civilization! At first the chamber we were in appeared to be an ancient necropolis, similar to those found in Egyptian and Mesopotamian sites of contiguous depth. Strange, sinister-looking objects stood here and there on the floor of the chamber, smothered in dirt and dust: some tall and vaguely cuboid, others squat and flat-topped, still others on spindly legs and clustered in little groups. There was something curiously familiar about them…a colleague remarked that they resembled the great dolmens of Stonehenge and Meghalaya. We also found hideous crimson streaks on all the walls, particularly near the corners. They suggested that the chamber might have been the site of ritual sacrifices in ages gone by!”

“It took us a month to survey the layout of the chamber and to record our findings on dictaphones and digital diaries, notebooks and camcorders. Even now I remember the moment when we finally commenced physical verification of the artefacts in the chamber, starting with a flattish mound near the doorway.” He shuddered slightly. “Ahh! Even now I recall the stillness all around, the eerie glow of our solar lanterns, the silence broken only by the hum of our scrapers and the hoarse breathing of my colleagues, the odours of decay and the heaviness of ancient memories in the air…” his voice trailed away.

“And…?” we prompted him gently.

“Oh ye Gods, give me strength!” he choked: the poor man was obviously still traumatized by his experience. He took a deep breath, lit a noxious cigarette with trembling fingers, and went on in a calmer tone: “As we worked away with scrapers and chisels, all of a sudden a great chunk of dirt fell away from the mound. We brushed away the last traces of earth and held aloft two lanterns to better illuminate the scene. Before us stood a crude wooden table, its legs still encased in muck. And on the table lay a monograph; a standard-issue Staff Attendance Register, open at a page marked ‘July 22, 1986..” and again he broke off into a spasm of choking and gasping.

“What!” we cried, aghast. “But what…but how…what did it mean!”

He held up a weary hand. “It meant,” he whispered hoarsely, “that after a month’s painstaking work, we had succeeded in unearthing a long-buried Area Office of the Delhi government’s sole electricity distribution company— the Delhi Electricity Supply Undertaking,DESU.” He paused to wipe his glistening brow.

We gaped at him, attempted to speak but could only make strange gargling noises.

“The other artefacts in the room,” he went on shakily, “revealed themselves to be cupboards, tables, chairs…little wonder they’d looked familiar to us despite being covered in muck! Our subsequent investigations revealed that on the afternoon of that fateful 22nd day of July, 1986, this particular DESU office had suddenly subsided beneath ground level. The cause for its subsidence was a nearby sewage canal, whose waters had progressively undermined the foundations of the DESU office building. Almost immediately thereafter, a violent monsoon storm had struck the city: whereupon a partly-constructed and wholly illegal building on an adjacent plot of land had collapsed onto the site where the DESU office had stood, burying it beneath tonnes of muddy waters, plaster, sand and assorted rubbish. It was fortunate indeed, that these events took place only at 3 p.m—two hours before official closing time, by which time of course all the staff had long left the office—or else the casualties might have been heavy.”

He wiped his brow again. “And so the DESU office remained concealed through the years, buried underground, till our arrival.”

“This is impossible to believe…it’s insane!” we yelled, having at last found our voice. “What about the employees, the DESU office staff? Surely they’d have turned up for work the following day and found their office missing? Surely they’d have tried to locate it, done something …?”

Our colleague emitted a hideous cackle. “Indeed they did!” he replied. “But all of them, from the Officer-in-Charge down to the lowliest assistant peon, were ‘Lessee Employees’: that is to say, each employee held his post in a purely unofficial capacity, on lease as it were, having paid a lump-sum for this privilege to the person whose name was actually on the official roles of DESU.”

We stared at him blankly.

“This system of Lessee Employment,” he explained patiently, “is still in vogue across India, particularly in government and public-sector undertakings . On the one hand, the official employee continues to draw his/her monthly salary but is unshackled of any duties, and thereby able to learn other skills and earn additional income elsewhere. On the other hand, the lessee employee rests content in the fact that under-the-table earnings more than compensate him/her for the absence of an official salary. Indeed, the overall effect of this system is to increase employment and national productivity!”

We made some more strange gargling noises. He ignored them and went on.

“Understandably, then, when these Lessee Employees of the DESU office could not locate their office the following day, there was no question of their lodging any kind of report or complaint—the poor fellows had no locus standi whatsoever! After searching awhile in vain, they therefore quietly dispersed. Our investigations have confirmed that in due course all of them found re-employment, on similar lessee terms, in other Delhi government and municipal bodies.”

A wave of unreality had come over us. “But…but what about the members of the public?” we quavered. “What about all the people in the neighbourhood who had electricity connections, who were served by this DESU office…what of their bills and applications, their files and records? Surely they at least would have complained when their DESU office disappeared?”

“Yes, yes!” our spokesman retorted impatiently. Clearly, he had had enough of the subject and wanted us to leave. “The more naïve and ignorant citizens did indeed lodge reports and complaints—naturally, to no avail whatsoever. One foolish person even filed a PIL before the Delhi High Court—we understand it is scheduled to come up for hearing in October 2029. The majority of people, however, regarded the disappearance of their DESU office—and with it, their files and records—as a supreme stroke of good fortune.”

“What! Why?”

“You see, at a stroke every electricity connection under this Area Office became unauthorized and illegal, because there were no documents left to prove that these connections had ever been sanctioned or even existed! This in turn freed the local citizens forever from power-related worries. Each grateful citizen—householder or shopkeeper, industrialist or businessman—simply made a suitable one-time lump-sum payment to designated DESU personnel who called on him/her at home…and lo! After that there were no more electricity bills to pay or files to chase, no faulty meters to complain about…”

He leaned back in his chair, glanced pointedly at the wall-clock and fed himself a large paan.

Outside the window, we could see the skies had turned a forbidding grey, and there was a heaviness in the air; a brooding stillness that mean only one thing: a great monsoon storm was brewing. Hastily we rose, thanked our spokesman for his enlightening discourse, but paused at the door as a sudden thought struck us: “One thing remains puzzling,” we ventured hesitantly. “What were those crimson stains you found on the walls of the buried chamber…?”

His reply was fluid if not eloquent. With accuracy born of years of practice, a jet of scarlet betel-juice shot out from his mouth straight out the window. We fled even as the lights suddenly flickered, heralding the usual evening power-cut…

[The Sunday Pioneer: January 20th, 2002]

Ancient writings, Musings, Remembering

Choose

Mani's avatarMani 5 Comments

Warning: violence; no political correctness here

This is one of half a dozen short stories I wrote back in mid-1993: soon after I quit my job as a banker of 13 years’ vintage to don the lifelong disguise of writer… …and soon after Bombay, and India, plunged into a bloodfest organized by an unholy alliance of religious and temporal kooks, primarily Muslim and Hindu; a bloodfest that polarized India, lasted nearly 10 years and still erupts from time to time. The stories explored different manifestations of violence; the themes were all largely drawn from reality…and often, as in this case, built around personal experience.

I thought I’d wipe 30 years’ dust off this story and post it now…at a time when we feel pressurized to Choose every second of our lives in every aspect of our lives between This extreme and That extreme in a world that’s become Binary, a time when Russians and Ukrainians are slaughtering one another, when Hamas has achieved spectacular new depths of mass butchery of men, women and children in Israel and Israel is reducing Gaza and the bones of its residents to rubble…

I’d welcome your comments, Gentle Reader, as always.

I could see the highway as I descended the steep lane from my hill-top colony. It was awash with rain water, twin ribbons of glistening, rippling grey-black macadam stretching away in both directions, deserted at this early hour. The narrow mud-and-rubble divider that ran in between was as black as the ominous cloud-layer above. It was cold, and I shivered as the moisture-laden wind from the west tugged at my shawl.It was a good half-a-kilometre down to the 24/7 medical store on the road that led to the railway station. I had a terrible migraine, and needed to buy an inhaler and tablets.

I crossed the little bridge that gave on to the highway and waded across the flooded road till I reached the divider. Stepping on to it, I turned and began to walk along its length, picking my way carefully through the jumble of stones and clumps of rain-drenched grass. Walking along the divider would be slow and slippery, yet far preferable to wading along the verge where the water was deepest. And on the divider, at least I could be confident that no hidden brimming-over potholes waited, open-mouthed and hungry, to swallow me whole.

