Who Flung Dung?

 The other day I came across a news item that read, “Bundles of currency notes recovered from heap of cow dung in Odisha”.  The byline mentioned an amount of twenty lakhs, which, assuming it was all in hundred-rupee notes, would mean that at least one end of this cow was kept very busy with its tail pointing to north-north-east on a windy day.  This was when I decided, being sentimentally attached to all ideas that have money at the end (literally, if you see what I mean), to take the bull by its horns and watch the other end carefully. 

Since this was official breaking news, I thought of calling Ram Reddy who has kept more cows than can come home (whenever they do, that is).  I did not think of Seenappa, my farm hand at Random Rubble, because he has an IQ of 8.26 (including 18% GST) and will be out of depth in an intellectual conversation, even if it is bullshit (the topic, not the conversation.  Will you read carefully, please?).

Now, cows are ruminants and therefore grass turns into a robust dung, with a lively smell that gets rid of your blocked nose just when you wished it would stay. This is called the dung-lung connection in technical discourse (ok, I just invented it, but the point remains).  

 

To help you (and Seenappa) understand this better, here is the scientific reaction:

Grass → Dung (+lively methane exchange with atmosphere + Dung lung)

Lots of grass —> Lots of dung (+village evacuation at short notice + Increase in sales of local agarbatti) 

Yet, I never knew that a cow could do the following conversion:

Grass —> Dung + Currency notes (methane flavour)

Lots of grass —> Dung + Lots of currency notes (+village traffic jam, to hell with methane)

Following this I reasoned that 

1. Not all cows do the above because, if they did, the Reserve Bank of India would own a dairy farm and not a Mint and we would need demonetisation once a week, along with Vitamin D capsules

2. But at least one cow (reference, newspaper) has done it.  It is, in other words, Ms. Cash Cow

3. Hence, that one cow is special

4. Hence, find out why that one cow is special

5. Or buy that cow

6. Or hire that cow on EMI (with PayTM that will EMI anything that mooves.  Sorry, moves)

7. Once Cow is acquired, feed cow with a bucket on both sides (of which one bucket is empty, you ignoramus).

8. Raise Private Equity on Cash Cow, by valuing it as a Unicow, a Unicow being a bovine Unicorn, if you have been living under a rock.

You can clearly see the fiendishly clever thinking here, without doubt.  Once I had the business plan all worked out, I went back to the newspaper article to find out the location of the village in Odisha and that is when Reality struck:  apparently, the money was in a plastic bag and hidden in dung by a thief.  

I have now written a strongly worded letter to the Editor of this newspaper, asking him to fire the sub-editor who came up with the headline that has misled much of humanity.  But if you ever have this urgent, implacable, insistent desire to know about the chemical constituents of cow dung, you know whom not to contact. 

PH Value

The other day, I had a bit of a cough
With this thing stuck in my throat
So, I messaged the GP,
“Bad throat, rasping cough, doc, and loads 
and loads of flem,”
He replied, “It’s phlegm.  I will call you back.”
OMG! P-H-L-E-G-M?

What’s that? Where are the vowels?

So when I met a friend, I asked him what pehelegem was

And he said, ‘Search me’.

So I did.

(and found nothing, except a chocolate wrapper.  And

He found it odd, for some reason).

Then, I reasoned it out: in medicine, when

P is followed by a consonant, not a vowel,

Like pneumonia

The P is silent

And the disease is phatal

Sorry, fatal.

So, Helegem?  

My friend said, “I don’t know.  But NO,

DON’T search me this time.”

Then I asked myself,

"Why did the Doc says he'd call back?

Is it serious? Does it need him to speak in a low

and grave (pun not intended) voice?

Then, I panicked and messaged Doc.  

OMG! Was this like some African strain?

Would I pass out?  Or get airlifted to Ward 74?

With tubes  in my nose and those beep-beep monitors

And frenetic nurses and worried specialists?

Would I survive to write out a will?

(and one more book?)

And he replied, “You vacuous, fatuous

Asinine, half-witted, moronic, empty-headed,

Foolish, imbecilic, thick-headed, batty idiot

It is pronounced flem but written phlegm.

