Tuesday Horror Film

Tuesday Horror Film

The proposal was placed before the Residence’s Empowered Committee for Cinematic Expeditions (RECCE) the day before and approved by a 3-1 majority. A horror film was chosen for breaking the 16-year drought. I would have preferred a courtroom drama or a thriller, but a horror flick is good enough, I suppose. We opted for the night show, the better to relish the horror. The intimation was given to me at 8:45, I said yes and we were out of the house by 9:15. My wife preferred to stay at home so she could continue her practice with the kitchen knife.

The mall is a stone’s throw away from my house and we were at the counter picking up our tickets with about thirteen minutes and forty three seconds to spare. I took a look around. Quite a decent sized lobby with a few single sofas placed one behind the other. There was a counter selling some liquid refreshments of the aerated kind, a machine made coffee, and snacks consisting mainly of popcorn in different flavours. But no peanuts. And no “murukkus”, the curled and twisted crunchies. A bit of a disappointment. I like to munch on a murukku during shows but am careful not to crack down on it during courtroom dramas when listening to the dialogues is all that matters. But you can’t crunch on corns that pop. I naturally refused the offer of popcorn.

Anyway, we went inside and found our seats without much difficulty. I sat in the middle, flanked by my two daughters. Slowly, the theatre started to fill up. It stopped when it was about a quarter full. There was a brief lull and then the lights dimmed and the screen came alive with a crackle and a burst.

The first trailer to come on was something by someone who had a long name. The letters rushed at me and stopped just in front of my eyes! I had to rotate my head from left to right to read the name covering the entire width of the screen. GUL and MAR flanking the two ends, with SHANKU in the middle. Reading from left to right, GULSHAN KUMAR. Before I could read the rest of it, it changed. Then they showed someone in such close up that I could almost count the hair on his eyebrows. And the sound was something else. Every syllable cracklingly clear! It plays tricks with you so, swirling around like that!

Sixteen years!

There were some three trailers and one of them was repeated. And then there flashed a message on screen to stand up for the National Anthem. I nodded to myself in agreement. And my daughter, the one on my right, told me that I must stand up NOW. Okay. I stood up. We all stood up. I sang the National Anthem to myself and it sounded good. In the days when I went to movie theatres regularly, the National Anthem was always played at the end of the show.

The movie starts quite quietly, showing a chap in his workshop picking up an eye, a fake one, not a real one of course, and fixing it to the face of a doll and then going out and walking across to his house to scare his daughter and tickle her. Then his wife, the daughter’s mother, joins him and they both tickle her, the daughter. Then the scene changes to morning and they are off to church. After church, they are met by a friend who wonders when his supply of dolls would be delivered. Sort of setting the stage for scariness to appear.

The first scary scene is in the beginning. Later on there are some more. Quite a few, in fact. This house has lots of doors, which creak when you try to open them. There are windows which are all curtained. There are lots of dark corners where you can see “things” if you keep your eyes open. As the film progresses, I try to anticipate the scary scenes. When a corner is being turned, I try looking around it for the lurking scream. At one stage, my daughter, the one on my left, follows the scream with her own authentic version, which is echoed by a group of young men down the line. This is followed by a collective sigh of relief and canned laughter. At the end of another protracted scary scene, the much anticipated scream doesn’t come. Instead, INTERMISSION is flashed on the screen.

My daughter, the one on the left, steps out to the lobby and returns with a huge tub of popcorn popped with cheese. No masala peanuts or murukkus. These theatres must allow murukkus, especially when they screen horror films. Imagine a prolonged moment of tense silence followed by the crack of a murukku being crunched! Good fun, it would be! I had to settle for popcorn.

The movie continues from where it left off, with scary scenes tumbling out one after another. I start munching the popcorn, much as I detest it. There’s no crunch and no one is distracted. From my right, I hear a voice muttering about children going off where they shouldn’t and not being careful and why the idiot adults accompanying them don’t stop them and so on and so forth. The children on the screen, of course, are hardly listening. They don’t even hear the shouts from the audience to them to look behind and see that thing that is it creeping up behind them and take immediate evasive action. As the closing credits roll, the crowd filters out. We stand up and watch the screen, looking for interesting titles and names. We are the last to leave.

Dolls are a good theme around which to build horror stories. The scope is quite large.