I saw movement to my left. In the darkness, two—no, three black shapes materialized on the verge and began to cross the road ahead of me. The men must have come up from the sprawling shanty-town that lay to the left, below the highway. I watched as they ascended the divider and walked towards me. One of them, I saw, carried a shapeless black bundle upon his shoulder.

They stopped, all of a sudden, about fifty feet ahead of me, and went into a huddle, heads close together. Something about their manner, some faint, inexplicable sense of uneasiness, made me slow down and come to a standstill. They hadn’t seen me yet. I watched as the tallest figure—the one with the bundle—brought his arms up and swung the bundle off his shoulder. It landed in the mud with a soggy thump.

The three figures stood, motionless, as though waiting for something.

I glanced at my watch. 05:20.

In another ten minutes, the great convoys of Bombay-bound trucks would be released from their shackles at the toll-tax gates a kilometre up the highway to the north, and soon the three lanes to the left would be filled with countless tonnes of hurtling metal and the air would reverberate with the triumphant roar of the trucks as they sped towards the wholesale markets and industrial belts of the great city.

As yet, though, the silence was disturbed only by the bubbling and chuckling of the flooded drains and sewage canals on either side of the highway. A light drizzle began, but I just stood there and watched the three figures as they hulked over the dark bundle at their feet. After a moment, the tall one—obviously the leader—squatted down and began to work at the top of the bundle. Curiosity overcame apprehension; I crept forward till I was barely twenty feet away from them, and now I could clearly see what was happening. The bundle was a jute sack, the kind used to pack grain or sugar in; the tall man was undoing the tight knots that bound the sack’s neck, with what seemed to be extraordinary caution.

He worked away silently, and his companions stood about him, watching his busy fingers as intently as I was. A pale, watery-grey light broke out over the dark hills to the east, just as the tall man undid the final knot and sprang back.

For a few seconds nothing happened. And then…the sack moved. One of the men laughed softly, but was shushed by the tall man. Their eyes were on the sack; if they’d seen me, they showed no signs of it.

Again, the sack moved…as though, deep within its rough, sodden folds, something was wriggling about, struggling to emerge.

A hum reached my ears, and deepened and grew steadily till it pulsed and throbbed in the thick atmosphere. The trucks were on the move, and approaching rapidly.

The three men had apparently been waiting for this; for, each one stepped back a pace and reached into his shawl. Their hands emerged, and now each hand bore a weapon. Strange weapons they were, too. The tall one held a long metal rod with a vicious hook at the end; one of his companions gently, almost lovingly, swung a bicycle chain; and the third man had a chipped cricket bat in his grip. Heart thudding, I watched and waited; not knowing what to expect beyond the conviction that, whatever it was, it was going to be violent.

The hum became a roar, and the first of the trucks passed by an instant later in a welter of noise, tyres hissing in the water and leaving a great filthy brown spray in its wake. It was followed a few seconds later by another, and then another, until the vehicles were thundering past in a continuous stream and the very earth trembled beneath their weight. The spray from the tyres rose ten feet into the air, and added its muddy weight to the drizzle; but I was oblivious to anything but the drama unfolding on the divider.

The tall man stared at the passing trucks for a moment, nodded to his companions as if satisfied, and then kicked the sack viciously. The sack shifted a foot, and from within it emerged shrill shrieks that made my skin crawl and my hair stand on end. It was the sound made by rodents in anger and in pain…

Now, something moved along the neck of the sack: a large lump, moving up slowly, followed by a smaller lump. The small lump suddenly shot forward until it collided with the large one; the neck of the sack twisted and turned, there came a squeal of agony from its interior; and then the larger lump disappeared and only the smaller lump moved, closer and closer to the mouth of the sack where it lay in the mud.

I held my breath as the lump reached the mouth of the sack. I darted a glance at the three men. They stood about the sack, tension in their stiff, motionless limbs, their silhouetted weapons infinitely threatening.

The mouth of the sack widened, and something emerged. At first, only a pair of long, dark whiskers; trembling, sniffing the air for threat and danger. The men stood like rocks while the whiskers twitched for an interminable period…and then, with shocking suddenness, a lithe, grey-black form leaped from the mouth of the sack and bounded straight across the divider—towards the deserted road on the right side.

The three men were faster. Like striking cobras, their arms rose and descended, again and again. One terrible shriek, quickly cut off…and the rat lay, broken and bloody, in the muck.

Even as my mind struggled to make sense out of what I’d just seen, the sack moved again. Horrified, yet fascinated, I watched as another pair of whiskers emerged from the mouth of the sack and tested the air. This time, one of the men expedited things by tapping the sack cloth behind the lump. The rat—it was a larger, rangier specimen than its unfortunate predecessor—shot out and headed straight down the divider. Towards me! I yelled involuntarily and leaped several feet into the air, but it was unnecessary; the bicycle chain cut the rat nearly in two, and for a horrible moment both segments quivered perceptibly in the mud.

Someone hissed. I looked up and saw all three men staring at me. Their faces were completely expressionless, but there was something about the glittering eyes in their dark sockets that sent a thrill of terror down my spine. I felt as though I were an intruder…yes, an intruder…at some dark, secret ritual being practiced there, in the middle of the highway.

This is ridiculous, I told myself. I’m in the suburbs of Mumbai, this is the twentieth century, neither the place nor time to imagine things…

The tall man took a single step towards me, and suddenly the impulse to run seized me. Run, the voice in my mind screamed. This is something you don’t understand, you can’t understand. Get away! Run!

But just then, a frenzied squealing from the sack diverted our attention. Turning my head, I saw no less than three rats fall out of the sack in a writhing lump.

A strange, feral cry rose from the men’s lips, the weapons rose even as the rats scrambled to their feet. Two scuttled to the right, and were butchered before they reached even halfway towards the deserted road. The third, however, headed for the road to the left. Towards the river of trucks, and their churning, grinding wheels.

And now a strange thing happened. The three men paused, weapons poised in mid-strike, and their eyes followed the rat as it crawled painfully towards the edge of the divider. One leg trailed behind it, apparently injured in the scuffles within the sack. The men made no move to hinder its progress.

The rat reached the edge of the divider, hesitated and made as if to turn about and crawl along the divider instead. The tall man reached out and flipped it around with the hooked rod in his hand. The rat staggered, fell over and landed on the road, whiskers twitching nervously as giant wheels passed within inches of its nose.

The tall man prodded it behind the tail…and the rat ran. With what little strength it had left, it ran across the road in an awful three-legged gait.

The three men hunkered down on their heels to watch its progress, and their eyes were wide and glittering, mouths half-open, eager…I couldn’t look, didn’t want to look, and yet I strained my eyes and peered beneath the passing wheels. I couldn’t see anything, but the three men obviously could. A simultaneous cry rose from them, savage triumph in its tone. The tall one raised his face to the sky and chanted aloud, almost as would a priest invoking celestial powers. His words cut through the rain; they were in rich rural dialect, they were weird…and they froze the blood in my veins.

Behold, the beast Chose its path through the Blaze

It Chose the Path of Pain; by its own Choice has been slain

So shall we treat Bearers of Misfortune in coming days

Faced with the Fire of our Wrath they will Choose…and be cut in twain


I felt my knees tremble. I willed myself to move, to leave that terrible scene, but I just couldn’t. The sack was full of frantic movement now, as if its occupants were aware of their doom; as if, somehow, they knew that an awful ritual of Choice awaited them outside the sack.

I stood there and watched while two more rats emerged from the sack, turned right and were promptly beaten to death. A third one emerged, a young one; small and thin, with a piercing high squeak. This one opted for the river of trucks, and was ground into the slush by a speeding sixteen-wheeler. The three men cheered.

But now, the sack did a little flip; and then a huge shape distended the neck of the sack, crept closer to its mouth, and the three men tensed and held their weapons at the ready.

A giant sigh went up from them as a large, grey-whiskered snout appeared at the mouth of the sack. Small, crafty eyes peered this way and that; pointed ears twitched; and then the rodent crawled out onto the mud and sat down on its haunches as if absolutely nothing untoward was going on.

Rajah, I heard one of the men whisper in awe.

Rajah. The King.

