Katrina, the Cat’s s Monologue (Santosh Bakaya)

Santosh Bakaya

My name is Katrina, call me Katrina, not Cat! Veronika has shortened my name to Kat. Everyone is a cat, what I mean is not everyone is a cat, but there are cats everywhere. So, I am Katrina, not just any cat, mark my meows!

I don’t know who, but someone had said, what’s in a name. It must be Shakespeare as I have heard Veronika take this man’s name many times.  He is someone big, I think.  But, I tell you, there is lot in a name. Lot. Meow!
 
 I can smell war in the air, and let me tell you, it does not smell good. Not at all good. You know, Veronika is a very good student of English literature, and she loves books.   If a war were called by some other name, would it smell sweet? What notions! I am a resident of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, which is very much in the news these days. Some days back I was a happy cat.  But 24 February 2022 changed all that. I changed into an unhappy cat. 
 
 Veronika has often told me that I am slothful, well what can I do, if I love to laze?  I just love to look at sunflowers swaying in the early morning breeze, squirrels frisking around and birds chirping. That is my basic nature. A couple of months back I would just lounge on the terrace and look around. Last year, I remember looking at the parapet of a neighbour’s flat.  A bird had made its nest there, would it make it again?
 
 A couple of  mornings back, when I was lazing on the terrace, I gasped when I saw enormous plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky and startled birds flying off. It was as if the sky was belching and roaring and bellowing out smoke. What was up? The days suddenly became so gloomy, and very cold. I started hearing a lot of words like war, conflict, safety, nuclear power, detonation, bombs, tanks and missiles. I cannot even pronounce these words, but am hearing them every day.  I really love Veronika a lot, and I think she loves me too. She keeps saying that it is love that keeps the world moving, and I firmly believe in whatever she says.   
 
  First, there was some strange virus wreaking havoc, now this! What actually was this?  I had seen Veronika watching cat videos and laughing uproariously at their antics. She even watched Stepan the tabby, that online Instagram sensation.   I would often get jealous when she kept saying, “how cute”!  “Oh what a beauty!” “Even Britney Spears follows her.” I mean, I can also become a sensation. Give me a chance, please. Meowwwwwwww!

Things changed after February 24. My happy Veronika became a sad Veronika. 
Now I see her watching videos of cats and dogs, in their master’s arms, all of them looking so mournful. I had also peeped into one of the videos to find a man carrying two kittens in a cat basket,  I had seen Veronika  bursting into sobs looking at a young woman clutching tightly to her dog, both looking so sad.

It was March 8, and Veronika’s birthday.

“Katrina, where are you?” She was yelling, against the backdrop of wailing of air raid sirens.  Maybe she was taking me down for cake cutting.

 But she has never shouted like this before. Why was she shouting? If I could speak, I could also out- yell her, but meow was the only word I could utter. 

“Meow, Meow,” I purred as I heard her bounding up the stairs.

 She was mumbling something, “I cannot leave you behind.  I just cannot.” 

Her parents had gone out of the country for two months, and she was all alone at home. They are always travelling, and Veronika is always sending them text messages. But for almost two years, they had not stepped out of the house, because of that virus I told you about, remember? But now they were again travelling and Veronika and I were alone at home.
 
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”* She uttered, scooped me up in her arms, put me in a basket, some books, some packets of biscuits, snacks and a few clothes in a strolley and locking  the house with shaking fingers, we headed out of the house, her lips continuously mumbling. Before locking the door, she picked up her favourite family picture, in which all three of them were dancing around a bonfire, in the wilderness.
***
 
I see people holding sunflowers and chanting something, and yes, I remember a couple of years back having gone to a sunflower field, ah, it was so majestic! I hear a hysterical dog barking frantically, his eyes fall on Veronika and me, and he stops barking. I see weeping, creeping, sobbing, bombing, shelling, killing humanity, but the dog has stopped wailing. He looks at me, I look at him. Is it love at first sight?  I notice he has a collar in his neck. Has his family died or has it deserted him and gone to safer shores? I stand up in my basket and crane my neck in his direction. As my eyes follow him, I see that he is following us. Veronika looks in his direction and smiles- a sad smile. Then she bends down, pets him, whispering something, very tenderly. The dog seems to understand, and after that he does not leave our side for even a second. He has found his safe haven, or has he?