Gargle with salt, and think of your first crush.”

And I did.

I gargled with salt

And thought of the time when I first stepped on an ant

At age eight-and-a-half

(all because a pretty little girl with dimples had smiled

And I had blushed).

Methinks, it isn’t me, but that guy Roget of Thesaurus

Who is a vacuous, fatuous

Asinine, half-witted, moronic, empty-headed,

Foolish, imbecilic, thick-headed, batty idiot.

If he could come up with this many synonyms for idiotic

Why not a single one for flem?

Oops, bloody phlegm.

Five + Five Ants = Tenants

If you found American politics comical and entertaining, then clearly you are missing out on Apartment politics, which make Trump look like Amrish Puri decapitating seven sidekicks and American politics more boring than reading a bank locker rental agreement. 

So, it all begins when the owners of a new apartment complex come together to form a Whatsapp group. If the builder owns some apartments there and is part of this group, then the others create a second Whatsapp group which is generally named Residents-cum-Victims, with the image of a noose as the DP.

A retired Army officer is generally the most active member because he feels that civilians are so disorganised that they cannot manage anything. Civilians feel that he is so organised that he cannot manage anything.

There is always one financial planner in an apartment complex who comes up with the bright idea of investing the corpus of Rs.8.72 lakhs in an equity mutual fund that he normally would not touch himself with a spear-tied-to-a-barge-pole. Such adventurism is promptly castigated, of course, particularly by the above retired Army officer whose endearing approach to Life since 1971 has been to Shoot the Bloody Bugger.

Almost always he becomes the President of the Building Association, being completely unemployed except for his evening Patiala peg. As President, he tables the proposal to acquire CCTV and nuclear missiles because he feels that the apartment could be invaded anytime, particularly by spotted doves, which are drones sent by a neighbouring enemy country.

Generally, at least one apartment is let out to bachelors, resulting in the creation of another Whatsapp group to keep watch on the above and to debate if the smell emanating from that apartment was burnt rasam or weed. Since none in this group can identify the smell of weed and surfing the Net only tells you how horribly you can die from smoking up, everyone asks everyone for help, but no one wants to volunteer that his/her kids could expertly tell the difference.  

The Bachelors-at-Bay make matters most interesting by hosting a party in the middle of kids’ exams, which gets all the WhatsApp groups super-active, with everyone and their mothers-in-law voicing opinions, judgments, stern warnings and dire outcomes (‘They don’t CARE’ or ‘Mark my WORDS’, clearly indicating a need to conduct classes on When-to-use-CAPITALS ) and forwarding videos of Recovered Alcoholics because they could not find anything else to send.

This apartment owner lives in Minneapolis and therefore is one fricking, big help in this whole situation, but will nevertheless apply American Rules and suggest that an Officer of the Law be called, on which issue the Doves-Are-Drones Army man has strong views generally after his second peg. After the party, someone takes a video of the bottles outside the apartment and posts it everywhere and tags the PM on Twitter, thus achieving a Dutiful Citizen I-Love-My-India status with tiranga and bhel puri.

Owners also choose their apartments carefully as a result of which there is someone from Coorg who cooks panni curry on Sundays living next to a Mylapore maami who thinks garlic is Ravana Incarnate.  The resultant neighbourly affection, of course, results in the creation of two Whatsapp groups and vibrant lively conversations on manners, right- and left- wing, ancestry, calling-the-cops and fictional childhoods. 

Then, in one of these groups, someone will post a highly relevant message like ‘See What This Man From Venezuela DID To His Dog’, which, of course, makes the sender neither Left-Wing nor Right-Wing, but belonging to the North Wing of the apartment complex.

And the Armyman replies that We Must Shoot The Bugger.

The Dugong Strikes Three

 Dugong
(this one is male
not the species, but the tale)
 
The dugong’s a fascinatingly different fellow
He swims effortlessly in waters shellow
Munching and brunching on crunchy sea grass
And, boy, does he need a lot of biomass!
 