I saw what he meant. The Rajah was easily the biggest field-rat I’d ever seen. He must have been all of thirty inches from weathered snout to leathery tail, with a lean, muscular body and a certain look about him, a battle-scarred, war-veteran look. Cats would have had second thoughts about tangling with such an adversary.

The tall man raised his hand and the thin steel rod whistled as it scythed down. The Rajah was faster. He sat there till the very last moment…and then, in one fluid motion, he sprang into the air, slashed at the tall man’s bony ankle with long, yellowed teeth, landed in the mud with a thump and then ran straight for the divider’s edge. To the left, where the endless procession of trucks roared and churned the flooded waters of the road.

The tall man yelled in fury and pain, dropped his weapon and hopped about on one foot, holding his ankle. His companions, after one quick glance at him, turned and followed the Rajah’s progress. I saw the great rodent reach the edge of the divider, and suddenly madness took hold of me. I wanted this rat to cross safely, wanted it so badly that I yelled aloud. I wanted the Rajah to reach the other side and turn around and thumb his hoary nose at these murderers. I yelled encouragement as the Rajah stepped off the divider and scampered across the road. I squatted down on my heels and watched him go.

And how the Rajah went! Like a bullet he raced across the foaming surface; a huge set of wheels swished past, and for a few seconds all I could see was a sea of frothing brown water; but then I spotted him again, already halfway across, snout in air, tail waving about furiously. For a moment it seemed certain that he would be hit by an approaching petrol-tanker. The giant truck bore down upon the Rajah, the scene disappeared in a brown waterfall…and then the Rajah was scampering along on the other side, unscathed. He didn’t turn around to thumb his nose, he just vanished over the verge, but I was too elated to care. Hoarse, near-hysterical cheering reached my ears, and it was a while before I realized, with a start, that it came from my own throat.

I stopped short, then, and looked around at the three men. They stood there, staring back at me, and there was hatred, pure hatred, in their eyes. The tall one hissed something, and all three started to move towards me.

No, this can’t be happening to me, I remember thinking as I squatted there, paralysed by the look in their eyes. But then I saw the steel rod rise, and I leaped to my feet and I ran, dear God how I ran. I ran back towards home, and I kept seeing their faces as I ran, especially their cold, glittering eyes. I reached the point where I had crossed over from the bridge, and now the screaming torrent of trucks lay between the bridge and where I was, but I heard the pounding of feet behind me and I just ran out onto the road, screaming myself, and dodged and twisted and shut my eyes and kept going, and the screeching of brakes filled my ears and I fetched up with a great thump against something hard and waited for oblivion.

I opened my eyes and found myself in the grip of a policeman: a very large, very annoyed policeman. Even now I remember the smell of stale sweat from him, the crumpled uniform, the dark circles under his eyes from tiredness or lack of sleep; he must have been a night shift constable returning home from duty. He stared at me, breathing hard, as I gasped out my tale of violence and terror. From time to time I twisted my neck to peer towards the divider, to see if I could spot my pursuers between the passing trucks. But there was no sign of the men. A new fear grew in me as I babbled my incoherent tale: the policeman wouldn’t believe me; he would think I was stoned on drugs, or drunk, or insane.

At length, he released his iron grip on my shoulders. He stepped back a pace, surveyed me from head to toe, and then spat to one side.

“So these men scared you, did they?” He went on without waiting for a reply. `Ah…well, I understand your fear. What they did must have seemed a little strange to someone like you, an Angrezi-wallah city-dweller…especially someone who doesn’t understand our local culture, doesn’t even belong to our province…”

I gaped at him. “I was terrified,” I mumbled. “They were madmen, the way they killed those rats…they might well have killed me if I hadn’t fled!”

He waved a thick wrist and laughed indulgently. “Now, now, stay calm. Yes, what they did was certainly unusual, quite different from tradition, from the conventional ritual…”

“What! I don’t understand…”

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “…But then this is a big city, you see, things cannot be done the same way here as in our villages. And so naturally such things can’t be done in the traditional, proper ways…”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “What do you mean…”

“These men…they made do with what they had,” the policeman went on, his voice a little dreamy, “Back in our villages, we traditionally catch the rats and put them in a pot—a matka—rather than a sack. And we place the matka in a bamboo trap, and light a slow charcoal fire below it.” His eyes shone as he warmed to his theme. “This bamboo trap is just like a maze, you see, there’s only one winding way out of it. The rats have to find this way out – or they’ll burn. At every turn they have to make a choice. A choice! And even the rats that make the right choices, as they go, have to pass through a series of bamboo gates before they can get out. Each gate is delicately balanced, it is a gate of Death. If the rat so much as touches the gate it falls, and its finely sharpened bamboo splints impale…”

But I didn’t wait to hear anymore. I fled for home.

All this was last Tuesday. I haven’t been out since.

My neighbours, my friends and office colleagues, think I’m unwell. That’ll do for now. I can’t tell them the truth, can I? I can’t tell anybody the truth. No-one would believe me; they’d laugh at me, they’d think I’ve gone crazy.

There’s plenty of food and stuff; I have home delivery from the kirana store halfway down the hill, certainly I’m not going to starve to death. But for how long can I shut myself in here? How long can I keep up this pretense, how long can I go on like this?

I can’t sleep; I dare not sleep, the nightmares are so bad now, the migraine like a fire consuming my senses. I need to go see a doctor!

Hell, I’ve got to go to work! I’ve got to ‘phone people.

But to do all that, to do anything, I’ll have to go down to the highway. And I can’t do that.

But I’m not safe here, either.

They saw me flee across the road, they know now that I live here.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow; but sooner or later, when bad luck, when some misfortune strikes them, they’ll think back and they’ll remember the Rajah. The One That Got Away.

And then they’ll remember me.

I, Bearer of their Misfortune. I, their enemy.

And the highway’s where they’ll be waiting for me, with their weapons. Or else, they’ll come for me, here, at home.

Sooner or later, I’ll have to choose. between going out and just cowering here in terror.

Like the rats, I have to choose…

Ancient writings, Musings

Lunar Steps, Stellar Vision

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Last evening – 23rd August 2023 – I was on the ISRO website, watching in awe that turned to delight as Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander gently settled on the South Pole of the Moon, 386,000 km away from us.

And now, even while I write this, the little robotic Pragyan buggy is wandering about that incredibly bleak and cold plain like a cautious and patient beetle on wheels, setting up and testing its instruments to conduct an array of scientific experiments which will be live-streamed back to ISRO and Earth as lunar dawn breaks over the Pole…a dawn that will almost instantly become daylight of a brilliance that we Earthings cannot imagine, even though the Sun will hover just above the lunar horizon. And this coming lunar day will last 14 Earth days, and raise the temperature of the flatlands around Vikram and Pragyan from (-) 100 degrees C to a broiling (+) 50 degrees C….even while the permanently shadowed regions below tall mountains and in the depths of craters will remain a metal-cracking (-) 200 degrees C.

I read a lot of science fiction in my time. This unfolding reality on the Moon awakens so many memories: of the timeless, often prescient stories of H G Wells, Isaac Asimov, Walter M Miller; ofArthur C Clarke’s ‘A fall of moondust’ and ‘2001: a space odyssey’…

It also brings memories of an op-ed article I wrote just over 20 years ago (Jan 2003), in response to an Indian Express editorial on the mathematician Ramanujan; an editorial that, I felt, exhibited the shallow – almost fashionable – cynicism with which much of Indian media regarded (and, alas, continue to regard) any scientific achievements by Indians. Here it is:

Signs of good science

http://archive.indianexpress.com/oldStory/16583/

The editorial ‘Remember Ramanujan?’ (IE, January 5) observes that there is ‘very little happening in Indian science and technology’. Actually, the women and men who have designed and launched our weather and communication satellites, found new ways to store N-wastes, sequenced the rice genome, developed Bt cabbage and biodiesel… they, and others like them, are doing world-class, original science.

Our own lack of scientific temper makes us reluctant to acknowledge Indian work until its worth is ‘certified’ by some western agency, a perilous tendency in today’s fiercely competitive world. G.H. Hardy, who discovered the genius of Ramanujan, was not the first mathematician to be sent Ramanujan’s manuscripts. As C.P. Snow reveals, there had been two before him, men who ‘do not emerge out of the story with credit.’ Both were English mathematicians, both of the highest professional standards; yet each returned Ramanujan’s manuscripts without comment… and this was in 1913!