We are tired; what I mean is, I cannot possibly be tired, as I was all along sitting in a basket, but Veronika is, so is the dog.
 
“Buzo, let us sit under this tree for some time.” Buzo looks at her quizzically, as though wondering whether it was safe to stop under a tree, but with an implicit faith, in his new friend, he bounds towards us.  Maybe he is also wondering at the new name given to him, but then what is in a name, as that Shakespeare chap had said.   Veronika had started calling him, Buzo just like that.  But I did not call him anything. I just kept glancing at him, eyes refusing to leave him, and he kept glancing at Veronika. It was a triangular love story, I think.
 
 We sat under a tree, and she pulled out a book. I looked at the cover, it was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and she started reading out loud.

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet, it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”

But here, there were three people in love and love, Veronika tells me repeatedly, can tackle every hurdle. And I was told, that there would be many hurdles along the way, but we had love on our side. And Buzo.
 
We rested for some time and walked on- at least Veronika and Buzo did. I just sat in my cat basket, looking around curiously. Cats are known to be curious, you know, and I have heard it said,  that curiosity killed the cat, but I had an eerie feeling that it was not curiosity that would kill me, but something else. Maybe a bomb, a missile or a shrapnel.
 
Where are we? The place is something like I have never seen before. It is an underground metro station, I think. I don’t understand all that is going on. Am I going to die? But a cat has nine lives, so maybe I will be reborn.

 I see a man kissing the forehead of his wife, his face tear streaked, and holding his ten year old daughter tight. I hear the words, bomb shelter. I hear bombs.

After some time, the sounds of bombing stop, and we again head out of the bomb shelter. Courage, dignity and resilience, I hear someone say. I wonder what these words mean, but I see Veronika looking around with a sad expression. I feel like jumping from the basket and hugging her tight, my lovely Veronika!
***
 
 We are at a train station. It is freezingly cold.  Where are we going, leaving our snug home behind? Maybe we are going to where Veronika’s parents are… or maybe … Nowhere.

Huddled in a corner sits a woman robotically flipping the pages of her family album, a mother and child wave to a man from the train window. The man does nothing but wipes his tears. Tears of helplessness.  I see a child’s tear- ravaged face framed in one of the windows.

The train moves away.

Maybe we would also board a train soon. The train to nowhere. The train to homelessness. I look at Buzo, and find that he is also looking at me, love rippling in his limpid eyes.  Love is all that matters, his eyes seem to tell me, as I see people hugging each other, lending a helping hand to each other.

I see a three year walking on tiny feet, each little hand held by a grandparent. It is difficult to gauge who is clinging to whom.

“Da,” The three year old turns back and beckons to his grandfather who has lagged behind, as his walking stick has fallen to the ground.  I see a young man quickly going in his direction, picking it up and handing it to him. The old man smiles and ruffles the young man’s hair, and walks on towards his wife and grandchild.   Buzo again looks at me.

There is something intense in his eyes. Once again, I am convinced, it is love. I tell you, you can feel love, just as you can feel hatred.

“A twelve story apartment building has erupted in flames”, I hear someone say. “We have become refugees,” another adds, voice choked.

 Refugees? But I am a cat, do cats also become refugees? I wonder. Why all this hatred? I wonder. I am indeed a curious cat, curious about things happening, and also curious about things not happening.
 
 I remember Veronika quoting that great man Martin Luther King jr. ‘hatred is too great a burden to bear, I have decided to stick to love’. I will also stick to love, come what may.

I won’t allow the name REFUGEE to stick to me. There is a lot in a name, despite that Shakespeare chap. I am happy to take refuge in Buzo’s love- filled eyes. I feel very snug here, as snug as the hearth that we left behind.

I see the sun in his eyes, and a lingering fragrance of sunflowers clings to me.
I sigh a cat’s happy sigh. Buzo also sighs a dog’s happy sigh.
 
 Veronika also sighs, wiping a silent tear, her body shuddering with staccato bursts of sobs.

She has just heard that a pregnant woman and her baby have died after a maternity hospital was bombed.

 “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”* I mumble [I never forget quotes, you know!] But my eyes refuse to leave the sunflowers blooming in Buzo’s eyes. 

* A line from the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream 3. 2 [Shakespeare] Puck, a mischievous elf comments on the folly of human beings coming to his forest.

