Among flora and fauna

By the time, the bus left the bus terminus, all the seats in it were occupied with the students and the teachers from the city occupying most of them. The people boarding the bus at the first few stops from the terminus were shocked to see the packed bus. The buses that start from the town at around noon were usually empty. But the situation in the bus on that day was different. They were disappointed to see that there were no seats available for them to sit. They stared at the children in frustration. They did not understand the need for these children from the city to visit their area. They did not believe that their area had anything to offer to them. As they walked through the aisle of the bus, they looked to the left and right, attempting to identify some space to fit themselves in. One or two of them tried to bargain space from the children. But the children did not give in as they were tired from the train journey and the subsequent walk from the train station to the bus terminus. Besides, many of them had placed their bags on their laps, and this further reduced the space they had. So, the people stood grimly in the aisle.

A few minutes into the journey, I noticed a man getting into the bus at one of the stops. He seemed to be a regular traveler along the route. He waved to the driver and conductor and started talking to them. I could not hear the conversation but was fascinated by his animated expressions and hand movements. I was sitting at the other end of the bus and could not hear his words. As I only understood Telugu sparingly, I would not have understood the conversation anyway. So, the only logical thing to do was to guess parts of their conversation. I started the guessing game when I saw him pointing his index finger in the upward direction while waving his right hand towards the back of the bus. "My niece got married last month. She stays with her in-laws close to here." Alternatively, he could have been saying "that new biriyani shop is good. I had mutton biriyani there and it was like one of those biriyanis from Hyderabad." A few moments later he waved his left hand towards his left and probably said "all this land was available for 50 rupees a cent just 10 years back. Look at the place now. You won't get a cent even if you are ready to pay 10 lakhs for a cent." Soon, I lost interest in the conversation and started focusing on the landscape rolling by.

We stayed in a dormitory at the edge of a forest. A small stream flowed in front of the dormitory. The sound of the flowing water was heard at all times. Sometimes one confused it for the rain. Every morning, a troop of monkeys swung in from the forest. The older and bigger monkeys, like their human counterparts, were precise about the route they took. When they got close to the dormitory, they stopped to stare inside attempting to discern food items from the rest of the objects inside. However, the little monkeys did not bother about the efficiency of their path. They jumped from one branch to another and almost immediately, jumped back to the earlier branch. They went about their journey in this manner and on the whole, jumped many more times than their adult counterparts. To delay their journey further, they spent many minutes swinging at each branch and playing/bullying the other little monkeys. 

One day, I was sitting on the verandah, the top part of which was enclosed in a wire mesh. I was talking to my colleagues while eating a banana. I placed the banana peel on the ledge by the mesh and continued my conversation. Soon, I felt a presence besides me. I turned to my right and saw a small monkey trying to extract the banana peel through the gaps in the mesh. The monkey was looking at me nervously as he/she tried to the pry out the banana peel. Within seconds, the banana peel was between his/her fingers. The monkeys quickly stuffed it in his/her mouth and jumped away. The monkeys only looked at the humans as source of food and did not seem to enjoy their company. I saw one trying to ape a crocodile; only the top part of his/her head were seen above the ledge. When I turned around and looked, he/she ducked under the ledge. I thought the monkey was playing a game with me and humoured him/her by playing along. Soon, the monkey realised that there was no food in sight and exited the game abruptly.

It rained incessantly for two days. Everything was wet and messy on those days. I realised I only loved the rains when its wetness did not reach me. The monkeys did not like the rain either. They sat in the shaded parts of the building, looking at the rain, sadly. A big monkey sat safely below the extension of the roof. Though the space was large enough to accommodate four or five more monkeys, he did not allow any other monkey to occupy it. He growled and pounced at any other monkey approaching the shaded area. Two small monkeys decided to not try their luck with the big monkey. They huddled together in a small square gap on the wall. The gap had a grill that kept the monkeys away from the attic on the other side. They sat there looking at the rain. When the thunder rumbled menacingly above them, they hugged each other tightly and looked away. At times, they hid their faces against each other and at other times, they looked into the room. I was not sure if this was one of the sweetest or saddest sights that I had witnessed in recent times. 

Meanwhile the bigger male monkey sat like a king in his safe place. He looked about him arrogantly and continued to shoo away all other monkeys except for one average sized monkey. This monkey sat at some distance from the bigger monkey. From time to time, the bigger monkey looked towards the other monkey. Soon, he got up and walked towards him/her. As soon as he reached the other monkey, he jumped on top of her and started copulating. The female monkey did not seem alarmed by this action. She straightened herself and, in the process, threw away the male monkey and ran away. The male monkey looked at the receding figure for a few seconds before walking back to its position of dominance.