He belongs to the animalia order, Sirenia
That have been around for, well…., millennia
And is related to the family of manatees, no doubt
But what makes him different is that deflected snout
 

And a flipper that is short and a body so slim
(Did I just say that? Am I horribly dim?)
But a Sirenian specialist said once on a whim,
That the dugong is a manatee that goes to the gym!
 
Good news! Protect dugong turf and bring sea ghass back
That is an awesome step along the climate track
But. 
But.
But I have a grouse and a reason for my whines
So, this para has an added two lines.
Naming this fellow a sea-cow is WRONG
A cow should be named a land-dugong. 
 
Moral: ghass isn’t ghastly.  Says so a veggie.

The Magic Wand

 Music and memories sit together in a way we do not understand. 

I think of those moments of my childhood staying with cousins, my ammumma - a generously built and indulgent grandma - two aunts and an equally indulgent uncle in a beautiful old family home in Marayil lane in a Kochi of yore now preserved in sepia.  

A warm summer evening and we move about listlessly amidst the adults, the cool black oxide flooring smooth as a river pebble.  My uncle has his office in a charmingly fashioned building in the same compound and, his work done for the day, has gone upstairs to play records on his player. In a corner of the living room in the family home where we all are, up by the ceiling, is a wooden box with a speaker embedded in it.  That speaker is connected by a tenuous wire to the record player in his room.  

Ammaman, as he was to me, plays a number of songs, largely Malayalam but Hindi as well, yet the memory that sticks with me is of one: the film Chemeen is considered a landmark in Malayalam cinema, as are its songs; this one has stuck with me, a soulful, slow, deeply moving rendition sung, unusually enough, by the inimitable Manna Dey.  It was his first Malayalam song and, though at that age I don’t quite understand the lyrics, his pronunciation is flawless (which is more than I can say for myself).

And that is how I first remember Salil Chowdhury.  I then remember the audio tape - a selection of his best music - that I had bought across the college campus at that little store with the unsmiling owner. And I remember his music in Anand - another landmark film in Indian cinema - with Rajesh Khanna singing by the sea and a song by Lata, Na Jiya Lage Na, that is as much raag-based as it is Rabindra Sangeet.  And the flute in Maya…..And Madhumati, Kabuliwala……And Rajnigandha…...And Choti Si Baat…..And Annadata with its mellifluous, gorgeously unusual Raaton Ke Saye, that I have heard a hundred times.  And so much in between.

If, over the years, I have been a diehard - what sort of word is that, by the way? - listener of RD Burman’s music, Salil Chowdhury has been the first change, for when you are done with chalk, cheese is welcome, if both are the finest there is.  And, like all great music, the more you listen, the more it grows on you.  

A musician friend and I once spent an hour listening to the music of our generation, much of it in silence.  He then shifted in his chair, stretched a bit and took a deep breath and sighed. “These Bongs,” he said, tapping his head, and there was reverence in that voice, “they are as brilliant as they are crazy.”  QED

If Salil Chowdhury had been around, he would have begun his 100th year tomorrow.  To a genius then, it is time to say Thank You.

This medley is an extraordinary tribute. Play on.

Life's Big Misfit

 A funny thing about the USB stick
It never fits into the port
I push and adjust and try every trick
While the laptop plays Valdemort.

And then, aha! I figure it all out
Turn it around with a smile
I push and adjust and use my clout
No luck. Am starting to rile. 
(Steam clouds gather
And lather).

Then I switch it distractedly around again
And try in last-ditch despair
It fits in perfectly with disdain
While ignoring my malevolent stare.

I am just not doing nothing enough

What if I kept aside those little things that have piled up
On the right on my table
And in the centre of my attention
That email reply
That request from a friend for a reference
The car jack I need to buy on Amazon
The preparation for a workshop 
And for a difficult conversation
The gym or a swim, for a hundred reps
Within those hundred secs
Tidying up that cupboard because someone wrote a book on it
A silly payment on the card for something
I never needed in the first place.  Agreed, I don’t do this often.  