---

Setu, March 2022

Revisit: What's New, What's Old? (Santosh Bakaya)

Santosh Bakaya

Another Whodunit

“What is this?” I shouted at the top of my voice as I received yet another YouTube video on WhatsApp. My husband was busy Netflixing, and in between, for a little distraction, sending me YouTube food recipes. There was no response as my almost bloodcurdling scream was falling on deaf ears. Not exactly deaf, but very deftly, scream-proofed by very hi-tech earphones, recently delivered at the threshold of our house by Amazon.

Did I tell you that these days whenever the doorbell rings, it is the Amazon man, sometimes with small parcels and sometimes with massive ones? The small ones invariably carry earphones or mobile covers, and the big ones have a huge range- from plastic containers to yoga mats, table mats, bathroom mats, and doormats – thankfully no cats! [On second thoughts, I wouldn’t mind cats.]

My calorie-conscious husband, who walks more than ten km daily [sometimes more] and loves every moment of it, during the lockdown days, developed an uncanny love for buying food items from Amazon. Food items which we already have in abundance, and have no more need for. The items are duly delivered, they duly disappear and suddenly resurface, peeking from under hordes of other packets, with a guilty air, bent on making me feel guilty.

“Why did you not use it? The date has already expired.” He bellowed one day, horror-struck. 

“I never ordered it.”

“But I got them for you because you are forever munching”, he had an aggrieved look about him.

Did I tell you that these Amazon men have the propensity of coming during the day when one is in the middle of one’s forty winks?

 There goes another chime of the doorbell.

“Who is it?” I shouted from the dining room table, which was doubling as a writing desk. 

“Don’t shout. It must be the Amazon man.” He out-shouted me from the other room.

Let me divulge a secret. Without the earphones, he can hear pretty well. 

“What on earth is he delivering today?” My voice was a petrified croak. 

“Oh nothing, just a non-stick pan.”

“A non-stick pan! But we already have so many!”

“It was on a discount.”

“But he is asking for money.”

“Yes, it was Cash on Delivery”. He said, coming out of the room, gave me a withering glance, deftly rummaged in my purse, counted 1500 rupees, and handed it over to the Amazon man, while I gaped.

“But this is so massive!” I retorted, aghast at the huge pan.

“Harrumph…!”

“Huh?”

“Moreover, did it also say that the cash should be necessarily paid from the spouse’s purse?”

“There is no cash in my Paytm, and these days, people prefer cash”. He rejoined, studiously ignoring my smirk. 

“But do they also necessarily prefer the cash of the spouse!” He dashed into his room, finding no need to comment on my outburst.

The Oxford book store and the Crossword people knew him by face but during the lockdown, the bookstores were all shut, and those people, I am sure, were slowly forgetting the features of their most loved book lover. The books in our huge library stood in the forgotten bookshelves with a sad, brooding air. The moon peeped through the curtained windows, searching for the bibliophile, but, alas, the moonbeams fell on a man who was bingeing on Mad Men, Money Heist, The Squid Game, depending on the whimsicalities of his mood.

The next afternoon, there is another chime of the doorbell, when I am teetering on the brink of my 41st wink. 

“Who is it?”

“Oh, I had ordered American cookies. It must be the Amazon man.” It is my husband’s powerful baritone coming from the other room, rendered more powerful, as he is wearing earphones and talking in a louder tone than usual.

Oh, when isn’t it The Amazon man?

Yes, he was very much there at the door, with a huge packet.

A packet that could very easily accommodate the traditional iron that the dhobis use. I shuddered. Had he ordered an iron?

“These American cookies are made in Jalandhar”, I remarked the next evening, when I had unpacked the mystery of the huge delivery.

He ignored the ugly grimace and smiled.

Librans have disarming smiles, I know, and he leaves no stone unturned in

softening my rough edges with his tender Libran smiles. With the earphones strongly plugged on, there was no way he could have heard my indignant utterances, so he merely smiled on.

What did the Bard say, ‘one may smile and smile …..’Well, forget it! Honestly speaking, I do have a soft corner for smiling villains! So, I would like to forget and forgive- and that is my philosophy of life, too.

Every night, after he has finished with his daily quota of bingeing on the third season of some Netflix serial, he assiduously counts the calorific value of everything that he has eaten during the day.