Recently, a team of scientists headed by N.C. Wickramasinghe conducted a series of balloon experiments and discovered that viable living cells are falling to Earth from outer space at the rate of a few tonnes per day. The evidence confirms the theory proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe in 1981 that all life on Earth has sprung from living cells stored for aeons in frozen interstellar gas-clouds, and that these cells constantly travel to Earth via comets on the pressure of solar radiation.

‘‘Genes are to be regarded as cosmic,’’ they wrote. ‘‘They arrive at the Earth as DNA or RNA, either as full-fledged cells, or as viruses, viroids, or simply as separated fragments of genetic material. The genes are ready to function when they arrive… The problem for terrestrial biology is not therefore to originate the genes, but to assemble them into whatever functioning biosystems the environment of the Earth will permit…’’

The implications are staggering. This effectively scotches the idea that life developed from some kind of ‘primordial soup’; Darwinian ‘natural selection’ is reduced to a mere fine-tuning mechanism that develops variety within living species! Among Wickramasinghe’s team were two Indian scientists Jayant V. Narlikar and P. Rajaratnam.

Yet how little attention we have paid to their work; how quickly we have forgotten them.

Indeed, there is need for more funding for R&D, for research institutions to be freed from the stifling, enervating clutches of babudom. But we too must understand that technology spins off from long-term missions; that progress in science, as in sports, comes only from hard work and perseverance; that far more important than applauding success, is consistent support and encouragement in times of failure.

We need to talk and write more about science in mainstream media. And especially, we must shed our habit of greeting every new idea with withering contempt. Not long ago, Dr Kalam’s idea of a Moon mission was met with widespread opposition, even derision. Yet today, we bemoan the fact that China has stolen ahead in the race by launching its first space launch vehicle.

[P.S.: Isn’t it wonderful how India has not just caught up but forged ahead in this race…hats and topis off to ISRO and the multitude of organizations and industries and academic institutes and individuals, young and old, that have striven through these decades to make Chandrayaan-3 and other space missions reality…more power to them, in the space laps that lie ahead! ]

Ancient writings, Beastly encounters, Potshots

His last bough

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[or, Why We Must Do Proper Environmental Impact Assessments]

[O gentle Reader, I inflict this long, dark, dank and dismal tale upon thee at a time when We the Wee-Wee Pee-Pee People of Inundated India are blaming everyone from Kejriwalbhai and Modibhai to Rahulbeta and Priyankabehn for our flood-related woes…blaming everyone but the real culprits, namely, all of us City-wallahs. You and I. Humlog. Aami.

We are all to blame collectively, and must bear responsibility to differing degrees individually: “not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially,” as Jawaharlal Nehru quoth in a slightly different yet relevant context.

I wrote this story 30 years ago – in 1993. A mangled form was published, in two parts, by The Daily Pioneer in 2002. That fine newspaper added insult to editorial injury by mangling my byline so that my full name Subramanian became Subramonium in Part 1, and then Subramanium in Part 2 (doubtless had there been a Part 3 I would have become Plutonium); and by way of final abuse they paid me the princely sum of zero rupees for my contribution.

I dedicate this slightly revised version to the journalists of The Daily Pioneer…assuming it still exists…and to all my friends, colleagues and other co-swimmers in the Ocean of the Enviro-Socio-Economic Development World.

Warning: do NOT expect political correctness here!

His last bough

He lay on the bough and screamed, but there was no one to hear him.

He was stretched out on his belly, his bare feet lodged in the fork of the trunk behind him. With every gust of wind the branches over his head whipped to and fro, and a hundred sharp twigs scraped painfully against his back and legs, scratching his skin through the sodden kurta-pajamas he wore. The branch upon which he lay was almost horizontal—that is, when it was not being tossed up and down by the demented gale—and as thick as his thigh where his arms encircled its slippery grey bark. Subsidiary branches sprung from it at regular intervals, each in turn dividing into scores of limbs festooned with broad, leathery, pendulous  leaves that hung all about him. Ahead of him the bough tapered off to end, about three metres away, in a tangle of vines and leaves.

All around him stretched the floodwaters: a vast, turbulent plain, disappearing in a haze of moisture that obscured the horizon on every side. Trees stood out of the surface everywhere, silhouetted blackly against the leaden backdrop. Many of them were bent at crazy angles, limbs trailing in the waters; others were so deeply immersed that only their crowns were visible. Thousands of nameless objects moved across the liquid plain; some bobbing up and down or drifting about sluggishly in small circles, others tumbling and crashing through the foaming white rapids that ran about a hundred metres to his right, and still others that coursed through the waters beyond the line of rapids, moving swiftly and purposefully as though borne by powerful, hidden currents.

The swirling brown waters chuckled and slapped at the tree-trunk below, the wind and the rain tore through the canopy of dripping leaves that surrounded him. He lay there and screamed, but his shrill cry was snatched away by the wind and lost in the tumultuous roar that filled the landscape.

Hours had passed since daybreak, but brought little change to the unreal grey light which enveloped the world. Now he raised his head slightly and peered, for the tenth time, at his wristwatch.

4:14, his watch said. His beautiful, 22-carat, waterproof, scratchproof, shock-resistant watch; its dial so pitted, its interior so foggy that the motionless hands were all but invisible.

4:14 was when the dam must have burst.

It had all happened so suddenly. The rain had begun late yesterday morning, and continued through the afternoon into the night. He’d been with Bose and the others inside the inspection tunnel till about eleven, when he’d left them and returned to his little prefab cottage on the hillside overlooking the barrage. But sleep had been impossible, the rain had sounded like ten thousand iron fists beating a frenzied tattoo upon the C.I sheet roof, and it had kept him tossing and turning in his cot till eventually he’d risen, switched on the light and decided to brew himself some tea. While waiting for the water to boil he’d listened to the rain, and to the shrieking wind, and he’d thought to himself: three days, just three more days, and then he could finalize his audit report on the dam (“built to last a thousand years!” Bose had proclaimed last month, damn him!), and then he could get Bose to sign off on the report and pack his bags and get the hell out of this accursed province and return to his beloved city with its lights and its warm nights and his friends and duplex flat and music and movies and car…

And suddenly, the light had gone out. Cursing, he’d stepped to the door, opened it and peered out. Instantly, he’d known something was wrong…for, where the dam’s causeway lights ought to have been blazing, there was only pitch-black darkness. And then the earth had trembled beneath his feet and he’d heard the roar, dear God he could still hear that roar, the triumphant thundering of one hundred and ninety three million cubic metres of water breaking their puny concrete shackles…there’d been no time to run, no time to do anything, he’d just stood there, frozen in horror, listening to that roar.

And suddenly the ground had fallen away beneath his feet and he was under what felt like a million tonnes of ice-cold sub-Himalayan waters; and then he was flying or falling or rolling or tumbling along at an unbelievable speed, and his spectacles were snatched off his nose by a giant hand, and he’d tried to gather his limbs about him but was unable to find them, unable to tell up from down, and his lungs and stomach filled up with water till he was sure he would burst, and even in that madness he remembered thinking, this was what it was like to die. Again and again he’d gone down under; and once when he surfaced briefly he’d had a split-second terrifying vision of jagged, rocky walls streaking past inches from his nose; and a million wasps had stung him repeatedly all over his body and he’d tried to scream but only swallowed more water, and time had stood still for a while thereafter, he could remember only inky darkness, enormous fluid pressure, the burning in his lungs…

And then his buttocks had smashed against something hard, spinning him round and round beneath the waters. He’d felt tentacles brush his body, grabbed despairingly at them and held on to one while the stupendous current dragged his body sideways. He’d dug his fingers into the pliant cord and pulled himself along its length till, all at once, his head emerged from the raging tide. He’d fought his way along the vine towards its parent tree-trunk till finally he reached it, and wrapped his arms around its rough wet bark and drawn breath after shuddering breath into his tortured lungs while his sodden clothes threatened to drag him back into the waters again.