We descend gingerly to the basement parking lot and I am thinking that sixteen years is quite a record! Quite an outing this was!

We got into the car, locked the doors and closed all windows. I started the engine, paid the parking charges to the doll seated behind the counter at the gate and sped homewards without looking back.

As I turned into the main road leading to the street where I live, I suddenly saw an old man clad in tattered clothes standing right in the middle of the road, with what looked like a largish doll on his shoulder, legs twined around his neck and hands clutching his head. The doll’s lips were pursed, as if it was whistling a jolly tune. I stood on the brake, but could not stop the car. The old man just stood there looking at me through sightless eyes without budging. The doll too was watching unblinkingly. It was hopeless. As the car was about to hit him I braced for the impact, but none came. The car just went through him! I looked in the rear view mirror but there was nothing there! I flew on without stopping to find out.

As we reached home, we saw another eerie sight. The gate was opening by itself! Not wanting to stop, I entered the driveway in a smooth movement and parked my car. The gate closed behind us and I could see what appeared to be the face of a doll peeping out at us from around the closing gate. It, the face, not the gate, disappeared before I could go and thank it properly for the kind courtesy. The main door opened with a creak and we quickly got inside the house. I locked the door securely.

Apart from these rather unexpected, unusual and unnerving incidents, nothing untoward happened.

My wife was just putting away the kitchen knife as we entered. Feeling a bit peckish after all the action, I asked her if there was anything left at home to eat. And guess what she replied?

“Rice and doll”.

©Shiva Kumar 23 August 2017

Shuttle between cricket and hockey

Shuttle between Cricket and Hockey

Last night, around 10 o’ clock, I was witness to some unusual behaviour by the resident strays of my lane. I heard them howling and yowling and barking and creating a ruckus and went out to the gate to investigate. There was activity at both ends of the lane. Down the lane I saw three mongrels running around crazily trying to bite their own tails. On the other side, up the lane, I spied two retired mastiffs stiffly trying to chase a Bobcat up the hongeˊ tree. Bob of course was hardly perturbed and just sauntered away with a raised left eyebrow and a low growl. I was scratching my head and wondering what happened to cause this contrasting behaviour, with Amavasya still a couple of days away.

It transpired that neither the circling mongrels nor the chasing mastiffs were fed by any of the residents as they usually are, chiefly because of some activity happening in distant England.

I looked left and right. My immediate neighbour to my left was a nonentity and he did not come out. My immediate neighbour to my right was non-existent in the sense that it was a vacant site. It was left to my neighbour’s neighbour, the one whose house was on the other side of the vacant site, whose voice is like a bellow, the retired cop, to come out and enlighten me. He told me a short tale of two games between two neighbours.

The retired neighbour, sorry, retired cop, related with much gesticulation that, on the one hand, India had been humbled by Pakistan in London and, on the other, India had trounced Pakistan in London. Which didn’t make any sense to me, like anything he utters. Utter nonsense. These cops tend to mix up things just to confuse you and extract some confession out of you. I almost owned up to a car theft attempt before I realised that it was my own car and I had got the window open with a steel foot rule only because I had parked the key inside the car and locked it instead of parking the car inside the garage and locking it. Luckily I bit my tongue in time and stopped myself from incriminating myself.

Coming back to the story at hand, it transpired that India played Pakistan. If this was not bad enough, they played them twice in two different games at the same time. In one game they beat them and in the other they were beaten by them. Thumped them in hockey and got thumped in cricket. The mongrels and the mastiffs were not fed by any of the residents who were otherwise preoccupied screaming, ranting and raving in front of their television sets, making them go crazy and behave as they did.

India thumping Pakistan or Pakistan humbling India is big news. When both these things happen simultaneously, it is big, big news. Anything else happening in between is for the moment ignored. With the newshounds busy shuttling between cricket and hockey, a shuttler who also made news was almost forgotten. Almost. The line umpires called him in. He found mention, albeit in fewer words, alongside the cricket and hockey news. Kidambi Srikanth. He won the Indonesia Open Super Series Premier Badminton Singles trophy beating Japanese qualifier Kazumasa Sakai in Jakarta, Indonesia. Super. Kudos!

Hongeˊ or Indian Beech Tree is an outbreeding  legume tree, with a diploid chromosome number of 22, growing wild on sandy and rocky soils, including oolitic limestone, whatever that may be.