As I fall short of pulling clumps of hair from my head, I look furtively at the bookshelves, almost on the verge of bursting into tears. The one-time favourites of this passionate bibliophile, James Patterson, and Frederick Forsyth look on from the bookshelves, utterly hurt at this cold indifference. Dickens and Hardy hug each other, wiping each other’s tears. They can afford to indulge in some tactility, not belonging to this dystopian century. The moon peers through the curtains to see David Baldacci and Lee child looking on with inquisitive horror, Jeffery Archer arching his eyebrows in genuine confusion and concern at the bibliophile turned foodie, obsessed with food and fitness apps.

Did I tell you that he has downloaded two or three fitness Apps- Apps that tell him how many steps he has walked during the day, how many calories he has burned, the time he has taken etc. He also has an app that keeps a count of the number of calories he was supposed to consume in a day and the number of calories he had consumed.

To do this, he needs to enter all that he ate during the day so after every meal, he enters the names of the food items eaten, the quantity in which eaten and the app automatically gives the number of calories he has consumed with each meal or snack. At the end of the day, he comes to know whether he has remained well below the limit or exceeded it.

This has become an obsession with him, and I don’t think he has missed a single day when he has not logged in the tiniest amount of food he has consumed.

Only the other day, he was bragging that he had logged in for 365 days in a row.

“What is gobhi called in English?”

“Phool gobhi or bandh gobhi?”

In the frenzy of the calorie-counting crisis, my husband, known for his excellent command over the English language, hero-worshiped by his students for his oratorical skills had temporarily lost his voice and also his words.

“Which gobhi did I have today?” He stuttered, a look of intense befuddlement on his face. 

“You don’t even remember that?” I boomed, rummaging in my cluttered mind for the English synonyms for these vegetables, which I too seemed to have forgotten. 

“Don’t you hear? I HAVE BEEN SHOUTING FOR THE PAST HALF HOUR?”

Cabbage and cauliflower, the words flashed in my mind, and I blurted them out. 

“Which is which? But the question remains, which gobhi did I eat today?”

It is almost surreal that superfoods like Chia seeds, broccoli, millet, quinoa, have eerily crept into his vocabulary. 

“They contain specific compounds, antioxidants and micronutrients, and are good for weight loss. And you know, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries are also very nutritious.”

“But you never had a sweet tooth.”

“But you do have- they are for you!”

“And what about the other food items that you keep ordering from Amazon?”

“Oh, they are for a rainy day.”

These days, I am afraid to look at the weather bulletin. What if it tells me that from now onwards, the winter rains will be the new normal?

Oh no! I already hear the pitter-patter of the rain outside.

No, it is the bell ringing.

The Amazon man has again come calling.

I salute his diligence and conscientious sense of duty as I head towards the door, gnashing my teeth, wringing my hands, and also cursing under my breath, lamenting my pathetic armoury of expletives.

As I collect the packet, I hear him asking google: 

“What are sesame seeds called in Hindi?”

---

Setu, December 2021

The Romance of a Creepy-Crawly

Santosh Bakaya

“Can no one hear me?”

The highly indignant baritone had the power of an earthquake 7. 2 on the Richter scale, but alas, neither did the house shake nor did the inmates of the house respond. The daughter of the house initially played possum which she usually does in such circumstances and then mumbled, not refusing to budge an inch from her bed. 

 “Why drag me into this slapstick comic opera that my family excels in?”

 

Just half an hour back I had overheard my two worst critics- my husband and daughter shredding my writing skills [or lack of them] to shreds. He was in her room, and their favourite pastime, when they think I am not listening is, ganging up against me and ripping my writings thread bare. 

“Did you notice dad, mom is becoming very repetitive of late?” 

“Yes”. I could almost imagine a furtive glance at the door. 

“And she uses a lot of clichés.”

“ Yeah.” Another glance, I am sure.

 [He says he is afraid of criticizing me lest I throw a tantrum, but my daughter has no such fears] 

“When will she rise above her romantic sensibilities? I tell you, if she is asked to write on a creepy – crawlie she will romanticize that too.”

“ Imagine romanticizing a cockroach!” I could hear my husband loud and clear, followed by a rumbling guffaw. 

And an hour later, he was in the bedroom, shouting at the top of his voice. 

“Why are you shouting?” I asked on entering the room. 