Besides the monkeys, many insects and reptiles became a part of our lives. Within a few hours of arriving at the dormitory, I heard some of the children came out of their room discussing excitedly. When I inquired about the reason for their agitation, one of them informed "there is a big lizard in the room. It's almost as big as a crocodile." I went into the room and saw a large lizard on the wall at the other end of the room. The children had exaggerated when they said that it was as big as a crocodile. It was only twice as long and thrice as wide as a common lizard. Later, I saw a similar sized lizard near the bathroom. The lizards in the area, probably had a good supply of nutritious food and as a result had grown healthy. 

One morning, as I waited for the sun to rise above the hill, I saw a small black ant dragging a lifeless large black ant away. The dead ant was at least 20 times larger than the small ant, but the ant pulled it along effortlessly. I wondered how the bigger ant had died. If the smaller had killed it, then Marvel comics should drop all its superheroes and consider making a movie with the ant in the lead role. 

Another morning, as I walked towards the dining hall for breakfast, a child pointed towards the sky and said "look". I looked up but did not see anything worth a "look". He urgently pointed towards something and said "spider". The word turned out to be magical one. As soon as I heard it, I noticed a large spider at the centre of the web that it had constructed.  The spider body was black in colour and it had four yellow stripes running across its body. 

Later, as I walked near the dining hall, I noticed a spider on the ground. Its colour matched the ground and if I was not observing the ground intently, I would have missed it. I sat down and looked at the spider. I realised that there was something odd about it; the spider only had six legs! As per my understanding, it should have had eight. I started counting the legs "one, two, three, four, five and six". It only had six legs: four legs on one side and the two on the other. The spot where the third and the fourth legs should have been lay vacant. The spider had lost two of its legs in some mishap. I got up gave the brave spider a salute and walked away. Staying on the topic of spiders, I had the good fortune of observing three large spider webs glistening as light passed through the dew drops that had settled on it. I wanted to take a picture, but the webs lay across the stream, and I could do nothing but observe them.

The morning of the second day was spent in talking to farmers. Most of what I heard that morning was not new but the effect of hearing it from the people on ground affected me. My interactions with farmer were limited to a few organic farmers in Tamilnadu but organic farming was not even a fad for these farmers. Farming itself was becoming a fad for many of the farmers. They only farmed for their family's needs. Instead, many were moving towards dairy. Even in dairy, they focused on quantity than quality. So, most of their cows were hybrids and not country cows; no one cared for A2 milk here. One of the farmers, who was the ex-sarpanch of the village, offered us tea, orange and groundnut balls. The orange surprised us. Another farmer too offered oranges to another set of students. I could not associate oranges to that part of the country. Maybe, the fruit was considered special and hence was offered to the children from the city. We visited six farmers before deciding to end our study. At noon, the boy who was guiding us started walking away from the village. We followed him through mud roads and fields for twenty minutes. Finally, he stopped in front of a temple. The temple was constructed recently. Besides it stood an older temple, which was in ruins. This temple though broken-down was fascinating. It seemed like a perfect place for forgotten gods and spirits to reside. We walked through it looking at the sculptures carved on its pillars. One of the girls pointed out the figures at the bottom of the pillars. She said they represented different poses in Bharatanatyam. She went from pillar to pillar, displaying each pose herself and naming them. 

Soon, the children sat down in small groups and started talking. One girl leaned against a pillar and slept; another slept on the floor with her on head placed on the former's lap. As children from the other groups started coming in, they found places in the mandapam of the old temple, to lie down and sleep. They used each other's laps as pillows. I stood at a corner of the mandapam and looked at the scene of bonhomie. As I looked at the scene, I noticed something bright on a tree beyond the other side of the mandapam. I walked towards it and as I got closer to the tree, I realized that it was a brightly coloured lizard. The colours on the lizard reminded me of brightly coloured sports cars. The lower part of the lizard's body was coloured black and the top part, orange. Its face was also orange in colour and it had a black streak running from its neck to its mouth. They lizard's eyes lay within this streak. It seemed fantastic and outlandish, I stood by the tree and stared at it for long. I took out my phone and got a picture of the lizard. The lizard was oblivious of my presence and did not move. I used Google Lens to discover that the lizard was called Peninsular Rock Agama. Wikipedia informed me that it was commonly found in the rocky regions of the Eastern Ghats. I showed the lizard to a few of the children. As they crowded around the tree, the lizards became aware of our presence, and ran up the tree. The agama stayed at the higher parts of the tree after that. It sat on a branch and looked towards the horizon. From time to time, it moved its head from side to side. The girl who had talked about Bharatanatyam earlier, said that the lizard's movement reminded her of the neck movements in the dance form.

