Itinerant idiolects - 6 by U Atreya Sarma

U Atreya Sarma

(Autobiographic, with poetic flashes)

 

KIDS SHOULD BE SEEN, NOT HEARD…?!

By U Atreya Sarma

Ever since he was transplanted into our home as a one-month-old on the initiative of my little ones—son and daughter, he had become naturalised and a privileged and pampered member of our household; in short, the apple of all of our eyes. The legend of attachment between him and us soon spread far and wide. No one in our humongous network of kinfolk would ever visit us without bringing him a trolley of crunches and munchies; no one would ever mail us a missive without sending him their love. But of late, with years rolling by, he had occasionally been becoming an apple of discord in the family. The bone of contention was—who should agree to take him out, and when, for his essential morning and late evening walks. In a bid to cajole my children, I designed to resort to the Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit.

“My dear ones, you know what Henry Ward Beecher reveals?”

“Who’s he? What’s that?”                                                                       

“Henry Ward Beecher was a great American clergyman. He was born in 1813 and lived for 74 years. A compulsive pulpit orator, he put us wise with his observation: ‘The dog was created especially for children. He is the God of frolic.’ So, my dear children, obey Uncle Beecher at least.”

“No dad, don’t be a little tin god! Don’t you know that the equation lies aright between children and puppies, and between parents and adult dogs? Be a sport dad! You please take him out in the mornings. In the evenings we would.”

By now it must have been clear to you that the VIP talked about was none other than our canine cutie, a chubby, thickset, bushy, waddling, dark and wide eyed, parti-coloured, velvety mongrel always dressed in a tawny, black and white overcoat—aptly christened ‘Chubby.’

Earlier also my son and I entered, at his unilateral insistence, into a deal for the nonce that he fetch the milk and I walk the pet. I would tell him that one could do both the chores oneself—not wastefully one at a time, but fruitfully at the same time to save aggregate labour and time. But he wouldn’t budge, asserting that ambidexterity didn’t have an effective role here, at least as far as he was concerned. Instead, wiser counsels were foisted on me, after we moved into a new abode during the recent dog days. My obstinate heir enlightened me:

“Dad, at your age, morning walk would be a healthy regimen for a desk jockey and couch potato like you.”

He simpered and went on: “The little rascal defects to you the moment he sniffs your approach. Whining against us, he unceremoniously deserts us despite all the hard jobs we do for him—like combing and grooming, bathing and medicating. You only do some odd jobs for the fellow, that too now and then. Yet, he waggishly cuddles and snuggles up to you, croons and purrs, and licks you all over.”

He paused, then proceeded to conclude: “Our two-floored spiral steps and a two-mile walk with Chubby—collecting the milk sachets en route would help reactivate and relieve your oedematose leg.”

[Flashback: Thirteen summers ago, this motorcycle-borne pen-pusher was the recipient of a fractured leg and a dislocated ankle in a sandwiched collision between two erratically menacing Scylla & Charybdis-like truck-monsters!]

And this episode has trickled down from the inter-millennial cusp, 1999-2001.

Docilely I caved in—much as I detested the walking fad, which to my mind had something geriatric about—and thus my matutinal odyssey with our pet started. “What cannot be cured must be endured.”

So, I resolved to hit a tough track well beyond the two nearer milk points ‘Vijaya’ and ‘Mother,’ and plump for the ‘Jersey.’ A triune mission—a walking exercise, marching the pet about, and fetching the milk—came into being. This dogged milky ‘walkercise’ had the leash in my left; and a basket and a staff in the right. Staff to ward off the sudden and unpredictable threats and attacks between the other “man’s best friends” and mine own, once out in the street. Minus the staff—and plus another onrushing canine rival—I had to perform gyratory gymnastics, i.e., spin round and round in a tethered careering to stall the G-O-D reversals from charging into a fighting proximity. There were occasions, my goodness! when I was sent off balance and crashing down, with my whole body supinely kissing the pimpled and pockmarked surface of the road; the cane losing itself off and trundling down the incline; and the basket with its sachets and prepaid card flying off the hand and flung asunder.