“I thought you would dash into the room with a whirl of apologies for not answering my SOS!” He said with a humongous pout. 

“After scoffing at what I write, you expected me to come running as you shouted?

SOS indeed! What on earth happened? ” 

 “So you were eavesdropping as usual? We only have your good at heart, only want you to improve with each piece.” 

“Oh really?” 

“It was here just now…”

There he stood, horror writ large on his stubbled face, pointing a shaking finger in a particular direction, hair all disheveled. A lesser mortal might have quailed, at the sight, but not me.

 “What was here just now?” I was absolutely rattled. 

“There was a …” His baritone tapered off into a pathetic whine.

 “Did you see a ghost or something?” 

“Get a reality check, Professor! Ghosts are not seen – they are felt, they are invisible.” He was quick to retort. The Libran with a disarming smile and a thunderous guffaw was right now armed with bristles, frowns and daggers. This bristly and fully armed human, a strong believer in non- violence was the very personification of violence. By the way, when he wants to prove a point, he calls me Professor!

“It was here just now – just a moment back.” 

“But what? A snake?” 

His eyes kept darting here and then. Panic- struck. 

“A porcupine which left its bristles behind so that you could appropriate them?”

 “Huh?”

 My last utterance was a whisper, so he could only make out the fuzzy contours of incoherence. “Scorpion?” 

He shook his disheveled head in empathic denial, his eyes continuously going round and round the room. 

 I have been known to remove rat carcasses, chase lizards out of the house and run after dangerous looking wasps, so I was well- prepared for tackling any eventuality. 

“There, it just peeped out from under the bed.” His eyes were twin pools of serendipitous triumph. Premature, though. 

Soon another loud scream rent our house. A huge cockroach had scuttled from under the bed on an urgent mission to explore the flustered man’s feet. In a jiffy my daughter was out of the room, still groggy with sleep. 

“What is all this going on in my house?” 

When I explained things to her, she rolled her eyes and chided him like only a daughter can. 

“Dad, what juvenile behavior! Whoever heard of a six foot something man jumping seven feet high at the sight of a cockroach?”

 “Yes, indeed!” I emphasized stamping an indignant foot. People write novels and poems on cockroaches and all that you can do is- jumping- that too in slippers that needed to be replaced long back!” 

“Go write a poem on a cockroach then”, he snorted. 

“First, crush it with your slipper!” I said, crushing his snort. 

 “No way! I am a firm believer in nonviolence.” 

“Did I not tell you that when I had gone to Thailand before this pandemic thing, I was shocked to see people eating cockroaches? They are supposed to be a delicacy there, a favorite snack of many because of its crispy- crunchy taste. Not just Thailand, people love eating chocolate coated locusts ant eggs soaked in butter and fried silkworm moth larvae in different parts of the world.” My daughter was now full throttle about the cockroach cuisines popular in many parts of the world. 

“Stop it, will you?” This time it was my husband stamping his foot. 

“Oh no!”

 I heard a squelch and a crunch, and winced.

 Our poor resident cockroach- a species known to survive even a nuclear holocaust had been martyred under a cockroach- phobic man’s foot, who had immediately sensed the tragedy inadvertently perpetrated by him. He guiltily lifted his foot and without looking down, dashed out of the room, looking absolutely sheepish. 

I picked up a broom, tightly closed my eyes and swept the carcass out of our home. No Kafkaesque nightmare for me. 

Outside, a lapwing was whining peevishly, the sparrows had raised a crescendo, the dogs were in the middle of a chaotic canine camaraderie, and the crows were cawing away, but I preferred to ignore them, looking instead at a majestic kingfisher that sat on the telephone wire. I have always stuck to positive imaging, come what may. 

“I am proud of the way I have brought you up.” I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my daughter, grinning impishly. Both daughter and father were now snugly ensconced on the settee, as usual discussing me, with twinkling eyes. 

I had been mulling on a theme to write on and now I was almost gloating that I had the perfect piece right here- grinning challengingly at me. I thought, heading towards my writing desk. 

 I wrote for an hour, laughing to myself, enjoying myself to the hilt, indulging in a lot of exaggeration, when I heard shuffling feet. 