One evening we started our journey back to our place of stay at 630 pm. The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, but darkness had not taken over the sky. We travelled back in autos. The children spoke excitedly on topics that interested them. From the back, a boy started singing the song 'why this kolaveri di'. I had heard this song a million times and did not pay much heed to the boy's singing. Soon, a few others joined in, and they started singing 'Hand La Glass, Glass La Scotch, Eyes-U Full-Aa Tear-U, Empty Life-U, Girl-U Come-U, Life Reverse Gear-U'. As soon as the others joined in, I realised that the singing had to be stopped. I bellowed spontaneously "people, these lyrics are PG-13. So, stop!" They laughed and one of them started singing 'Johnny, Johnny, yes papa'. At the end of the song, he asked "is this PG-13 too?" I did not respond. So, they continued singing nursery rhymes. Though I did not want them to sing, I did not stop them. We were traveling on an empty highway and their singing did not disturb anyone. They were also polite enough to stop singing when the auto driver received a call. A few songs later, the children stopped singing and moved on to conversing in small groups. I turned my attention towards the eastern horizon. I saw a light red coloured object peeping from behind the clouds just above the horizon. It was the moon beginning starting it journey through the sky. As I watched, it escaped the clutches of the clouds and beamed at me brightly. It was full moon night, and the moon brightened the dark surroundings. The auto stopped at the beginning of the path that took us to our place of stay. We walked quietly down the path. From time to time, I observed the moon, through the branches of trees. I was reminded of many paintings and pictures that showed a similar scene. Every time I had seen such a picture, I had yearned to witness the scene in person. But now that I was witnessing it, I felt disappointed that my mind was not enjoying the scene as much as I thought it would.

On the third day of the trip, we were taken to a field to pluck groundnuts. Most of the children jumped into the activity with vigour. Some lay at the edge of the field feeling sick or tired. From time to time, we were supplied with ground nut balls and water. Besides groundnuts, the balls also contained jaggery. The children and I gobbled many of them. In 3 hours, we had covered 80 cents of the land and there were no more groundnuts to be plucked. As we started walking away from the field, big drops of rain started falling on and around us. Many of us took out our rain gear and started walking. Some did not have it and took a share of other's umbrellas. Soon the intensity of the rain increased, and our rain gears were unable to save us from getting wet. Our destination was a kilometre away and our guides decided to not proceed further in the rain. They redirected us towards a small shed. The children got into the shed, sat on the floor and started talking. I did not get a place in the shed and so stood under a large tamarind tree with the guides.  The setting should have seemed idyllic, but the rain bothered me. I constantly looked towards the sky and wondered when the rain will stop. When the rain subsided, we started walking towards our destination through green paddy fields. Once again, I was pre-occupied with the thought of reaching our destination before the rain started again. Thinking back, I see that this was another scene that I should have enjoyed more than I did.

One night, as I stood alone and stared at the full moon through the trees, I thought that this was a perfect moment. This is how I had imagined a life of peace would be. But a feeling of satisfaction did not rise through me. I was only enjoying the beauty of the sight. I realized that my idea of the perfect life did not bring me satisfaction. I probably am living a perfect life in the city and not realizing it. I was born in a city, I had lived my life in different cities, and maybe I should continue living in a city. When I feel the need to see the moon through the branches of trees with no ambient light around, I should travel away from the city. Change is a necessity, but it needn't be dramatic because drama is unnecessary.

No Title

 

Tired

Water flows over the rocks, along a stream

Spreading happiness to all through their giggles and gurgles.

But my tired bones and flesh don't feel the cheer.

They groan with frustration, crying out in agony

"We want to go home.

We no longer can sleep on the hard floor.

We long to lay ourselves on the softer bed.

We want to let the water flow over us from the shower.

We want the choice of hot and cold water.

We only want to walk a few steps to reach the dining hall."

These words of pain do not affect my resolute mind.

Displaying no sympathy

It ordered the rest of my body to behave responsibly.

"This is no time to dillydally.

There's work to be done 

We can't afford to relax.

Let not the tiredness take control of you.

Fight it. Fight it with all your will.

Walk around.

Kid around.

Talk nonstop with anyone and everyone.

Do anything, but don't give in.

The pain will disappear, once you get home.

So, hold on till then.

Take care of the affectionate ones.

Let the flow of the stream rejuvenate you.

Listen to the chirpings of the unseen birds.

Amuse yourself by watching the fooling around of the little monkeys.

Observe the early morning moon fight the sun and the clouds.

Look at the green blanket of trees, shrouding the hill beyond the stream.

Smile at the Frangipani tree, standing alone at a height besides the stream,

Showering flowers on everything and everyone in its neighborhood.

Remember the full moon you saw last night, large and red as it lay on the horizon.

Take pride remembering the groundnut plants the children and you pulled from the large farm.