Even those little things

We pile up to Chill With

That movie, reviewed as dark humour and gripping

With comfort food and an open packet of something

The holiday on an Instagram bucket list 

Not even mine

That has a to-do list of its own

Planning. Heating. Washing. Booking

Searching. Deciding. OTPing. Cutting.

Lifting. Scrolling. Messaging. Packing. 

What if when opportunity knocks

I ask it to go to hell

And instead spent the day in indolence

Waiting for the stars on a monsoon-drenched evening

To twinkle

And the half-moon to shine

So that I would sit under them

Doing nothing

And ask for tomorrow to be like today. 

The Idiot of the Month

Among my deeply intellectual pursuits is the effort to ensure a monthly nomination of an Idiot, a prized personality of this humanity-enriching tribe.  Sometimes I post about these, sometimes I don’t (in the fond hope of reserving them for a future book that will fetch me a monthly royalty as a result of one half of the population wanting to read about the other half).

Now, I have been watching this Oh-la-la Agarwal guy with considerable interest and am enchanted by his affable, spiritual and warmly affectionate personality.  In his engagingly empathetic moments, he refers to people who argue with him in touchingly endearing ways, using references to their parental lineage which, he insists, is unknown or to their failure in serious pursuits in the broader canvas of Life (such as comedy).

To make matters interesting, he has now grown a ponytail which, when it becomes longer, will resemble that of a donkey.  The bray of the two personalities – I have heard both with deep absorption, missing no detail however slight - suggests an affiliation closer than friendship in an earlier life.

He makes stuff that looks like scooters (the Agarwal guy, not the donkey): they are shaped like scooters, they have buttons in the right place and speedometers that show the latest buy-value of Bitcoin because they fluctuate randomly and are unhinged to any known part of the scooter. These scooter-like-thingies even emotionally bond with scooters and sometimes catch fire after being overcome with explosive mirth and someone said that you can even do wheelies on them using photoshop.

He (Ponytail Oh-la-la, not Donkey) has an enviable business model: someone buys this scooter-lookalike, does the mandatory puja, without which this thing-that-looks-like-scooters will be a psychological wreck and need a sedative, and then rides out to the service centre owned by the same Agarwal, where it is parked for the rest of its short life for people on Instagram to post reels and for a look-how-funny-I-am guy called Kamra to write stuff on that X thing so that Ponytail replies with deep affection and love, all the while coming up with new products that will stagger civilization (but will not work).  What unites Kamra and Ponytail, of course, is that both of them are comedians.

I know what you are thinking: Agarwal is my Idiot of the Month.  No, no, you have got it all wrong and I would be unfair to this affable, spiritual and warmly affectionate personality (the last thing I want is a reference in Larger Society to my parental lineage).  If you know anyone who has bought one of those things that look like scooters and have buttons in the right place and even a headlight that works only when you lift the back seat and if you know anyone who has invested in Ponytail Oh-la-la …….now that someone is the Idiot of the Month.

It is time to apologise.  Did I say that Ponytail reminds me of a donkey? That is most objectionable being egregiously insulting to the donkey.  For one, the donkey moves. And when there is output – we intrepid wildlife biologists call it dung – it is from the other end (of the other side).

The Flower and the Flutter

 Around the first week of October every year, something magical unfolds.  Ceropegia is a tiny little creeper, nondescript for about fifty weeks in a year, one that you could easily pass by if not a trained botanist.  

Then one day it blooms, a lemon-yellow delicate bloom of rare beauty, nestled amidst grass and cumbersome touch-me-nots, with soft petals and a furry leaf, hence ceropegia hirsuta.  There is no fragrance for humans to inhale, for this is a fly-trap flower that is pollinated with ingenious design (more in the fascinating article below)..https://deponti.livejournal.com/1344391.html

 

There are a precious few of them here at the base of Laburnum Hill, just three plants as far as one can search but in the forest yonder, there are more.  Over the years, I have associated this little creeper in its beauty and simplicity with the Mahatma for they share birth-and-bloom days.  And never has this plant been seen in abundance.  