I refused to leave my eyes from the computer screen, as I typed away, merrily engrossed. But when I heard whispers right behind my chair, I whirled back to find the two gangsters, leaning against my chair, peering into the computer screen, once again ganged up against me, wrapped in an air of conspiracy. 

“Mom, please put a comma after…”

“And yes, remove that split infinitive …” 

“Get over your Victorian mindset. Splitting an infinitive is no longer considered a grammatical error. Gone are the days when you used to talk about the use and abuse of the split infinitive in your Grammar class. ” I threw a mild rebuke in his direction, which he preferred to ignore with a smile. 

 As I physically sprang up to my defense, almost upsetting the chair in the bargain, daughter dashed towards her room and husband plonked on the settee, innocence personified. I headed back towards my table, after gifting him a bouquet of glares, and leaving him on his perch wrapped in a sort of ‘humorous sadness’, which I am sure the writer of As you like it, would have immensely appreciated. 

I was in for another shock as I cast a look at the computer screen. The words of my article had miraculously jumped from 1300 to 1340. Some invisible hand had added the following words to my piece! 

Disclaimer: This is purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any living being is purely accidental! Writers have the right to resort to exaggeration and fantastical ideas to bait more readers. So pardon me this flight of fancy, and read on. 

 

I glared at my husband, but he was busy reading. When did this happen – and how?

---

Setu, July 2021

The Lizard in the blizzard - Alien hues and lockdown blues

Santosh Bakaya

Did you say lockdown blues! Yes, I know what it means! But the only difference being that my blues had different hues, mostly black, brown, and sand coloured.
 It was lockdown time and we were locked inside with a rat, a lizard, and a fly.
Six months – and three creatures, sympathizing with our locked-in status, tried to get pally with us during this unwelcome incarceration.
The rat was as stout as Julius Caesar *
How did that bloated rat know that I had grown up listening to dad reciting The Pied Piper of Hamelin and it would be welcome in the house?
 For almost a week, I chased it through the length and breadth of the house, but it refused to be chased out.

I was plagued by nightmares where I saw our house being infested with rats, making me wonder whether I would have to blow a pipe, advancing from street to street, uttering three shrill notes, to make the rats leave the house dancing and prancing?
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers*
But, I was no Pied Piper and Jaipur was not a small town on the banks of river Weser, so I stayed mum.
“Mummy, are you doing something about the rat, or should I?” My daughter stood holding the door ajar.
Maybe the stout rat had heard the stout threat, and having seen the ajar door, scurried out on its own, without much hullabaloo. No pipe was needed, no rat poison, no rattrap. What an escape! I was lucky- and how!

It was now the turn of a lizard.
It was creating havoc all around the kitchen with impunity.
“It is either a very slothful lizard or drugged.” I declared, with an all-knowing air.
“Oh no, we have a drug addict at our home!” my daughter quipped with mock horror, round eyes darting around, hunting for the lizard. She did not notice, but I did.
It was near the sink, slithering around like only comatose lizards can, unfazed by the doggerel that flew from my mouth, unbidden.

“I am no wizard
to tackle a lizard
Ah for a blizzard
to annihilate this lizard.”

“Don’t try to doggerlise the situation. When will you realise the gravity of the situation? No blizzard will kill the lizard, but this doggerel definitely will, mom.” Daughter scowled, summoning a plethora of scowls to her rescue.
There she was-one humongous scowl, and there the lizard, on its prowl.

 It was moving around in a drugged stupor, unaware of the scrimmage in the house.
Before I could retort, or add one more rhyming line to the doggerel, the lizard, belying its drugged state had jumped into the sink, making me drop a pan on it, in an absolute panic. Before it knew it, it was tail-less! The edge of the pan had fallen on its tail, and soon the tail was dancing on its own, in the sink.
“Eeeks, mom get rid of this tailless lizard at once.” Daughter screamed.
“FYI, I have no expertise in catching tailless lizards. “I out- screamed her.
“But no way am I going to stay in a house where tailless lizards run amok.” She was fuming.
This tantrum needed to be dealt with immediately, but before I could think of a strategy, the lizard had disappeared. Nowhere to be seen.
“Gone with the wind.” My daughter remarked.
I peeped out of the window, to see whether there was a wind and whether the leaves were swaying in the breeze. No, they were not. They were silent. But my daughter was not.
“Is it true that a lizard’s tail is regenerated?”
“Does the lizard get a new tail, or does the tail get a brand new tail-less lizard?” She hurled questions at me, while my eyes hunted for the tail-less monstrosity.