Surely the taste of the groundnut laddus have not been forgotten

Then there was that sambar, served on the temple grounds!

How can you forget all this and give into pain?

The trip is not done, a few more miles to go before you sleep.

So, buck up and carry on with a whistle in your lips.

I think James Brown's 'I feel good' is a good tune for this situation."

Minnal Raja

She always gives me a big smile when she sees me and sometimes, an informal salute too. In return, I smile back and wave my hand. Her name reminded me of one of the names of an important character from The Lord of the Rings. Actually, it's exactly one half of that name. Though, in her case, I don't believe that The Lord of the Rings had anything to do with her name. One day, I saw a little girl sitting with a boy I knew. He introduced her as his sister. Almost instantly, I asked the first question that one asks little children "what is your name?". She said the same name. I thought I had misheard the name and asked her again. She repeated the name. I knew, in the case of the girl I talked about earlier, the name ended with two 'a's. So, I asked the little girl "Do you have two 'a's at the end of your name?" She shook her name in disagreement and spelt out her name. I smiled at the girl and her brother as I walked away from them.

Next day, when I met the elder owner of the name, I told her "Hey. You have lost a part of your uniqueness. I met a little girl who owns the same name as you." Her curiosity was piqued. She asked, "Where is she?" I looked around and saw the girl standing by a tree. I pointed at the little girl. She looked at the girl and said, "She looks sweet." I smiled and said, "Unlike your name, she does not have two 'a's at the end of her name." She responded "That's because my father wanted to name me thus, but my mother believed that my name should contains seven letters in it. So, they added an additional 'a' at the end of the name to make it seven lettered". 

The breakfast consisted of an uninspiring upma and a valiant chutney. I dipped the upma in the chutney before shoving it into my mouth. I shared the table with two of my colleagues, who were sitting to my right. In ten minutes, all the upma and chutney has disappeared from the plate. I checked my watch, and found that nine am was ten minutes away. I got up and walked to the tea jar and brought back a cup of tea. As I came back to the table, I saw that I had been sharing the table with two ten year olds too. They sat to my left and I had not noticed them. I looked at their plates and found them filled with food. The breakfast time was coming to an end, but neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to finish their breakfast. One of them was pushing the upma around the plate. He was doing what one of my friends used to call as heapifying the food. I looked at the boys and said "You are running out of time. Your plates are full of food. Why are you not eating?" Almost instantly, they responded with the standard response that anyone below the age of 18 gave when they were faced with a similar question. "No! I am eating." I looked at their plates in disbelief and said "What! Look at your plates." They looked at it and protested "But I was served too much upma." I refused to accept their words and said "It doesn't look like you have eaten anything. Come on! Eat up. We are out of time." The two boys took my advice seriously and got into the business of eating earnestly. One of the boys went about it well but the other kid continued to be obsessed with heaps.  He split his single large heap of upma into many small heaps. I said "My god! You are obsessed with heaps. Your plate looks like a Native American village with many Tee Pees in it." The comment did not amuse him. "I am tired" he complained. "I woke up at six this morning". I did not understand his complaint but before I could clarify he said, "usually I get up at six thirty".  Once again, I could not respond as the other boy swerved the conversation towards himself by saying "I wake up at five every morning. I do Yoga and exercise in the morning". I could barely get out an "oh" from my mouth as the boy's head was churning out words at 120 Hertz. He continued "in the evenings I go for horse riding. Sometimes I ride the horses in the beach and at the other times in the racecourse." 

The two of them became quiet for a moment. It had been many years since I was in a position wherein, I had to listen for long without speaking. So, I uttered the first thought that came into my mind "did you ride a brown horse with a white mark on its forehead?" The boy responded without giving any thought to the question "No. There is no such horse." The next thought that came to my head was "were the horses owned by you?" He gave me a don't be ridiculous look and said, "No". Next question: "do you ride the same horse every evening?" 

"No, different horses." 

"How many horses are there?"

"Eh! There's Malik, Bilal, Khalid and a she horse called Lalila. There is also a small horse called Minnal Raja. So, five horses."

"Minnal Raja is an interesting name. What are the colour of the horse?"

"Different colours. Brown, black, white."

By this time, the heaps on the other boy's plate had disappeared. He was feeling left out and decided to contribute "I too go for horse riding but only during vacations and holidays. I ride a horse called Blackie." By this time, my interest in horses had waned and I asked redundantly "Oh! You ride during the weekends, is it?" He said "Yes. And during holidays." I smiled at the two boys and said, "Alright, it's time to go."