At length, he’d clawed his way up the tree. Inch by inch he’d climbed, while the rain lashed his face and the wind rocked the trunk about, seeing and feeling and hearing nothing, mind filled only with the terrors of the waters beneath. He’d reached the fork of the trunk, collapsed onto the bough, wrapped his arms around it and regurgitated what had felt like a thousand litres of muddy, foul-tasting water before lapsing into unconsciousness.

He’d come to, in the nightmare darkness. With returning awareness had come the tremors of reaction, and for a long time he had lain there, shuddering from head to toe while the fractured memories of his voyage returned to his mind. But at last the trembling had ceased, his teeth stopped chattering, and he was able to consider the miracle of his survival.

Initially, hysteria had taken hold of him; and his shrieks of laughter had rung out in the wild night till a fit of coughing had convulsed his body and nearly thrown him off the bough. A semblance of sanity had returned, then; he’d locked his arms around the branch and willed himself to lie still. He’d muttered fervent thanks to the long-forgotten Gods and Prophets and sundry Angels of his childhood. He’d sworn wild and improbable oaths to them in token of his gratitude for salvation. He would pay them obeisance in a hundred temples, mosques and churches; he would undertake a pilgrimage to the mountains; he would henceforth lead a life of austerity.

He’d read about such things happening, of course. About men being swept away by flash floods and deposited, unharmed, kilometers away from where they’d been. About tsunamis lifting ships over entire islands and down onto the surface of the ocean on the other side without injuring a soul on board. He’d read of many such occurrences, read them and dismissed them as packs of lies! But now it had happened to him, here he was, alive! He was alive!

After a while, he’d tested his limbs, one by one, for possible breakages. He’d found none—although he appeared to have lost several of his fingernails. His skin, however, was a different matter…every square inch of it burned as though on fire. He recalled the stinging pains during his voyage, and with a shudder realized what they must have been due to…a million fragments of stone and sand and concrete and God knew what else, pulverized by the waters and hurled against his rushing body till he was a mass of tiny cuts from head to foot.

His ears were filled with the roar of the tides beneath the bough; over the howling wind came the most alarming creaks and groans from the branches surrounding him; the rain poured down upon him, the rough bark dug painfully into his ribs and stomach.

But he was alive. He was alive! Surely that was all that mattered…surely daybreak would bring hope, and rescue.

But dawn had come, and in its pale, watery light he had beheld his surroundings… and now, many hours later, the bleak and unchanged horror of the landscape had driven hope, and much of his sanity, from his mind.

He had no idea where he was. Shortly after daybreak the curtains of mist had thinned momentarily, and he’d caught a brief glimpse of pale blue hill-slopes in the indeterminate distance before a fresh torrent of rain had erased the view. All that he’d gathered from that view, however, was that he was utterly lost. Having never journeyed downstream below the Command Village—and they’d always driven down to the Command Village—he had absolutely no idea about the lands further downstream. He’d had no reason to, after all…he’d come here merely to compile an interim Safety-cum-Environmental Impact Assessment Report on the hydel project, with the status of an `independent consultant’. It had suited everybody; for, that way, he didn’t get in the way of the project engineers and technicians who were in the process of commissioning the power plant. Besides, the international donor agency which had funded a very large chunk of the project  had made it very clear to him that his Report was to be `positive’ in tone and content. His Report, they’d stressed, was in fact a mere formality…nevertheless, an essential one. It would of course require his spending at least three months on-site, `for the record’. By way of compensation for his hard work and hardships, the donor agency had paid him an extremely fat advance on his fees, in addition to a suitable per diem allowance which he could claim upon his return…

It had all seemed too good to be true.

And, he thought bitterly, so it had turned out to be.

Oh, to be sure he’d had no problems getting the information he needed for his Report: Bose had been only too cooperative on that score. Bose had provided him full access to all project documentation since the first proposal had been put up by the power utility to the state government. He had devoted the first two months to the safety aspects of the dam; a task which had consisted, principally, of taking copious notes from the reports already filed by the engineers of the Electricity Board and independent technical consultancies, and rehashing them with liberal use of copy-and-paste into a form suitable for his own Report.

Bose had caught on mighty fast, of course, the cynical bastard. `You could’ve done all this at home!’ he’d said, with that slightly contemptuous look on his weather-beaten face. Much as he hated to admit it, Bose was right. But all the same, Bose had allowed him access to anything he wanted down at the Command Village Office; and it was Bose who had suggested a visit to one of the Tribal Resettlement Villages…`to enable you to make an on-the-spot assessment of the dam’s impact on the local populace…’ he’d said with a sardonic chuckle.

He would never forget that visit. They’d driven up a dirt road along the western shore of the vast reservoir till the road petered out next to a swift stream. They’d left the jeep there and trudged along a path through thick vegetation till, after about half-a-kilometer, they’d come upon a little clearing in the forest. About twenty huts stood in a rough circle in the clearing; wooden-roofed structures with crude plank walls, identical in all respects. To the right, narrow wooden canoes lay beached upon the banks of the stream. It  was Resettlement Village number 4A; one of 45 such villages built by the Project Authorities for the indigenous people, the tribals, who had been displaced by the project and whose ancestral villages were already deep beneath the reservoir waters.

The tribals had emerged from their huts, every one of them. Dark-brown men with fuzzy hair and high cheekbones, the men clad in loincloths, the women in rough skirts and strips of cloth that barely concealed their breasts, the naked children with their solemn, wide-open eyes…they’d stood around and stared at him, their faces totally devoid of expression even when he’d attempted a shaky smile.

It had been a relief when Bose finally emerged from one of the huts with an ancient man wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. He was the Headman, Bose explained. The Headman would answer all his questions, and he, Bose, would do the translating.

His hands tightened about the bough as he thought back to that interview. It had unnerved him, the whole experience had had a quality of hidden menace normally associated with nightmare. The warm humid air, the reek of damp vegetation and rotting fish; the towering trees all about the clearing, the silent, statue-like brown figures all around him, watching him through impassive eyes; no noise but that of the forest birds, and the constant drip-drip-drip of the morning’s rain from a billion leaves…and the wizened face of the Headman, shadowy beneath the straw hat, as he replied to Bose’s translated queries in a cracked whisper.

He’d asked the Headman: Are you content with your new homes?

And the old man had replied: Nothing has changed.

He’d tried again: Are your people happy with their new location?

The old man had repeated: Nothing has changed.

Feeling more and more unreal, he’d persisted: Was he, were his people, aware of the great changes for the better that would come with the setting up of the Project?

All things would pass away.

But they, the tribals, could look forward to the coming of industry, roads, to employment opportunities and prosperity?

All things would pass away.

But the children would soon have a school to go to, down at the Command Village?

Nothing would change.

Did they not want education, then?

The children would learn to hunt and fish. As their parents did.

Were the tribals resentful that their ancient village, and much of their forest lands, now lay beneath the lake waters?

All things would pass away.

Were they unhappy with the dam?

(Silence.)

Were they unhappy with the dam?

And then the old man had turned away from him, whispered something to Bose, looked back at him again and then limped back towards his hut. Silently, the other villagers had disappeared into their doorways till only he and Bose were left standing there in the open. Bose had roared with laughter upon seeing the expression on his face, and at length they had returned to the jeep.

On the way back, Bose had told him a little more about the tribals. He’d realized, with something of a shock, that Bose actually harboured affectionate feelings towards them,  and felt more than a little sympathy with their lot. The tribals were a small community,  Bose had told him; an ancient people in an ancient land. There were barely two thousand of them distributed sparsely in tiny villages all over the mountainous province. A peaceful enough folk, they lived off the land…jungle-fowl and fish, with maybe the occasional wild boar or antelope. Once in a while they journeyed down to the Town, eighty-seven kilometers away, where they bartered wild honey, snakeskins and bamboo-ware for sugar and coarse rice grain.

And what, he had asked Bose, had the Headman said to Bose before he turned away?

Bose had chuckled and told him.

The old man had said: Tell your foolish friend that the White Water is untameable.

He shivered, now, as he thought back to that remark.

The Headman had been right. The White Water had, indeed, proved to be untameable.

Undoubtedly, Bose and the others were dead. They’d have been in their quarters lower down in the gorge, or worse, in the inspection tunnel deep within the bowels of the dam, when it had disintegrated. He remembered the dank, narrow passage of the inspection tunnel, imagined the concrete cracking and fissuring, steel plates buckling as walls of water plunged through, crushing everything in their path…his mind strove to dispel the vision.