Amavasya – New Moon.

© Shiva Kumar – 19 June 2017

Left or Right?

Homeward Bound

Just last Sunday, the last Sunday of April, 2017, I had gone to attend the marriage function of my daughters’ very dear friend. My daughters had reached the day before and I was motoring down alone, my wife having stayed back to be with my mother.

To reach the venue, I had to travel South from home for about 35 km and then turn West off the highway and roll on for another 3-4 km on a narrow winding road past a ‘bhileez’. Halfway down the highway, my car’s AC decided the heat was too much wanted to take the other way. So it went out. I had to vent out the heat through the windows. Fortunately, it being its own day, the sun had likely woken up late and was only beginning to warm up so it was manageable.

My short journey was without incident and I reached just in time for the ‘muhurtham’. The hall was imaginatively designed. There was a central square where the marriage ceremony was conducted. This was surrounded by a tiny moat. On the outer periphery, there was a gallery setting where all the guests sat. Very nicely decorated with flowers and all. I sat in a corner near a huge pedestal fan which was blowing air laden with rose-scented water into my face. I felt like a rose garden. So much so that someone came up to me and asked me “Aap Gulabi ke fother hain?” I rose from there and took another seat. Wah!

Lunch was a quiet affair without much ‘halla-gulla’. There was a tasty pilaf followed by a superb rasam to go with the plain rice. And there was a sweet dish called "pheni" but no rossogulla. Having filled myself right up to the Plimsoll line, I lolled around for some time but forbore to take a nap. The heat, the good lunch courteously served and the absence of a nap all contrived to get me into a half-stupor as I took my leave.

When you get into any kind of a stupor, don’t drive ‘tod upor’. I checked the car AC. It was snoring gently so I decided not to risk any confrontation by waking it up. I rolled the windows down to “hawa aane de” mode. As I drove out of the gate, the heat was beating down and the road appeared to be ululating in front of me. No, not ululating. Pulsating. Doing a jig. I was seeing mirages. The result was that I took a different route out of the village from the one I had used to get in, and got confused not a bit. It would be wrong to say I was lost but maybe I was just a little disoriented. The compass in my head had stopped working. My mobile signal and GPS too appeared to have stepped out for a breather.

I neared what looked like the main road and stopped beside a couple of misguided pimples sitting by the roadside, apparently passing the time of the day, to clarify my doubt whether to turn right or left for Bangalore. Of course, I didn’t know they were misguided or pimples but they had “no good” written all over them. But there were no other excrescences around and these were the only blots I could ask, so I asked them. And I was told to turn right. Something about the tone of the voice put me on alert. It sounded like it was waiting to laugh. The boil who told me to turn right might have slapped the back of his jobless sidekick in glee, but I didn’t see it as I was occupied looking at the road ahead. I did hear a kind of slapping sound, though.

This advice to go right didn’t sound right and I decided to seek a second opinion. I first shook my head three times vigorously, mentally poked my brain awake with the nib of my fountain pen filled with a compassionate violet ink and washed it (the brain, not the nib or the ink or the pen) with cold water. Then, I drove a little further and, slowing down near an old man, put my head out and shouted the question to him, “Bengaluru lefta, righta?” He leaned towards me as far as his neck would allow and told me in an equally loud voice, “Bengaluru leftu!” For good measure, he gesticulated towards the left with his left hand. Two other chaps standing near him nodded to their left in affirmation. I nodded back courteously in appreciation of the sincerity in the voice and the vigorous gesticulations, put my head back in and turned left as advised.

Just then the GPS sauntered back to my mobile holding the signal's hand and told me that left was right and right was wrong. I wanted to go back and shake the old man by his hand and the misguided young rascal by his neck, but calmer sense prevailed and I continued homeward without further let or hindrance. Quite an eventful Sunday it turned out to be.

GLOSSARY:
Bhileez > village

Muhurtham > the auspicious time to perform any important function, like a marriage

Aap Gulabi ke fother hain? > Are you Gulabi’s father?

Halla-gulla > a colloquial term for commotion

Rasam > a kind of a South Indian soup with tamarind juice, tomato, lentils and salt,  seasoned with spices like chilly, pepper, cumin, mustard, etc, and garnished with curry and coriander leaves.