A boy walked up to me as I walked out of the dining hall and said "I did not study everything you asked me to study yesterday. But I started studying and I will study it all ultimately." Almost immediately, my mind traveled back to my college days. One of my classmates was a member of the college badminton team. He played matches frequently and could not attend classes on many days. He was allowed to skip writing many tests. But he had to attend all the semester exams. This was an unpleasant experience for him. He did not understand most of the topics and he was not interested in the subjects either. As a result, his preparations for the exams started late. On the evening before the exam, I usually got a call from him. He started the conversation with "Machan, I want some advice da. Tell me da. What are important chapters that I have to study for tomorrow's exam?" Every time I heard this question, a chill ran up my spine for two reasons. First, how can anyone ask this question fourteen hours prior to the start of the exam? Two, what does he mean when he uses the word 'important'? Everything is important. But I did not let panic get the better of me. I responded patiently by reeling off the names of all the chapters in the subject. As soon as I stopped talking, he said "See Machan. I have been studying since lunch and I have completed two chapters. In the remaining time, I can only study three more chapters. So, I plan to study this, that and the other chapters. Is that okay? Is that enough?" A voice in my head screamed "No! It is not okay. What the hell do you mean 'is it okay?' That's only 25% of the portions. How can that be okay? And stop calling me Machan!" But I ignored the voice and said, "It should be okay da." Almost immediately, he responded "Thanks da Machan. You are my saviour da Machan. How is your studies going on?"  I responded "It's going okay. I am starting my final revision." He ended the call by saying "That's good da Machan. Study hard da. Don't waste time. All the best da Machan". (The last Machan was auto filled by Google's AI algorithm. The bloody thing is learning fast.) This conversation happened almost three or four times each semester. When I look back, I realize that all my studying did not make much difference. Though he studied for a much lesser time than me, he did not have any issue in getting through the course. Exams and studying are overrated.

That afternoon, they served Chinese food, I think. The rice seemed like fried rice. So, the Cauliflower pakoda like dish should have been Gobi Manchurian. I walked up to the counter and tried to pick a small bowl filled with the dish but person at the counter said "Ah Ah Ah! Go get the plate please. You can't take it without a fresh plate." I donned my begging expression and asked "can't I take one?" She said "No. Go get the plate." I got a plate from my table and picked a bowl full of Gobi Manchurian/Pakoda from the counter. As I was biting into the delicious cauliflowers, I heard the girl sitting on the opposite side of the table say, "I am taking one more". She got up and went to the counter. Soon, she came back with disappointment written all over her face.  She said "Sad! Only one cup per person."  Two young kids sitting in the next table got a brilliant idea. They decided to use fresh plates every time they went to the counter. This way they could cheat the person at the counter into giving them many bowls of the dish. Others on the table threatened them with dire consequences if they tried implementing their idea. They too sat back disappointed. I bit into another piece of the Gobi Manchurian/Pakoda. I said "The cauliflower is delicious". The girl studied the piece that she held between her fingers and said "Hmmmm! Yes! The flour is delicious. Very crisp". I corrected her "The flower, cauliflower is delicious. Though the flour is delicious too."

U

The Vowel Series - 'U'

Undergraduate in an underground college
Underdog uncle is an umpire
Unable to play or even understand the game of cricket
Undertakes to undo the rules of the game
Urges the underutilised fast bowler to
Underarm the ultimate ball
Underneath the Union's batsman
Unlike the uncle, the fast bowler was
Upset by the ugly suggestion given
Unleashes an unusual full toss at the batsman
Up, up and away goes the ball
Upstairs it hits; right under the commentary box
Unlikely the ball's retrieval seemed until
Utilising a long pole, the undertaker gets it
Unusual scenes of utter happiness
Upon the faces of the Union players
Unless the fast bowler came up with something unique
Useless it seemed for the University's team to try and win
Unfortunately for the umpire uncle 
Unemployed once again in this universe
Unique is his absolute unluck
Under the blue umbrella he sits crying
Uncontrollably 

A

The Vowel Series - 'A'

The four boys had only joined the prestigious school that year. They came from different schools none of which were considered prestigious by anyone. By some quirk of fate, they found themselves seated near each other in the class. As a result, friendship formed between them quickly. They did not like the other students in the class and thus spent most of their time in the school together. In the evening, when the final bell rang, they were the first ones to get out of the school gate. They speed walked to the bus stop, which was about a kilometre away. One of them was really good at speed walking and the others had to run to keep pace with him. Each stayed in different parts of the city and so they went their separate ways at the bus stop.