On the window sill there was an old, but not discarded brass mug, a prize that I had received long years back, which daughter had been insisting was an eyesore and that I should get rid of, pronto.
“It is a prize”, I had reiterated, stamping my foot.
“But it has now fallen into disrepute. I just saw the lizard trying to slither out of it”. She retorted, shaking with the intensity of an earthquake 7. 9 on the Richter scale.

Not wasting a second even in gasping, I clamped a napkin over the brassware, and with the mug in my hand raced out of the house.
“When you come back, do wash your hands and sanitize yourself.”
Daughter ran after me yelling instructions and I dashed towards the dumpster, flinging away the mug along with the lizard.
 “So you threw the baby with the bathwater. Bravo, mom!”: Daughter thumped me on my back.
“So an era comes to an end. It took a tail-less lizard to get the house clean of a dirty brass mug.” Husband quipped with a twinkle.

 Thus was the tailless lizard regally carried out – perhaps to grow a new tail in greener pastures, or to slither around tail-less? Or mutate into a dinosaur? Or to join a libertarian haven of tail-less lizards, taking their taillessness in their stride- The sorority of Saurian Stoics.
What exactly was in store for her, I didn’t know.
Thereby hangs another tale, I think.

It was just today that an impudent little fly not only broke into our house but also broke into a song and dance. The audacity!
My beloved home and hearth, lying quiescent also broke into song and dance. Honestly, the songs were cacophonous and the dance maladroit. Father-daughter flung their limbs in all directions, hurling invectives at the pathetic little mosquito and strident instructions at me, as I swatted everything in sight.
 But the fly.
The books fell from the table, the flower vase broke to smithereens, the paper napkins flew in all directions, the cushions lay about in colorful disarray, and instructions flew. Relentlessly. Unstopping. Ceaselessly.

“Yay, I have done it!” I sang and sang, holding aloft the fly- swatter, unable to understand the spurt of raucous guffaws that had suddenly started threatening the foundations of the house.
“Why are you laughing like a pack of hyenas?”
“You know, that laughter vocalization is usually made when hyenas are threatened. Maybe we are threatened?” Daughter and husband seemed to have ganged up against me.

“Hey what are you doing? I don’t deserve this……this domestic violence.” I yelled, glaring at my husband, who quickly removed his hand from my elbow where I had just been whacked so vehemently that my eyes almost popped out.
At least one eye did.
 
“Oh, I was just whacking this fly that is all. I am a nonviolent person. We just felt threatened by the fly which you had so lovingly nurtured and domesticated, hence I killed it in self-defense.”
“Get a reality check, mister, it was I who killed the fly.” I retorted, belligerence in my stance, eyes scouring the ground for the winged martyr.
“You did not kill the fly- just broke the flyswatter into two.” He said, taking the flyswatter, or what remained of it, from my hand, and waving it at me. It was a pathetic little amputated thing, not a flyswatter by any standards. My daughter picked up a broom and swept out the carcass of the irksome fly which had been mercilessly removed from my elbow by my husband. The scene appeared almost Kafkaesque to me.
Phew! At last, the house was rid of aliens.

But, I suddenly shuddered as it struck me that I had also grown up listening to The Owl and the Pussycat in my father’s powerful baritone. Were an owl and a pussycat now waiting stealthily in the shadows to pounce at me any minute?
Yes, the night was only a few hours away and I could hear an owl clearing its throat just outside my window. Phew!

* From The Pied Piper of Hamelin [Robert Browning]
* From The Pied Piper of Hamelin [Robert Browning]

---

Setu, December 2020

Serious Answers of Non-serious Questions

Almost a decade ago, I was active on Y! Answers that was hosted by Yahoo as a knowledge exchange platform. Sometimes there were non-serious questions that deserved some witty answers. Here is a compilation of some of the questions and answers. All answers are mine - Anurag Sharma

Anurag Sharma

Question: What state do you hate the most?
Answer: State of inaction

Question: Which credit cards are the easiest to get?
Answer: Ones in your pocket.

Question: Use longevity in a sentence.
Answer: You just did.

Question: What is the easiest way to bring an atheist to God?
Answer: God being omnipresent can easily approach the atheist.