Pheni > a kind of stringy thin rice noodles over which sweetened milk, flavoured with saffron, almonds and cardamom, etc. is poured before it is eaten

Tod upor > a Bengali term meaning “on top of it” or “afterward”

Rossogulla > a highly popular sweet believed to have originated in Bengal and Odisha (there are claims from both regions), made from Indian cottage cheese shaped into round dumplings and soaked in sugar syrup

Hawa aane de > a Hindi term meaning “let the air pass”

© Shiva Kumar, 4^th May 2017

THAT RAIN

THAT RAIN

This thing about going to watch a movie, huh, with me, happens like this:

Earlier in school, I overhear one of my classmates praising Rahul Dev Burman and his music. I don’t know much about RDB or his music. I want to find out for myself.

The show is at 3:30 p.m. Matinee. Rather popular movie, The Train, and still in its first week run so better be at the theatre by 3. Just a stone’s throw away from home. Bricks walk.

3:01 – Entrance to Theatre Lavanya is crowded. Push through the crowd to the Dress Circle ticket counter. Some twenty three guys lining up. All of them seem to be from one group or one family. Though why entire families should come and watch “The Train”, I don’t know. Stupid families. It is something everyone knows about. Second largest railway network in the whole world, one engine pulling many coaches, to stop train pull chain and all that sort of thing. If you ask me, one senior member should watch the fleem and then relate the happenings to his family, friends, neighbours and well wishers over a leisurely dinner. Instead of wasting money bringing Abba, Ammi, Chuchha, Chucchi, Bhaijaan, Behaniya, Chotu, Motu and their neighbours Doosra, Saamy, Murgais, Super, Topi, Motte and Selva too along. The only one left behind must be their mongrel, Leader. Auto ka kharchaan, ticktaan lenaa, phir pop corn aur chipsaan aur mango juicaan ka kharchaan, upar se fleem mein dialogaan kya bhi sunneko, samajhneko sar phiraana, museebataan jhael leko, gaaliyaan de deko thak jaanaa, yeh kya ba pareshaani!

Still and all, having come so far, better not go back without a dekko. Itr lagaa ke line mein lag jaao.

3:10 – Stand in the line for Dress Circle tickets. Everyone is dressed and circling around like birds of prey.  No itr. Only fikr. Suddenly spot “Ondreˊ” Mani (Ondreˊ in Tamil = One and a half). His father is a fleem distributor so he should be able to do something and get me one ticket. Greet him like old friend which, in any case, he is. He understands what I want even before I aks. Just says “Weight hear.” I understand and wait there.

3:20 – Still no sign of OM. Yeh kya ho raha hai? From inside the hall I can hear an excited hum. They have begun to show slides I think. Lights are dimmed in the lobby. Meanwhile, the crowd outside has thinned. Whole families have shifted to one of the other neighbourhood theatres. These theatrewallahs have an arrangement, I suspect, to start their fleems at fifteen minute intervals, to make the left over crowd from one theatre spill over to the next. Bahut smart.

3:25 – There he is! Old friends don’t ditch their old friends. Walks up to me and presses a pass into my hand and says “enzoy”. I thank him and run in. The slides have just stopped and there is a lull. The usher ushers me to my seat and I slide in. Aisle seat, thankfully. Tanks ba!

3:30 – Gun time. Suddenly, there is the sound of curtains being drawn and doors being closed. The lights go off and there is an expectant silence. Time.

3:33 – Fleem starts to roll. Action! And soon there’s a song.

            Lallallalla la, la la la la la la la and so on.

            Bulaagi eyes.

Intermission: Come out and look at the notice board. Scenes from the fleem. Too much of a crowd at the snack counter. Get back inside.

Trailer of some fleem, followed by ‘nuther trailer of ‘nuther fleem.

5:45 or so – the fleem is over and I come out into the cool air. Nothing much to say except that the songs are good.

There was Rajesh Khanna. There was a Rafi solo which was too good and a Rafi-Lata duet which I liked. There was also an RDB-Asha duet which was enjoyable. A couple of other songs. Hummable. I don’t remember much of the story. Fleem dreckted by Ravee Nagaich. Uthaach. Let me watch it again and I’ll post a review. Weight hear.

-          © Shiva Kumar 1^st May 2017

Hello! Olleh!