That day, one of them did not come to the school. When the three of them reached near the bus stop, one of them mentioned "Did you see the poster of the movie running at Saffire?" The others said "no" in unison. "You guys should see it. Come!" said the boy. At the main road, they turned left instead of right and walked a few steps. The boy stopped and pointed at the large poster kept outside the theatre and said "Look". The three of them stood and stared at the poster. They remained transfixed at that position for some time. Soon, the boy tapped the other two and said "Guys, stop gaping like that. Everyone's looking at us. Come on! Let us go." They turned around quickly and walked towards the bus stop. The first boy asked, "So what do you think?" Words of praise flowed from the other two. At the end of the shower of praise one of them mentioned vehemently "We should watch the movie!" The first boy said "For sure! Tomorrow?" The second one agreed "Yes! Tomorrow!" The third boy warned them "But it is an 'A' movie". The other two laughed "'A' movie! Are you a 10 year old?" "Come on man! We are 15. We are grown ups now." The third boy continued with his protest "We are only 15. You should be 18 to watch 'A' movies". The other two laughed again and said "You are baby! Now don't go and ask for permission from your parents." "We are going to the movie tomorrow. Are you coming or not?" The boy thought for a few seconds. He listened intently to the debate between the devil and the angel taking place within him. Unfortunately, the devil won, and he said "No! I will not come. You guys go ahead. My bus is here. I am going. Bye". The other two laughed as they watched their friend climb into the bus and leave. The first one said, "He is still a baby." The second one agreed. They parted after promising to meet in front of the theatre at 5 pm the next day.

Next day at 5 pm, the two boys stood in front of the theatre, looking at the poster. One of them asked "Will they let us in?" "Of course, they will. Look at all the kids around us. They are all of our age." said the other confidently. The two of them looked around and smiled at each other. They walked towards the ticket counter. The taller of the two walked up to counter and said, "Two balcony tickets". The person at the ticket counter did not look at him. He tore two tickets and handed it over to him after taking the money from him. The boy took the two tickets and showed it to his friend, who looked at them happily. "We have one hour to kill. What do we do?" "Let us go outside." The two of them walked through the gates of the theatre and stood on the pavement besides the gate. They watched the flow of traffic on the road. Suddenly, the taller kid gripped his friend's hand and said "Principal". The friend looked around frantically and said "Where?" The taller boy pointed to his left and said "There!" "Oh God!" said the other boy. They stood transfixed in their positions staring at the principal. For the two of them the principal seemed like a mutant progeny of Godzilla and King Kong. Stories of him beating up students across the years had become like folklore for all the students in the school. Every child in the school had either been beaten up by the principal or had seen someone getting beaten up. If he found that the two of them were students at his school and were there to watch the movie, he would probably skin the two of them alive right there. They prayed desperately for the principal to pass by without identifying them. 

The principal saw them and said "Hey! I know the two of you. You are the new students who joined the school this year right?" The two of them nodded their heads vertically and horizontally to say yes and no simultaneously. The principal continued "What are you doing here?" The shorter boy responded promptly "Waiting for the bus sir". The taller boy agreed instantly "Yes sir. Thus bus". The principal looked around and said "Bus? Here? But this is not the bus stop". As he looked around, his eyes fell on the poster and the expression on his face changed. He asked menacingly "Are you two here to watch this movie?" The shorter one responded immediately "Movie? What movie sir?" The taller one repeated "Move! What move sir?" The principal did not believe them. The anger in his voice grew as he pointed at the large poster in front of the theater and said "Don't lie. Are you not here to watch that movie?" The boys turned around slowly and looked at the poster. The shorter one turned around quickly and said "Oh no sir! That is an 'A' movie sir. We are waiting here for the bus. We want to go to Higginbothams sir". The taller one repeated "Yes sir! Hissinbossoms sir." The principal did not believe them still. He said "I don't believe you. I want to see what you have in your pockets. Empty your pockets now." The two boys did not move. The taller boy considered fainting but the terror he felt made it difficult for him to faint. The shorter boy started emptying his pockets with trembling hands. He took out fifteen rupees and twenty five paise from his shirt pocket and a handkerchief from his pant pocket. The principal demanded "Pull out all your pant pockets". The boy pulled them all out. They were all empty. The principal looked at the taller boy and said, "Your turn now". The boy took out twelve rupees and sixty paise and a bus ticket from his shirt pocket. His pant pockets did not contain anything. The principal looked down at the boys' hands and inspected their contents. The two boys looked at each other incredulously. The same question ran through their heads "Where are the tickets?" 

The principal looked at them and smiled. He said "It is not safe for children to stand in such a place. Come on. I will take you to the bus stop." The two protested "It is okay sir. We will manage sir." The principal commanded them to follow him and started walking. The two boys ran behind him as the principal's speed walking was even better than their friend's. On reaching the stop, he said "You should get into 27A." The two boys said in unison "Ok sir. Thank you, sir." They expected the principal to leave but he continued to wait. After a few minutes, 27 A arrived. The principal pushed the two children into the bus and told the conductor "Two Higginbothams for the boys". The conductor handed them the tickets to the boys, and they paid to the conductor. They looked at the principal, who waved to them with a smile on his face. The two of them forced a smile and waved back. 