But now a sudden, electrifying thought struck him. He might well be the only surviving witness to the collapse of the dam! None of the power plant engineers would have seen it happen; except, maybe, the two security guards on the causeway—who would have been the first to go. Yes, he must be the sole witness. And that would mean, for sure, a lot of fame. And a lot of money as well, if he played his cards right…

All provided, of course, that he was rescued before he died of thirst or starved to death on the tree.

He stared down at the murky swirl beneath the bough, and then thrust aside the leaves to his right and peered out. The rain poured down upon the seething floodwaters with unabated fury, and the hill-slopes he’d seen earlier were invisible. A sudden gust of wind rocked the bough violently, and he hastily dropped his hand and wrapped his arms round the rough wood once more. Despair welled in him, and in its aftermath rose hatred, the hatred he’d felt all along for this accursed land. With its intolerable humidity and its devastating monsoon; its blood-thirsty leeches, its diabolic mosquitoes, its hideous running-spiders…and the tribals! With their wooden faces and guttural tongue and supreme indifference to all things outside their own world…the hatred bubbled over till he was screaming at the top of his voice, ranting and railing against the land and its creatures.

The elements bore down upon him with renewed strength, and the indifferent waters eddied and foamed about the tree-trunk below.

At length he stopped screaming and lay there, breathing heavily, with his eyes shut. A vision of the old Headman swam up, unbidden, in his mind, and he moaned and shook his head violently. After that one trip, he’d refused Bose’s offers to visit other Resettlement Villages. He’d taken careful notes, of course, of their names and locations. And he’d fabricated brief but informative accounts of his visits to them, including several interviews with their inhabitants. Just last week he’d drafted out the conclusion to his report on the tribals. They were, he had recorded, very happy with their relocation. And they eagerly looked forward to being associated with the great socio-economic development of the region, consequent to the building of the Hydel Project.

After all, he’d reflected, it was a mere formality. Just as the donor agency people had assured him. The dam was a fait accompli. The province was so remote, so wild as to have attracted little or no attention from either the media or the environmental activists. The tribals were so few in number that they didn’t even merit consideration as a vote bank. The state needed power; the donor agency needed to invest its money; everyone was happy.

Or should have been happy, but for the dam burst.

The cramp which had set in on his legs before dawn, had progressed till it was now a white fire, consuming the muscles of his back and neck and spreading down his arms. So far he’d dared not shift to a more comfortable position—the bough was slippery, the waters a good three metres below him. But now he decided to wriggle backwards towards the fork of the tree, so that he might sit back against the trunk and stretch his legs out in front of him, along the bough.

He drew a deep breath, tensed the muscles of his back…and heard a loud splash below him. Startled, he peered myopically at the muddy swirl beneath and saw it an instant later: a great wedge-shaped head arrowing through the waters, faint black coils undulating in its wake just beneath the surface, seeming to go on forever…it disappeared from view beyond the fringe of the surrounding foliage, leaving him trembling from head to toe.

Snake.

And that splash could only mean…his eyes darted about fearfully, examining the leafy boughs above his head and on either side; he was just beginning to relax, convinced that no sinuous terrors lurked in his vicinity, when he saw it.

It was literally in front of his nose, about a metre away from his goggling eyes. A greenish-brown, glistening twist, wrapped about its own coils in a little hollow where a slender branch extended sideways from the bough, blending perfectly with the twisted vines and dark green leaves that surrounded it, its flat head resting upon its coils, a fuzzy white patch barely visible on its neck…

A cobra.

Dear God, a monocled cobra, he knew that was what it was because a couple of weeks ago they’d killed one near Bose’s cottage, he remembered the white patch on its hood, how it had reared its frightful head and lashed out at the sticks with which they’d beaten it to death.

Don’t move, he told himself frantically. DON’T MOVE.

He stared at the snake, fought to control his shaking limbs. It must have been there all along, he thought incoherently. Sought refuge from the floodwaters, just as he had. Lain there while he’d shouted and screamed and laughed, it was a miracle it hadn’t been disturbed by his ravings…unless it was deaf. Yes! Snakes were deaf, weren’t they? He vaguely recalled a reference in some book or the other to a Deaf Adder…

But what about vibrations? Surely snakes were sensitive to vibrations! That meant he had to remain still, perfectly still, even if every muscle in his body was knotted with cramp, ached for relief…

Reason fled his mind for a while. A fit of shuddering overcame him, and he lay there babbling and shrieking with laughter while the storm raged about him. Hr didn’t stop even when the snake’s head rose suddenly from its coils and its yellow-white tongue darted in and out of its mouth while its tiny, stone-grey eyes stared into his own. But after a while the tongue ceased to flicker, the flat head sank back upon the gleaming coils and remained there, though the eyes continued to watch him.

Sanity returned like a freezing wave of water. He lay there gulping for breath, unable to believe his eyes. He counted slowly up to two hundred, but not a flicker of movement was there on the part of the snake. It must be sleeping, he decided, and a giggle escaped his lips. Sleep, Old Man Snake, he thought. You and I are in the same boat. Or rather, on the same bough. He giggled again but the cobra didn’t move, not even when the giggle became a cackle and then a whooping roar of laughter.

At length he subsided into silence, chest heaving, his entire frame shivering in the cold wind and rain. He parted the leaves on either side and beheld the slate-grey sky and the wild waters beneath. The wind howled, the raindrops felt like needles being plunged into his flesh. He dropped his hands back onto the bough and pressed his head against the slimy grey bark, listening to the endless drumming of the raindrops on the broad oval leaves that surrounded him. From time to time he raised his head and cried out; but only the wind and the roaring waters answered his calls.

In a moment of reason, an idea struck him. He peered over the bough till he could see the base of the tree-trunk, where the waters lapped at the iron grey bark. There was a white streak on the trunk, just above the water line, where the bark had been peeled off. All he had to do, he reasoned, was watch that mark and see if the water level fell away from it. He would then know, for sure, whether the floodwaters were receding or not.

He stared at the white mark for a long time, but it was no use. Each time he decided that the water level had indeed fallen off, a fresh wave of water came along and slapped against the trunk, obscuring the mark entirely. For all he knew, the floodwaters might actually be rising. A great rockfall might have occurred in some gorge downstream, forming a natural barrier that blocked the White Water far more effectively than Bose’s glorious dam…his heart sank at the thought.

The hours drew by with no visible sign of their passage. The mad fits that overcame him grew more and more frequent. He recited childhood poems in a shrill falsetto. He sang lullabies to the snake. Sudden, terrible paroxysms of rage seized him, and he showered curses upon the land, its populace and its snakes till sheer exhaustion stilled his voice. But the snake didn’t move a muscle, the deluge from the skies didn’t cease, and the savage roar from the flooded landscape only seemed to grow louder as time passed.

A wild notion struck him. For all he knew, the bough upon which he lay belonged to a very tall tree; one with most of its length submerged in the floodwaters. And so even if the waters receded, he might well find himself trapped upon on of the tree’s uppermost branches, tens of metres above the ground…he went into convulsions of laughter at the thought.

But as the day wore on and the grey light deepened, his manic fits grew less and less frequent till, eventually, they ceased altogether. Slowly but surely, a dreadful idea had taken root in his mind, and grown and grown till he was paralysed by the sheer terror of it.

He was sole witness to the Final Flood, harbinger of Dissolution. Pralayam.

A cry carried across the waters to his left. Ethereal, like the cry of a mountain shepherd.

He did not move.

The cry came again; and this time he stiffened and raised his head slightly. With an effort he parted the dripping foliage to gaze out at the watery expanse; but all he could see were petrified trees, and countless dark shapes floating in between them.

 A bird, he thought dully. But just then came the noise of thumping, hollow and flat, as of wood against wood.

And the snake moved.

With incredible swiftness the flat hood rose; and now he saw for the first time the spear-tip head surmounted by a great hood, with its yellow-white O-shaped pattern like an eye in a mask of death. The snake swayed from side to side, the forked yellow-white tongue flicked in and out of its slash of a mouth, tasting the air; and he moaned in his terror, convinced that his end had come, that after all he’d gone through his end had come…

But the cobra, he soon realized, wasn’t interested in him at all. Its head was turned to the left, from where even now the hollow thumping noise carried again over the waters. And immediately upon the noise came the eerie cry, sounding much closer now.