Hello! Olleh!

I was doing nothing in a lazy, slow sort of way, when I got the call. It fairly jolted me, the “jannngg” of the phone ring. After disentangling my legs from the armchair’s, I put ear to phone. Or was it phone to ear? I don’t remember now. It is not important.  

Right. So I was putting ear to phone or vice versa. I uttered the important word, the password for every one of my confidential tele-conversations.

“Hello?”

“Olleh!¹” The answer was crisp and to the point. The popular return password, given before any business was discussed.

“Is that you?”

“Yes, it is I.”

“I?”

“Me.”

“I or me? Don’t confuse and tangle me. Now I’ll have to ask you the untangle question. Tell me, how many letters does ‘Thippagondanahalli²’ have and how many are repeated?”

“Eh?”

“Okay. It is you. Now pack your case and get ready to travel. Secret mission. Don’t go and tell your neighbour or borrow his suitcase. Usual preparations. Don’t shave. Meet me at the car park of Metro, the station, not the bar, near your house at 6:35 sharp tomorrow evening, pronto, without fail. In case you are going to get delayed by traffic, call and inform beforehand. Right?”

“Right!”

Khat³. The call was cut. Our department was careful to keep calls short and to the point.

I rose to my full height. And remembered that I hadn’t been told how many guns to pack. Shoot! I’d have to call back now and find out. Shoot, shoot! And while I was at it, I must also find out who called me. Shoot, shoot, shoot! How could I have been so careless? I called back the number which had called me. On the second ring it was picked up and he seemed to know what I was going to ask, for he uttered just two words, the first of which was “Two”. The second was “Aleph”.

Khat. The call was cut.

I understood. One, I was to pack two guns. Two, it was Aleph beta (“son”), the third-in-command, who called me.

I quickly changed into my teens and jees, no, actually my jeans and tees, and took an autorick to Comm Street. At the first corner, there is a shop which I patronise. The shopkeeper, simply known as Bhai (“Brother”), sells good quality peanut chikkis⁴ at reasonable prices. He also clandestinely deals in other exotic stuff, a fact known only to a select few. Sometimes he lets me pay later, when he is confident I will return from my mission. Bhai saw me approach and laughed. Comedian. Everything looked funny to him.

He attacked me with questions. “Kya ba? What ba? Tume aati kathi lekin aati nai? You say you are coming but not coming? Kya kissa? What matter? Sab khairiyath? All well?”

I replied, somewhat diffidently “Arrey, pooch nakko, bhai-jaan. Arrey, don’t ask, brother-life.” So he stopped asking.

“Manje do gunnaan diyo. Gimme two guns. Abhich. Right now. Phataphat. Fatafat.”

“Kisi ko maar daaltin tume? Are you going to bump off someone?”

“Shshsh! Secret! Tume pooch nakko, hume nai bataatin so. You don’t ask, I won’t tell.”

“Ho-oh? Do lyaaza. Is that so-oh? Two minutes.”

He stepped out and shouted, “Arrey Chhotu, do cutting cha leko aa re. Arrey Chhotu, bring two cutting teas.” And promptly a small boy appeared carrying a steel frame holding several small glasses of what looked like tea and handed one over to me and one to Bhai. I took a sip. It tasted like gunmetal and brought back memories of that eventful day in Stanbull when that canteenwala had shoved the barrel of a gun into my mouth and demanded payment for the measly cup of cutting chai which he had served me. First time I tasted gunmetal. Those days, plastics had not become popular and guns were still made the traditional way, from metal salvaged by melting old Kadahis⁵ (frying pans). It was this self-same Bhai who paid up for me. We go back a long way. He has never let me pay for chai after that.

Sending Chhotu off and making sure no one was watching, Bhai reached out under the bench he was sitting on and pulled out a small steel trunk secured with a length of naada⁶. Safe. Apparently the naada knot needed a password to open. He quickly muttered “pappa pippi puppu pow” and yanked. Voila! The knot unravelled.

Taking another look around to see that no one was around, he quickly opened the trunk and pulled out some seven or eight menacing looking guns. He explained that they were made by his own chachajaan (uncle-life), from tough unbreakable PVC, the same material used for making overhead water tanks. I nodded. Yesss! Just what I wanted. I checked them all and selected a blue Mausa Tadap (Saat Par Paanch or .65) calibre and a yellow Mausi Dhadak (Tees Par Teen or .33) calibre. These Mausas and Mausis were good. They showed no mercy. As long as they were with you, you were in relative safety.