As the bus moved away from the stop, they asked to each other simultaneously "what happened to the tickets?" The taller one responded, "you had the tickets". The shorter one protested "No! You bought the tickets". 

"Yes! But then you took it from me."

"Nonsense! You never... Oh yes! I remember now. You did give me the ticket."

"Yes. So, what happened to the tickets?"

The shorter boy searched through his pockets again but did not find the tickets. "I must have dropped it when I tried to put them in my pocket".

"Hmmm! That must be the case. Let us go back to the theatre. We might find the tickets if we search for them."

"Yeah right! Stop talking nonsense man. We will not find the tickets but only princi waiting for us there with a whip in his hand. I don't think he believed us fully."

"That's true! I did not consider that."

They remained quiet for a few minutes. When the bus neared the next stop, the shorter one went towards the door. The taller one asked "Are we getting down?"

"Of course, we are."

"Are we not going to Higginbothams?"

"What's wrong with you? Why would we go to Higginbothams?"

The taller boy struck his head with his palm and said "Oh right! Why would we go to Higginbothams! Let's go home."

O

Many ideas and thoughts have been running through my head for the past few days. I am going through a phase that can be considered to be the antonym of a 'writer's block'. One night, I woke up at 2:45 am. My brain started playingback the events of the previous day. As the time passed it started fixing its attention on the letter I. As the playback came to an end, I thought "In today's world, I seems to have become more important than anything else". I tried to get back to sleep but my brain had decided that it did not want to sleep anymore. Finally, at 3:45 am I got up and wrote a poem that I named 'I'. Couple of days later there was an incident related to flies in my workplace. I decided to write about it. Flies are referred to as Ee in Tamil and so I named the write-up 'E'. As I clicked the publish button, I realized that if I posted three more entries and named them 'A', 'U' and 'O', I would have covered all the vowels. I thought for sometime and got a vague idea for A. It is based on a small incident from many years ago. I am not sure if I am really interested in writing about it but if I don't get any other idea, I would have no choice but to develop it. I did not get any idea for 'U' and 'O' though. 

Two days later, another incident occured that gave me the idea for 'O'. As I was sitting down to write the 'o'rticle, I remembered that I had a couple of incomplete pieces written many months ago about the main character in this incident. I went through the drafts section of this blog and found them. I no longer remember the details of the incidents and so I could not complete them. I reproduce those incomplete articles here prior to describing the events related to 'O'.

Incident 1 (Jan2021)

The sweet and milky tea tasted sweet and milky. I have always wondered why this concoction was called tea. During the initial years, I let the liquid flow to various corners of my mouth and attempted to identify the flavour of the tea in it. It tasted like milk, it tasted like sugar, it tasted like payasam and at times, it tasted like kashayam but it never tasted like tea. Like Buddha, realization struck me under a tree. I was sitting under the mango tree and sipping the liquid that all of us referred to as 'tea' when I heard Mr. Tweedy's voice uttering "it's all in me head". I jumped up and shouted "Of course! There it is!" Finally, I found the flavour of tea in the liquid. Like many other discoveries, this one too had its own minor tragedy - my new white shirt had a brown patch that looked like the map of Asia without half of China and India.

On that day too, I was relishing the flavour of tea when the conversation on the table turned towards politics. Politics did not interest me, but I listened to the conversation anyway. The supporters of the party ruling our country were gushing about the achievements of our prime minister. From time to time, they looked at me for support. I did not say anything but smiled and nodded my head. In a few minutes, their conversation turned towards the chief ministers of a few states who voiced their opinions against the prime minister and his party. The happy expressions on their faces were replaced with anger and agony. As in the earlier case, they looked towards me for support. Once again, I preferred to remain quiet while smiling and nodding my head. Apparently, this time they did not appreciate my expression as an expression of solidarity. They stared at me for a few seconds and started ignoring me. The poor fellows did not realize that I was only enjoying my tea and neither agreed nor disagreed with them. 

I got up and went back to the counter to pick another cup of tea. When I came back to the table, I found that my seat was taken by a person whose opinions on the prime minister and the ruling party did not match with that of the other two occupants. The table did not have an additional chair and so I had to move on. I felt cheated like Arnab Goswami would have felt if he woke up on the morning of 'The Big Debate' day with a cough and sore throat.  

Incident 2 (May 2021)

The table was occupied by two people with whom I only conversed a little. I did not hesitate to place myself in one of the empty chairs besides them though. The two of them were engrossed in their conversation and did not bother to welcome me. I did not like to disturb them with a "hi" or "hello". I stirred the milky tea till I believed the heap of jaggery powder in the cup was completely and thoroughly mixed. I listened to the conversation on the table. It was on politics. I am not sure if anyone has bothered to study it, but if statistics are taken on the topic of discussion on a table consisting of more than two men aged above 40 years, there is a 80% chance of the topic of discussion being politics. A few years back I would have cursed myself for being a part of this table but no longer. Since 2013 discussions on politics tend to be more thrilling than a James Bond movie. 