A wave of hope flooded his mind. He forgot the snake, forgot his aches and pains, forgot everything in the realization that rescue might, at long last, be on hand. He thrust the leaves aside, peered through the rain, and there it was, barely ten metres away. A long black canoe drifting past, the boatman slouched at one end, a black figure against the deepening twilight, wide-brimmed hat on his head…

He opened his mouth and yelled. His voice was hoarse, weak, but he distinctly saw the boatman jerk his hatted head before a noise like steam escaping from a pressure cooker brought him around to face the snake. His eyes bulged in terror. Old Man Snake was looking towards the boat and hissing, the great hood weaving from side to side upon the whipcord tail, he’d never heard a more frightening sound in his life.

He screamed aloud in his fear, and the cobra abruptly stopped hissing. It turned its sharp head, its cold, flint-like eyes looked straight into his own while the monocled hood above remained perfectly still. And in that timeless moment a strange conviction came upon him. Old Man Snake was telling him something.

Old Man Snake was warning him.

Yes, Old Man Snake was warning him against the boatman out there on the waters…he, the boatman, was the real danger, the real terror

But then the guttural cry rose again from nearby, shattering the spell. The cobra turned away and resumed its hissing and weaving. With trembling fingers he parted the foliage once again and saw that the canoe was barely two metres away, bobbing up and down on the murky waters beneath the bough. The boatman was looking up at him, his right hand resting upon the long paddle across his knees. He couldn’t make out the boatman’s face beneath the hat, but there was no mistaking the gestures he made now, bringing his left hand up and down rapidly.

He wants me to jump, he thought. To jump!

He looked down, and his hands tightened their grip on the bough. He was suddenly afraid, the ominous brown swell seemed so far below…

The boatman cried out yet again, the snake redoubled its frenzied hissing, and he shook off his paralysis. He unlocked his hands, fell off the bough and landed in the waters with a tremendous splash. He thrashed about blindly, thinking of gharials and swimming snakes while cold, slimy fingers clutched at him beneath the waters…and then he felt strong sinewy arms grasp him beneath the shoulders and haul him out of the waters. He clutched the side of the canoe, had a brief glimpse of a wizened face beneath the shadowy hat; and then he was over the wooden side and lying on his back, feeling the canoe’s wooden planking press against his spine and shoulder-blades.

For a while he couldn’t move. He just lay there, eyes closed, feeling the cold rain upon his upturned face and the gentle rocking of the boat beneath him. At first in a trickle, and then in a great rush, relief swept over him, flooding his body and mind, washing away even the tingling pains of returning blood circulation. He shifted his legs and groaned with pleasure, revelling in the new-found freedom to stretch out on his back, to straighten his elbows, to twiddle his toes…he wanted to cry out in joy, sing paeans to the gods who had delivered him from certain death. What an experience he’d had, what an experience…

He opened his eyes at last. Just a metre beyond his feet hunched the boatman: dark-limbed, wiry of build, brown arms glistening with moisture as they wielded the paddle. He glanced to his left and right but found his view blocked by the smoked-wood sides of the canoe. Grunting with effort, he rose upon his elbows and sought the tree upon which he’d lain. He found it almost immediately, about ten metres away to the right. There was no mistaking it; for upon its lowermost branch, and clearly silhouetted against the pewter sky, he saw the erect, hooded shape of the monocle cobra…now silent and still, as though carved of stone.

Goodbye, Old Man Snake, he thought. God, what a story he had, to tell his friends. Why, his story might hit the national headlines! He sank back and closed his eyes again, and he imagined telling his story to an admiring circle of friends while TV reporters filmed him and cameras flashed in his face.

“I spent fifteen hours on that narrow branch above the floodwaters, with only a monocled cobra for company,” he’d say. Quietly, in a matter-of-fact way. “And I couldn’t have wished for a better companion.”

And then he’d watch their faces while they cheered. Yes, especially the girls’ faces.

He opened his eyes. The boatman’s hat was lowered; but now it rose and he saw yellow-white teeth flash in the shadows beneath the rim. He smiled back, though his lips were cracked and swollen.

The boatman was a tribal. A stone-age barbarian, like the ones he’d met at that Resettlement Village. Presumably this creature lived in one of the villages scattered about the valley beneath the dam…well, he would find out soon enough.

There was, he thought, no point in trying to communicate with the moron. Neither of them would understand a word of what the other said.

An unpleasant thought struck him. He would almost certainly have to spend the night at this resettlement village, wherever it was. And eat the muck they served as food, and no doubt share his bed with hordes of bedbugs and spiders and other creepy-crawlies. He grimaced at the prospect, and then shrugged it away. He needed some rest, that was certain. And some food, however rotten it might be.

After that…tomorrow, at any cost, he should be able to contact the Command Village, or what was left of it. By tomorrow, surely, the bigwigs would be there. From the state government, the disaster relief people, maybe even the army, the press…he couldn’t wait to see their faces. And as for the donor agency…well, he knew how he could make them fork out a reasonable sum of money. And after doing that he might well go ahead and blame them for the dam collapse anyway, yes…

The rain had eased off to a chill drizzle. He felt the boatman’s eyes upon him, but couldn’t make them out beneath the hat. As he watched, however, the yellow-white teeth flashed again in the shadows, reminding him in a strange way of the snake’s fangs.

Funny, he reflected, how Old Man Snake had looked at him back there, just before he’d slipped off the bough. He frowned at the memory, and then dismissed it from his mind.

He arched his back and wriggled to find a more comfortable position. His neck, which had been resting on a pile of wet sackcloth, came into painful contact with something sharp and hard. He raised his head slightly to look…it was a metal watchstrap, poking out from beneath the sodden hessian.

He rose on his elbow and pushed the sackcloth aside; aware of the boatman’s gaze upon him; aware, too, that the roar of the rapids had steadily grown till now it was almost a thunder…

Beneath the sackcloth lay an untidy pile of objects. His eyes took in half-a-dozen wristwatches, several cheap ballpoint pens, a pair of broken spectacles, soggy wallets, an assortment of shoes…

Realization dawned, but it was too late.

His last thought, before the heavy wooden paddle drove it and everything else from his mind, was tinged with regret.

He wished he’d heeded Old Man Snake’s warning.

Ancient writings, Beastly encounters, Potshots

In the Plutonium Doghouse

Mani's avatarMani 3 Comments

Sixty thousand years ago, our dear ancestral cave-people snarled and hurled abuse and rocks and bones at their neighbouring cave-people, even as their respective supporters cheered and goaded them on while keeping themselves at a safe distance…

Today, Russia devastates Ukraine with missiles and other frightful weapons after being goaded beyond endurance by NATO and EU and USA, and Russia and the USA and NATO and EU snarl at one another even as the USA and NATO and EU cheer on and goad the Ukrainians to fight back and pour missiles and other frightful weapons into Ukraine while keeping themselves at a safe distance…

Everything changes. Nothing changes.

Thus it is in this dog-eats-dog world that we humans have in our wisdom created…because we love one another.

Cheered slightly by these thoughts, I inflict ‘pon thee, O long-suffering and precious Reader, a piece I wrote over 23 years ago – in fact, soon after India’s nuclear tests in 1998.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance in this article to any persons or nations on Earth, however slight, is entirely intentional.

____________________________________________

A mysterious defence document has come to light of all places, in the wrapping paper used by a peanut-vendor who operates his business near New Delhi’s India Gate. Inquiries reveal that the vendor purchased eighteen kilos of waste paper from Raksha Mantralaya early in May, and noticed this particular document only while wrapping five rupees’ worth of peanuts. “The masthead on the pages was different from the usual Defence Ministry stationery,” he explained, “so I thought it might be important, and called the authorities!”

Titled “In the Plutonium Doghouse”, the document is typed on the memo-pad of the Defence Ministry’s shadowy Department of Strategic Planning and Control (DSPC), and appears to be a sweeping account of global nuclear history. With Defence Ministry officials refusing to comment on it, the document is reproduced in its entirety below.

In the Plutonium Doghouse

Delhi, May-June 1998.