After a quick bargain and a promise to pay soon, very soon, I shoved the Mausa into the waistband of my jeans at the back and the Mausi into my left sock and ambled off. A couple of minutes later I realised I had forgotten something crucial. I went back and asked for bullets. Bhai gave me two of the latest “Gudbud” non-gradable hard plastic bullets – a large one for the Mausa and a small one for the Mausi, along with two small rolls of tough parachute-nylon string – one end to be tied to the ring at the end of the bullet and the other to a similar ring at the tip of the barrel so that immediately after the bullets hit their targets, they could be yanked back. It was an ingenious retrieval design called “Wapas”, invented and patented by a bulk trader in bhujiya sev⁷ who was experiencing difficulties in collecting payments from his dealers. I was also given a cleaning cloth free of charge. Bhai knew how to take care of his special customers. I thanked him and pushed off. I was armed to the teeth and ready. Don’t mess with me!

GLOSSARY

1.     Olleh = a commonly used return password, the Hello returned.

2.     Thippagondanahalli = The name of a village and of the reservoir situated there which used to supply water to the city of Bangalore. An 18-letter tongue twister word, in which 6 letters are repeated, one of them twice and two of them consecutively.

3.     Khat = the sound made when a telephone call is cut decisively. Dons especially like to end calls this way.

4.     Chikki = a sticky toffee made from peanuts and boiled jaggery. Minus the peanuts, the jaggery toffee was known in the Bangalore of the nineteen sixties as “Stickjaw”.

5.     Kadahi = a bowl-shaped frying pan traditionally made of iron, with handles or ears on either side.

6.     Naada = the string that is used to tie pyjamas around the waist. Also used to secure suitcases and boxes. A naada knot is nearly impossible to unravel.

7.     Bhujiya = a savoury snack which originated in the town of Bikaner in Rajasthan and which doubles as a life saver on Earth.

(Bhu = Earth; Jiya = Life; Sev = Save)

-       © Shiva Kumar 2017

The Train to Mayiladuthurai

The Train to Mayiladuthurai

In Tamil,
“Mayil” = Peafowl (peacock or peahen),

“aadum” = dancing,

“thurai” = place

Mayiladuthurai gets its name from the Mayura or Mayil (peacock) form in which Goddess Parvathi worshipped God Shiva at this place. While previously known by its Sanskrit name Mayuram (and Mayavaram) meaning "peacock town", the town has been recently de-Sanskritized to its Tamil translation Mayiladuthurai as a result of a petition by the Mayuram municipality to the Government of Tamil Nadu in the wake of the Dravidian Movement. The Mayuranathaswami Temple dedicated to Goddess Parvathi is one of the most important Hindu temples in the town. There is a statue depicting Goddess Parvathi in a peahen form worshipping a linga, the symbol of God Shiva to the west of the eastern wall of the temple.

                                                                                                            (Source: Wikipedia)

As the week dawned – (do weeks dawn?) – and I got my instructions to get ready for a train journey, it dawned on me that I had no clue. I donned my thinking cap and thought. Then “thunk!” It sank in. Another secret mission. They should make a list of all missions beforehand and give it to chaps being sent on missions so that chaps don’t get confused when they have to go on missions suddenly. Weak yawn.

Gradually, the details filtered in. I gathered them.

Anyway, to come to the nub or the crux or the rem, there I was, all details committed to memory and torn up, shredded, burnt and flushed so no one will ever know. In secret service parlance it is referred to as “no need to know”. What? Exactly. It will be tough to get anything out of me now. How do you unflush, unburn, unshred or untear something?

I got a pleasant surprise when I sat down and booked my train ticket online. As soon as I entered my age in the space provided, there was a “sproing”, followed by an “aila!” from the computer and then the price of the ticket got halved! Voila!

At the appointed time on the appointed evening, I stood on Platform No. 2 of Bengaluru Cantonment Railway Station, twiddling the shoulder straps of the haversack hoisted behind my back, waiting for the Mysuru-Mailaduthurai Express (My-Mai Express) to arrive.