Wild boars, I am told by Ananda, the knowledge repository, scoop up the tuber of this plant, as do humans on occasion and, for once, I am dismayed at the thought and hope they - boars and bores - fail, give up and let live-and-bloom.  But is there a story to tell here of commensalism between boars and this plant, where the boars dig in (literally) but the plant stays unaffected?  A story beneath the earth, the secret life of a plant that will grow no matter what depredation happens?  Or one that needs the boar’s excavation skills to thrive?  

We don’t know what we don’t know.

And in that distraction of thought, a butterfly comes into view - the Common Silverline, I later learn - resplendent in the warm evening glow, flitting by, pausing briefly on flowers for a last sip before twilight sets in, searching.....

But then, aren't we all?

Dog Eat Dog Turned Panda

 

The most interesting news from last week, of course, was that a Chinese zoo painted a couple of dogs and displayed them as pandas in the Star Attraction category.  As you can see, since this under-panda-is-dog event, the word ‘underdog’ has now got a whole new meaning (which is currently in Chinese and inscrutable).  

Now, we in India are trying to beat China in most things and have only succeeded in population so, in my usual thorough dedicated way, I immediately decided to check if we have done the dog-into-panda routine with those cheetahs in Kuno National Park and whether, after the rains, the paint has washed away and they have gone back to being oversized domestic cats that run very fast because they were fed growth hormones left over from WWF wrestling matches.  My diligent research showed that, as always, the answer is like the answer to the question “What is India’s population now?” or “What is our national debt?”, which is, We Have No Freaking Clue.  So for the time being, I will assume they are cheetahs since they run like cheetahs and don’t say meow (at least loudly) and haven’t tried to rub themselves against someone’s leg when he isn’t watching, giving him the fright of fourteen lifetimes.

But back to dogs-and-pandas or dogs-cum-pandas or dogs-that-were-pandas-but-are-now-bow-wow again or whatever.  I love this idea totally and will actively campaign for more such things in life in general.  For the following reasons:

Near Random Rubble, the farm, lives a goat with strong opinions on people who wear clothes (its owner generally doesn’t and Ramappa can attest to it). It has a robust set of horns (the goat, not the owner) that are clearly made of some evil metal like wrought iron and are sharper than my thankfully-now-dead aunt’s sarcasm (I speak, with deep feeling, of both creatures).  The sinister nefarious plan is to have this goat painted and anointed with headgear to be the cutest calf out of Walt Disney and then left near those noisy retarded pubs in Indiranagar with the result that the word Butt - hereinafter used in verb and noun form - will be in substantial evidence, followed by the fastest evacuation ever recorded in peninsular India after the Rashtrakutas.  

I have also thought of painting up all the street dogs around my place as pandas so then WWF - not the wrestling scamsters but that NGO with the panda as its logo that keeps asking you for money - will round up these blokes, feed them bamboo bark (note the ingenious pun) and keep them around.  Until it rains, that is.  When, of course, we paint them again, this time as penguins.  

As you can see, I dream big in the race against China and am hard at work to explore possibilities that will one day leave pandas wondering if they could become dogs for a change.

Curator Pilav

Among the words fashionably in vogue now is ‘curate’. This means it gets my malignant attention. 

Earlier, a curator was an old fuddy-duddy in a museum, whose only skill as an archeologist was that he knew seven different ways to dig his nose. Then things changed (though his nose remained the same). I read some years ago of a nude museum somewhere in Europe that advertised for a Curator and got more applications than the population of Belgium.  Imagine the ad: “Wanted, Curator for Museum of Birthday Suit Art.  Previous exposure required.  Dress code: none at all”.  The job profile involved going through heaps of photographs, (which task if you did in regular jobs would get you locked up) and passing comments that – it being Modern Art – nobody including you would understand, all the while having a great time and getting paid for it. 

But back to the word Curate.  Nowadays, people curate anything – fashion, cakes, watches, handbags, furniture, veggies. This means that they choose what you can buy - at their price.  The other day I was staying in a biggish hotel and walked downstairs for dinner, only to discover that it was curated by a Chef Somebody.  I was looking for rice, dal and dry veggies, but was told that I could have Zaphrani Pilav with mustard-apple sauce and tamarind baigan (mustard baigan and tamarind apple sauce.  It does not matter.)
“But why can’t I have rice and dal?” I asked with some petulance.