Let me spend a few lines explaining the previous sentence. Many human beings believe that they are unique. This is true when one looks at an individual as a whole but when we start dissecting the individual based on his or her thoughts and beliefs one finds that the individual can be comfortably placed in one category or the other. For example, when one considers human being within the purview of religion, they can be placed in one of the following categories.

1. My god exists
2. Sometimes, my god exists
3. All gods exist
4. God? What god?

Human beings can be diced and sliced to many such categories. With time, some of these categories become irrelevant. For example, the categorization based on horse riding or sword fighting or use of pagers have become irrelevant. On the other hand, newer categories are constantly created. For example, twelve or thirteen years ago, categories appeared based on people's preference for mobile phones. At that time, based on this criteria, the following three categories of humans existed.

1. Nokia allade vera onnineyum Nokkarude or Nokia users.
2. Blackberry is berry berry good or Blackberry users.
3. The smartphone is smart enough for me or smartphone users.

Today, the categories have changed. The whole Nokia and Blackberry categories have reduced to such levels that dictionaries are considering adding the word 'micrority', which mean much lesser than minority. As of 2021, the following categories of mobile phone users exist on the planet.

1. 'i' am beautiful or iPhone users
2. An 'i' for an 'i' makes the world phone-y or Android user.

So the categorization of humans is dynamic. 

In 2014, a new set of categories emerged among Indians. At that time, the categories and their definitions were not clear but by 2019, the categories became clear.

1. Intellectuals - "Don't Modi-fy India"
2. Patriots - "Let us Modi-fy India"

Of course, there exists a 'micrority' of Indians who are neither patriots nor intellectuals but their existence is usually not taken into consideration. 

One of the fellow occupants of the table belonged to the second category, patriots. The other, being a Bengali, hated Mamta Banerjee, which automatically meant, he was a patriot. The patriot spoke vehemently on the strong possibility of the BJP winning the elections in Bengal and the Mamata hater spoke vehemently on the possibility of Mamta losing the same elections in Bengal. While the former talked about the positives of BJP, the latter spoke about Mamta's negatives. It was interesting to see how both were talking about the same consequence, but they were taking different routes to get there.

It was ironic that despite the display of confidence from both sides, Mamta won the elections comfortably.

The Vowel Series - 'O'

He seemed livid as he stormed out of the meeting room. He blocked my path and shouted menacingly "They made us work on the day of our important festival and now, they are declaring a holiday for this unimportant festival". I tried to calm him down by explaining "there was a government order for this festival and the management had no choice but to declare a holiday". He was not in a mood to listen and continued to shout "There was a government order for that day too. I was published in all the newspaper". I continued patiently "In this case, the order was sent directly to the head of the organization". He did not pay heed to my words "It was in the newspaper. All the papers had it and still it was not a holiday for us". I was losing my patience. I knew him well and was not really interested in continuing the conversation. I decided to give one final shot at making him understand. I said firmly "this one too was in the newspaper but in this case, the order was directly sent to the organization. That did not happen earlier." He did not pay heed to my words still but the annoyance in my voice reached him. He murmured something under his breath and walked away.

The next afternoon, a few of us were sitting in our workspaces and were involved in a post lunch conversation. A colleague was describing his plans for the Onam day "All at home have plans for Onam and since our holiday was only declared yesterday, I get to spend a peaceful day alone at home". Before I could respond, the one who was appalled by the declaration of holiday for Onam, the previous day barged into our midst shouting "They won't give a holiday to celebrate the birthday of our beloved god, but they are declaring holiday for the remembrance of an evil daitya." I was annoyed at this rude interference but thought it best to be silent. My colleague protested "He was not evil. He was considered a good king". He responded indignantly "No way. His sins were washed away only when he was sent to the other world. He was evil and selfish." The colleague persisted "But wasn't he considered to be benevolent and kind". "Nonsense" came the response. "He was only kind during the yagna. He wanted wrest control from Indira and that was the only reason for his kindness. The gods came together to stop that evil daitya to take control over swargam. He had to be stopped and that is why Mahavishnu descended to the earth. He was a daitya afterall." Though I had heard the word daitya I did not know its meaning. I asked him the meaning of the word and he said "Daityas are lazy fellows. They are evil. They are not like Asuras who are also considered to be Brahmins." By this time, his mobile phone rang, and he left from our midst. We felt relief flowing through us. We looked at each other and smiled.