There was something stabbing me in the back. I opened the haversack and peered in. Ah! It was the steel spoon packed to help me shovel the curd rice in. I pushed it into a corner away from my back and went back to waiting.

This My-Mai Express used to be called Bangalore-Tiruchirapalli Express and ran from Bangalore to Tiruchirapalli (and back, of course). Later, its run was extended up to Thanjavur and it came to be called Bangalore-Thanjavur Express. Still later, someone somewhere somehow decided that the train needs to run more up and more down and stretched its route somewhat at both ends. The result is that it now runs from Mysuru to Mayiladuthurai. And back. Bengaluru City, which started off as the origin and destination station, got pushed down one third of the way from the Mysuru end.

The train arrived on time and I hopped in. Then hopped off. Wrong door. This one said 1 TO 72. My berth was not near this door. I ran to the other door which said 72 TO 1 and jumped in before anyone could say “Mayiladuthurai”. Moving stealthily and quickly, I secured my berth No. 70 near the door by placing my haversack on it. I was allotted the top berth. Top berths for top men. Hah!

The cubicle was empty except for me and another gent. Probably another agent. He didn’t speak much. In fact, he didn’t speak at all. This could be because he was fast asleep. Smart thing to do when you have to get off at half three in the morning.

I quickly opened my dinner box, unpeeled the butter paper wrapped around the butter-pepper sandwich and wolfed it down (wolfed down the sandwich, I mean, not the butter paper), shovelled in the curd rice and vadumanga pickle with the back-stabbing spoon and curled up in my bunker, er, berth. And didn’t sleep one wink. I wanted to, but was afraid I might wake up in Mayiladuthurai.

But I must have nodded off because I was woken up suddenly by some noise. The well-oiled clock in my head read 01:03:27 hours (my head follows the 24-hour system of telling time, starting from 00:00:00), we had reached some station, the train was motionless and there was commotion outside. It seemed like hordes of people were trying to get into our compartment. My sleep was eroded. I heard the word “erode” being bandied about and, using my superior intelligence, was able to guess where we were. Listening to the pandemonium outside, I prepared for the worst eventuality but need not have worried because I was ensconced in my top berth and no one attempted to snatch it away from me. It is rather difficult to snatch top berths away, you see.

Ultimately, a group of four persons, including a tiny kid of about three-and-a-half, barged their way in and triumphantly took possession of the vacant berths below me. Suddenly the compartment had become full and started to tilt ever so slightly towards our end. I lay still and pretended to be sleeping by not opening my mouth. But kept both my ears open. Just in case.

By and by the train chugged off once again and picked up speed. The din died down only slightly. Because the kid, who was secured to one of the middle berths by a printed Erode bed-sheet and the arms of his mother, wanted to get off and run around. He started demanding his rights vociferously but his amma was unmoved. The person I assumed to be his father was hiding under another Erode sheet on the top berth opposite mine. The kid started bawling loudly. I sobbed silently into my pillow. Goodbye, sleep, thou art mist terribly. Pray, when will thou come to mine eyes?

Ultimately and to my great relief, the kid and the mummy appeared to reach some kind of amicable settlement or understanding or truce; a couple of papers were signed and exchanged between them, they shook hands solemnly and went into silent mode. I tried sitting up to give thanks but there was no head room so I did it supine.

The next thing I remembered was that someone was shouting “Yendiru, adutthadu Trichy (wake up, next is Trichy).” I clambered down, slipped on my slip-ons, hitched my haversack and waited. The clock in my head said 03:29:38. Right on time, the train as well as the clock. (I must remember to continue to oil my head regularly.)

Trichy Fort! As I detrained and clambered up the steps of the over-bridge, I got a glimpse of the Rockfort Temple, lit bright. I paused and shot off a quick Namaskaram to my Supreme Commander.

The autorickshaw men of Trichy Fort are a militant lot. I am told that, back in the days of yore, they used to ferry warring soldiers from both camps up and down the fort. They became known for naming the fare and not budging but getting paid by the warring soldiers without demur. This automan wanted eighty rupees to convey me to my lodge. I felt the fare was unreasonable and told him so. He did not budge. I cleverly decided that, if he did not budge, I would, and got going by foot. When the going gets tough, the tough get going and all that sort of thing. After walking for about twenty rupees, I found another auto chap who quoted a more reasonable fare of sixty rupees. I got in and we phut-phutted to the seventy-year old hostelry which was to be my abode for the day.