The Chef – that Curator chap – was hurriedly called, so he came by with a big smile (in big hotels, they are trained to do jackshit, but with big smiles).

He was (and remains) the fattest human I have ever seen.  The many layers of his stomach rolled over and – this is fascinating -  his belly button (that had dispatched a reluctant shirt button into outer space) was within whispering distance of his knees.  And if that doesn’t impress you, he had a triple chin on his double chin (ie, subsect of main set – pls refer Set Theory for photographic description).  
As he ambled slowly towards me, there was steam from his nose, so there was probably someone inside, feeding coal to keep the engine moving.    
“Sorry Sir, today’s dinner is curated,” he said, as if that explained everything including global warming.  
“But I want something light, a little rice?” 
“Sir, you can have the Zaphrani Pilav with mustard-apple…..”
“No, no.  I want something light like plain rice.  You know rice?  Stuff that is boiled in water? Pressure cooked?  White in colour? Grown in a paddy field?” This was a weak attempt at sarcasm, which, of course, is completely lost on fat curator chefs.

He gave me a big smile and ambled off never to be seen again.  After reading about half the book that I’d carried down, I went back to the room and ordered baked beans and bread from the Room Service menu.

The baked beans was tinned and therefore utterly ghastly but the bread was good.  Nothing, not even the salt, was curated, so, on the whole, all’s well that ends well

Philip Kotler Is Passe

 

Marketing has its 4 ‘P’s.

So do Bongs  who travel in Calcutta buses (the male ones, I must be careful to emphasise).  The 4 ‘P’s of Bongs in Buses are: Phight, Pheesh, Phone and Phootball.

Calcutta buses were all made around the time shock absorbers were just an idea. but the bongs aren't concerned.  Bongs board them partly because they need to go somewhere, but the larger, deeper reason is simple:  every Cal bus doubles up as a free-for-all arena to express a Bong’s views in the most uninhibited manner.  In general, the Bong in Bus will phight about anything and if the fare has been revised to the minutest degree, it’s fair to expect a sequel to the Bolshevik revolution.  Nobody stays neutral, of course - you could get the worst from both sides.  In the deeper philosophy of cooperation, everyone joins in with spirit and verve, has his say, disagrees with everyone else and mutters under his breath with an air of superiority.  It’s really win-win.  

When he speaks on the Phone, the Bong in Bus can get positively splenetic, splaying his hands, eyes narrowed and staring at the imaginary opponent, the words rattled off at top speed, with a series of insults, each sentence ending with a rhetorical question.  Once I heard a fellow call the chap on the other end something related to a dog (kukkoor), after which he called him - or so it seemed - a stale fish (maach) and continue in the Natural History vein. The other fellow was up to scratch too, but this guy wasn’t listening and I had to lean it closer since the conversation wasn't on speaker, which seems to have got the fellow to think that I was part of it and he began staring at me with virulence.    

The only time the Bong in Bus is silent on the phone is when his better half gives him an earful, such episodes being regular and most lively (for the party of the second part).  When the women in Calcutta buses have an opinion, they do not just express it, they imprint it on stake, much like the common Bee Eater impales its prey.  

I have had many rides, but my shortest in a Cal bus was when, after boarding at Gariahat, I smelt the presence of at least four pheesh, one of which was in an advanced stage of digestion in someone’s intestine.  But pheesh is everywhere in the Cal bus: on top at times, under a seat, in a bag or box and the conductor no doubt neutered his sensory glands with his first salary.

When silence reigns in the back of a bus where the men stand or sit, with their heads uniformly down staring at their mobiles, you know it’s phootball time.  Often, phootball will be interrupted with phight, but these are listless efforts, for the Bong’s attention is on a higher plane.  Occasionally, the Bong in Bus will slap his thigh in irritation and freely curse, and when there is goal by his favourite team, he will slap his thigh in joy and freely curse.  

