 |
| 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-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)