The watchman at the gate asked me my name. I told him. His eyes opened wide and he opened the gate wide. I walked in, and presented myself at the empty reception. Nothing happened for about a minute. Then a genial gent who turned out to be the third generation owner suddenly materialised through the far wall and asked me my name. I told him. He just nodded and pushed a register towards me and, showing me a blank rectangle, told me to fill it, which I did, with a beautiful three-dots-reducing-to-one “kolam” ( or rangoli, traditional design made by hand from coloured powder, on the ground in front of houses and a popular custom in South India). No, actually, I filled in my name and address. I paid him a grand sum which shall remain confidential. He then made a secret notation in the register and said “1-2-3”. I blinked. This code was not given to me. Then he clarified, “that’s your room number” and I relaxed.  He advised me to “go and relax for some time”. Summoning the watchman, he handed over a key to him. The watchman politely relieved me of my haversack and waited.

It was not yet four o’ clock and still pitch-dark outside. I held the watchman’s hand and he led me to my room, my haversack in his other hand, I couldn’t see if it was the left or the right hand because of the darkness. He opened the door, switched on the tubelight and waited expectantly. I gave him ten rupees and he parked my haversack on the side table. Fair exchange.

After he left the room, I whooped and lay down for a spot of rest.

The lodge has a quaint dining hall, large and pillared. It serves only “tiffin”, no “saappaadu” or meals. There are small individual tables with a stool in front of each. There is also a sign which says “PLEASE PUT THE LEAF INTO THE BIN AFTER USE”.

They make only so many idlis every morning, a sort of a limited steamer service, and since half as many persons had already eaten, two to a person, the idlis were sold out. I had to be content with poori-urulaikizhangu (poori-potato sabji) and dosai-chutney-sambar.

I polished off two poories while my dosai was being manufactured. When it was delivered, I could only stare. It was a huge affair, about a yard in diameter and could easily be unfurled into an umbrella - it was only missing a stick with a handle on one side and spokes on the other. The dosai was reverently folded, re-folded and laid onto my leaf. Sambar and chutney were poured on one side while I tackled it from the opposite side, working my way inwards slowly but surely, all the while careful to ensure that the chutney-sambar dam was not breached. By and by, the leaf became clean. I rolled it up tightly, folded it in the middle and dropped it into the bin dutifully.  A hearty breakfast was finished off in typical style with a tumbler of strong filter kaapi, sakkarai kammi.

Having fortified myself thus, I set off from Trichy Fort on my mission. Which I won’t tell you about, it being a secret mission and all that sort of thing, you know. Suffice it to say that I accomplished a fair degree of confusion. My only regret was that I did not get to have panneer soda, the fizzy rosewater flavoured drink which I’ve had only in Trichy.

The return train journey to base was nothing much to write about, so I won’t write about it. I arrived back in Namma Bengaluru at the crack of dawn and was ferried home in an autorickshaw named “Om Madurai Veeran”.

© Shiva Kumar 2016

Rangaswamy & The Tiger

Hilarious!

Rangaswamy & The Tiger 

(Colonial Poetry of the Raj)

Deep in jungle I am went

On shooting Tiger I am bent

Bugger Tiger has eaten wife

No doubt I avenge poor darling's life

Too much quiet, snakes and leeches

But am not feared these sons of beeches

Hearing loud noise I am jump with start

But noise is coming from damn fool heart

Taking care not to be fright

I am clutching rifle with eye to sight

Should Tiger come I will fall him down

Then like hero return to native town

Then through trees I am espying one cave

I am telling self - "Rangaswamy be brave"

I now proceed with too much care

From nonsense smell this Tiger's lair

My leg is shake, I start to pray

I think I shoot Tiger some other day

Turning round I am going to go

But Tiger giving bloody roar

He bounding from cave like shooting star

I commend my soul to Kali Ma

Through the jungle I am went

Like bullet with Tiger hot on scent

Mighty Tiger rave and rant

Rangaswamy shit in pant!

Must to therefore leave the jungle

Killing Tiger one big bungle!!

I am telling that never in life

I will risk again for damn fool wife.

                                 ~ Anonymous

                                   (source: internet)