And, on a philosophical note, if he has reached his destination, but the match is engrossing and he has a seat, he will continue, for the journey, you see, is the destination.

Divine Bovine

The other day I noticed an elderly gentleman – a regular walker in our area – trying to circumambulate a cow of local breed, possibly because it was his puja day.  I understand that if you do this three times and each such time touch the rump of the above-defined cow (not some other passing bovine since infidelity is frowned upon) and then your forehead, hold your ears with cross-hands and do a quick twist-and-turn and pray for wealth, luck might shift to your side. 

 
While I am uncertain if luck would shift to your side, I do know that dung will definitely shift to your shoe, particularly if it is new, expensive and white (the shoe, not the dung) .  And, despite crippling and persistent inflation and everything that Baba Scamdev and Sigma Sri Sri and Jags-in-turban will tell you, dung is not the same as wealth (if it were, the cows around your home would each have shares in Google and a linkedin profile which says, Author of ‘Downloaded without Bullshit’. She/Her/Moo).

Now, you might find all of this unremarkable, but that is because you are not - when reports last came in - a cow. 

But I digress, as always, so back to the story.  This one was a fine HF specimen and she had strong, unambiguous views about being circumambulated, which were expressed by her turning, along with the man’s slow walkaround, so that she was always facing him head-on, with the other end - the tail-on, shall we delicately say - in Slow Release Splatter Mode.  

It took him a few seconds to realise all this, possibly because of an incomplete education in landscape geography where cows are concerned.  When he did realise, he jumped a step back in the well-founded belief that the cow was likely to poke him in, shall we again say, a delicate place, which thereby increased the circumference of the circumambulation.

And there they stood facing each other.

His problem with the cow now, in succinct summary, was that it would either charge or discharge.  

Now, all this was great entertainment for the public and he was advised by one and all (except the cow that kept its own counsel) to do a quick anti-clockwise round and take the cow by surprise but the idea was rejected:  the opposite of good luck is misfortune , he reminded the 8% of India’s unemployed who were now deeply involved in trouble-shooting and hardware updates.  

All this while, the cow stood unmooved - that is a rather feeble pun - and gave him a stony gaze that reminded me of Fr. Shenoy in high school, after a football had got him in the same delicate place mentioned elsewhere in this news account.

A few minutes later, after aborted attempts made in some embarrassment - for he was now the rock star of 13th main - he decided to do a larger circumambulation, by walking around the block a couple of times, while the cow stayed put, its nose in the abundant garbage that he (and others) had left behind.

I am sure there is a moral here, stay posted.  

In The Flood Lies A Tale

 Sometimes you hear a story that makes you sit up.  This is one such story.

“The water was like the sea.  Trees were floating by.  When I looked outside, my neighbour’s two-storey house was collapsing…..it fell and destroyed our house.

I heard my granddaughter, Mridula, crying as I was trying to get out.  I grabbed hold of her little finger, covered her with a cloth and began swimming through the flooding water.  My son pulled each one of us - my daughter-in-law, my grandson and the two of us - through the water and my back and my grandson’s chest were badly injured.  I cried for help while swimming but no one could hear me.  

When we finally reached the shore and moved through a coffee plantation, a wild elephant appeared in our path. 

I told him, ‘We are coming from a great tragedy, don’t do anything to us.  We are afraid.  There is no light and water is everywhere.  We have just survived death.  Don’t do anything to us.’

And then, his eyes welled up with tears…..

My granddaughter and I sat at his feet and he stood there motionless until dawn when,eventually, we were rescued.  Two other wild elephants stood nearby.”

Isn't this a breathless story?

And, just so that we know, until the 1950s, 85% of Wayanad was under forest cover; 62% of those forests disappeared between 1950 and 2018, while the area under plantations - tea, coffee, rubber, ginger - went up by 1800 percent. A thousand eight hundred percent.   

This, then, is another story, a tale of Wayanad.

These two stories aren’t disparate, for at the hip they remain bonded by a common bind.  Listen to the storyteller.  His eyes - and those tears that Sujata saw in them - tell the whole larger story.