Once upon a time there was a kennel, in which lived dogs of assorted size, shape, faith and hue. Oldest among the dogs were Big Yellow and Big Brown. The two were neighbours, and like most senior citizens, pretty peaceful characters; in fact, Big Brown spent most of his time sleeping. Then came Big White, Big Red and a host of smaller dogs.

In the beginning things were just fine. Each dog had its very own space, with enough food supplies to last forever if managed well. But over the years some dogs got greedy and gobbled up their own supplies, and then they took to stealing other dogs’ food. Naturally, a stage came when they were all fighting like cats over the supplies that remained.

One day, Big White dug up an ancient bone from somewhere and discovered that by blowing on it he could make a fearful racket; enough to reduce all the other dogs to quivering, defenseless puppies! Naturally, he put on a lot of dog after that. He strutted about the kennel, brandishing his new pipe and helping himself liberally to the others’ provisions. But soon thereafter Big Red dug out a terrible bone-pipe of his own, and he was followed by two smaller white dogs; and barely had the echoes from their cacophonous pipes died down when Big Yellow nearly brought the roof down with a resounding trumpet-blast of his own.

Realizing that it was futile to aim their pipes at one another, the five dogs went into a huddle and came up with a brilliant idea: an exclusive pipe-wielder’s club, from which other dogs were debarred! For a while, then, the Plutonium Club (named after Pluto, the Almighty Celestial Dog) ruled the kennel; The five P-5 mongrels strutted about the kennel while the other dogs cowered in terror.

But Big Yellow was hungry for variety in his diet, and soon his crafty eyes turned towards the mountainous stores of Big Brown (who of course had slumbered while all this was happening).

Now, there was a little brown dog aptly called Li’l Brown who lived right next to Big Brown. Kennel folklore had it that once, very long ago, both Big Brown and Li’l Brown had belonged to the same family; but then a bitter quarrel had taken place over property, and Li’l Brown had thrown a tantrum and moved out to live by himself. Since then, Li’l Brown had developed a habit of filching food from Big Brown or nipping him while the old dog was asleep (which was almost always), and whenever the old dog protested Li’l Brown would roll over and yelp, “Help! He’s bullying me!” Baffled, Big Brown would go back to sleep, but soon Li’l Brown would be badgering him again, egged on by Big White who found it all very amusing.

Big White had other reasons too for befriending Li’l Brown. Right next to Li’l Brown lived a host of small dogs with vast supplies of delicious Afghan and Mughal food. Now, both Big White and Big Red were partial to Central Asian cuisine, but being much closer to these little dogs, Big Red had been hogging the lion’s share of these goodies.

So Big White made Li’l Brown his ally, promising him limitless supplies of hot dogs and cold fizzy drinks if only he harried Big Red and kept him away from the neighbourhood of the little dogs while he, Big White,instead carted off their provisions by tanker-loads and pipelines … oh, their oily pilafs were simply delicious, though the skewered meats did generate a lot of gas…

Well…such were the dog-eats-dog politics of the kennel.

But even while all this was happening, a day came when Big Yellow turned to Li’l Brown and growled, “Here’s a present for you… a little bone-pipe of your own! Now be a good fellow and wave it under Big Brown’s nose. It’ll distract him while I take a bite out of his Sikkimese pudding…I’ve been fancying it for years!”

But even as he spoke, a deafening roar shook the ticks off the kennel walls. Big Brown had sounded his very own bone-pipe; how he had dug it up while asleep, no one knew.

“Blast!” growled Big Yellow.

“Dog-gone it!” howled Big White.

As for poor Li’l Brown, he was inconsolable. “I can’t hound Big Brown any more, his bone-pipe’s bigger than mine,” he yelped and wailed. Finally Big White went over to him. “Aw, come on,” he rumbled soothingly, “tootle on that little bone-pipe of yours, chew on this nice piece of Afghan kebab, and you’ll feel better. As for Big Brown, just wait till the old duffer’s asleep and then take a nip out of his tail.”

Note from Special Directorate, Intelligence Bureau/DSPC, Raksha Mantralaya: Unfortunately the remainder of this secret document is untraceable at this point. Peanut vendors and their clients in Delhi are requested to keep an eye open, and to inform us at once in case any more pages are found.

Ancient writings, Musings, Remembering

Silica Politics

Mani's avatarMani 6 Comments

With the Delhi assembly elections having gone off peacefully and exit polls predicting the return of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, I see a glimmer of hope for India – that we might yet see the rise and growth of a national-level political party that actually works for ALL people, and does not survive by pitting religion against religion as the BJP and Congress do; caste against caste as the Samajwadis, RJD et al. do;  or generally everyone against everyone else as the CPI(M), CPI et al. do. 

A hope that leads me to wield the cerebral shovel and excavate the following article from the ancient sand-beds of memory: it was published in Indian Express over 20 years ago. 

Building sand castles

[Indian Express, 30 November 1998]

The counting of votes is on, and the first results are already trickling in. Across the nation psephologists pontificate, analysts arrive at bewilderingly diverse conclusions from identical data, and assorted academics, political observers and journalists join in severely criticizing the electorate for not behaving according to their predictions.

And, an ancient, battered lorry rolls up a dusty track leading to the dry river-bed, lurching with a snort of relief to a halt amidst huge banks of sand. Three men  stand in the empty hold of the lorry, shovels in hand. The driver backs the vehicle till it ploughs into one of the sand dunes; and then two of the men leap onto the hillock and proceed to scoop mounds of the grey-white material into the hold. The third man – he cannot be a day older than 16 – stands in the hold and spreads the fine sand as evenly as possible about the pitted wooden floor. The driver, meanwhile, twiddles with a knob on the dash-board, muttering imprecations, till a dreadful cacophony erupts from the dusty loudspeaker above his grizzled head. He has found the local radio station.

The three men toil away, sweat gleaming on their arms and bare torsos. Now the young man in the hold is practically level with his senior colleagues on the sand dune. Presently, he leaps off to join them in flinging the mica-flecked sand into the hold. A scrawny brown dog wanders up to the lorry, flops down in its  shade and falls asleep. On the radio, now the hourly news-bulletin cuts into the music. Electoral excitement is at fever-pitch; all eyes are upon an epic battle between two possible chief ministerial candidates: one a political novice with a clean reputation, the other a seasoned old bandicoot. The music resumes, the driver climbs out, collapses on the sand and dozes. The afternoon sun beats down upon the labourers’ gleaming bodies.

At length the job is done. The labourers pause at an unspoken signal, fling their shovels down, wipe their streaming brows and flop down on the sand next to the driver. Soon they must depart for the great construction lots on the western outskirts of the City; but there is still time to stretch one’s aching limbs awhile, perhaps even smoke a companionable beedi.

The flies drone, the sun sinks lower. The young labourer sits up and listens intently to the news broadcast. And then he turns to the driver. “So, Kaka, will we now have a new ruler?” he inquires. The driver removes the beedi from his mouth, hacks and spits at the sleeping dog but misses it by several inches. “It won’t make a difference to you, will it?” he remarks. The others chuckle, but the youngster is persistent.

“In our jhuggi,” he begins hesitantly, “they say things will soon change for the better. They say that we will all soon have pucca houses…”

“Arre gadhe!” the driver exclaims exasperatedly. “Don’t you see that this is all a natak? Look”, he continues in a kindlier tone, “the fate of poor people is akin to that of the river: doomed to follow the same path forever, crushing the rocks into sand and sinking ever lower. And just as politicians come to us poor people for their votes, so too men come to the river to haul away the sand; they mix the sand with lime and cement and make buildings and bungalows so that the rich among them may live in comfort.”

He pauses, his rheumy eyes far away. “Yet in time the desert winds will blow, hot as a sigri, and the great walls and roofs of the rich will crack and fissure. And then the rains will beat upon their edifices, and this happens again and again, year after year, till slowly but surely the sands are washed away into the gutters and drains, to find their way eventually back to the river. And then again the minds of the rich will turn to the river, and upon a monsoon the river will breach its banks, and when it recedes there the sand will be again…”

Presently, the men board the lorry and it roars off in a cloud of dust. The dog gazes mournfully at the receding lorry, and then wanders off. A stray breeze brings the faint voice of the news-broadcaster, announcing that the seasoned old bandicoot has won.