Barring these occasional fixes, our pet posed no problems, but for his hyper allergy to—certain sounds like the jangled thumps of standing or of un-standing a bicycle; the abrupt implosion of kick-starting a two-wheeler; to the sights of rag-pickers heaving along with their sack-load of ‘riches’ hauled up on their backs; and the beggars’ lot the way they were incongruously dressed or under-or-ill-dressed.

In predicaments like this, Chubby would pull and drag me hard away—in a straight line, non-stop, until he was safely out of the panicking vision. Trial and error had since made me streetwise. ‘Dog’matic ordeals appeared to be on the wane. And each morning started unfolding interesting possibilities— of watching the ever-exciting pedestrian passing shows and kaleidoscopic vaudevilles of eye-sharpening and mind-pepping characters during my to-and-fros. There was that rival ‘Vijaya’ dairyman with his regular smileful greetings and unctuous complaisance, probably tuned to an ulterior motive of ultimately weaning me away from our ‘Jersey’ at the farther kiosk, in none too distant time.

Then all of a sudden, one morning, I bumped into a quondam pal of mine. We sidled up to the sidewalk and set off exchanging a fusillade of a decade-long tidings of mutual interest and our addresses. During this rapid-fire dialogue, there was something—in the back of my mind—suggesting that some spirit was voicelessly getting at me. I was flummoxed. Now the transmission turned sotto voce. My friend went on chatting away. Only, I became rather conscious of my environs. I happened to spot a sit-out a few meters away, with human flurry behind its creeper-covered grill, looming before my eye. An impish lad was boisterously gesticulating to—I suppose—his mother and sister.

My good old chum was carrying on enthusiastically, but only the lad’s words were dinning into my ears. I became impervious to everything else.

“Mom, what a daily spectacle is that bespectacled and stubby nosed uncle over there! His head of hair changes its dark-grey fortunes as the moon waxes and wanes!”

What an unkindest and profane dig at my society-savvy attempt to look younger!

On he went: “He has the leash in his hand, but it is always the dog that has his master on the leash. It’s a curious case of the tail wagging the dog!”

Whoomph! How dare the little devil call my little pet a ‘DOG,’ of all names! Only a dog owner understands the pain of this pejorative address. Only an owner understands that a dog can be called by any other name but ‘dog’!

The brat proceeded: “When the dog suddenly goes off at a tangent and tugs at him, the uncle is unable to pirouette on his left foot. He can’t balance himself. Wow! You should watch the way he staggers and blunders—and barks too at his pet!”

Deflated, I plodded homeward and found my scions hotly quarrelling over a ‘non-issue.’ Already peeved, uptight and pent-up, I cathartically pontificated to them on the lack of discipline and of propriety in the children of this high-tech age. In a strained strain, I let the cat out of the bag and chided the indiscretion and profanity of the fool of a boy who had been irreverently gaga over the mien and carriage of a gentleman like me. Spurred by the family, I replayed the audio of that little foolish devil—omitting not even a colon or a hyphen.

To my horror, I was sensing some lurking scowl on the countenances of my children. My consort, with her wonted aplomb, assayed to soothe me:

“Well, forget it man. Don’t trifle a rifle over a trifle.”

With a germane wisdom, she discharged from her repertoire a couple of proverbs for my benefit:

“Children and fools speak the truth,” and “Children should be seen, not heard.”

And she went on. “Anyway, hurry up and get ready. You said you should be very early to your office today. I’m readying you your most favourite dish— bread and hot dogs for your lunch,”—so rounding off, she right-about-turned and glided away to her kitchen, leaving me in an eddy of crisscross brainwaves.

(For Episode-5, see the Aug 2021 issue)
(For Episode-4, see the Aug 2021 issue)
(For Episode-3, see the Apr 2021 issue)
(For Episode-2, see the Jan 2018 issue)
(ForEpisode-1, see the Jun 2017 issue)

 

---

Setu, July 2024