Question: Is there hell and heaven?
Answer: Nobody ever came back to testify.

Question: Can I yell when in hell?
Answer: No, there is probably no air in hell.

Question: What is your recipe for happiness?
Answer: Accept more, expect less!

Question: Why is my e-mail not sent?
Answer: Few possibilities: 1. Your email server is down 2. You did not click the "Send" button. 3. You tried to send the email through UPS - they always mess up.

Question: How can I stop worrying about money?
Answer: Repeat this mantra everyday - Lucky are those who have enough (money) to worry about.

Question: What is the craziest thing you would do for a million bucks?
Answer: Donating 500,000.

Question: Why do I always get my inner thighs warm at time of yahoo chat??
Answer: Laptop on your lap seems to be the culprit. Some laptops were recently recalled because the batteries were prone to get fire due to overheating.

Question: I got the mail in rebate cheque in the US on my name. Can I deposit this cheque in india?
Answer: Certainly you can. Make sure that the cheque amount is more than the exchange commission and the service charges of the bank. If the amount is less, you may frame the cheque and sell it on eBay.

Question: The main reason for unhappiness?
Answer: Unfulfilled expectations.

Question: How can I become the richest man in the world?
Answer: Start with becoming the richest man in your city.

Question: I want to write a good slogan on my car?
Answer: How about "daddy says no slogan"?

Question: Is arranged marriage better than love marriage?
Answer: Depends on who you want to blame later.

Question: How can you see the inner heart of your girlfriend ?
Answer: Realistic answer: You can't. Optimistic answer: By experience

Question: Give me a good and original name for a BLOG...!!!?
Answer: "The Original Blog"

Question: What's your darkest secret?
Answer: Won't remain a secret anymore if I tell you

Question: Women give everything to men except one thing: what is it?
Answer: Wo.

Question: Which are the best fish to eat - taking flavor, health and mercury contamination into consideration?
Answer: Gold-fish crackers - right out of the bag. salty, tasty and completely free from Mercury, Lead and cruelty to animals.

Question: What if I'm right and you're wrong?
Answer: I'm glad that you told me. Now I can correct myself.

Question: Is forgiveness the greatest healer?
Answer: Forgiveness can heal us from the sickness caused by the act of accusing others. Those who don't accuse, won't use forgiveness.

Question: I want to leave.
Answer: Set an alarm.

Question: Would you care about a person who doesn't care about you?
Answer: I may care and walk extra light-years. But I am far behind my times!

Question: Why do you ask?
Answer: I didn't ask. Thanks for asking.

Question: Which one comes first in this world>>>>> an egg or a hen?
Answer: Egg is a single cell living organism while the hen is an advanced one.

Question: Am I "right where I am supposed to be"?
Answer: There you are but where you are?

Question: My age is 31 and I want to save 10,000 bucks. Tell me a good plan.
Answer: On Y!Answers or on your cellphone?

Question: What is your preferable sleep position?
Answer: Horizontal, with my eyes closed.

Question: How can the Howrah bridge fail?
Answer: The bridge fails because it never passes. The trains and the steamers do pass the bridge.

Question: Why do we need teachers?
Answer: To save us from reinventing the wheel.

Question: In pursuit of a better life, why do people make their life miserable?
Answer: Because they think that the profit is directly proportional to the risk

---

Setu, October 2020

Fiction: Lassie Go Home

* Author of the Month *

Dan Morey

- Dan Morey 

I had taken up residence at a beachside retirement community in Los Angeles because I was told it would be quiet. Yet, a mere week after my arrival, I awoke at dawn to find my flat besieged by a barking canine. I assumed it was an elderly beast, since the bouts of yapping began with five or six sonorous “arks!” and then diminished to a series of pathetic whines, as if its lungs were slowly deflating.

Now, I am by no means accustomed to what one might call a luxurious lifestyle, but there are a few daily necessities I cannot do without: an afternoon snifter or two; a vigorous Scotch massage from our housemaid Lorna, performed to the bagpipe strains of "Cock of the North”; an evening bubble bath, accompanied by my rubber battleships and a good book of military history; and, most importantly, an indolent awakening to the scent of kippers and tea, at some languid hour very distant from sunrise.

So, as this vociferous mongrel had so rudely roused me from a dream-filled slumber (through which a panoply of Arthurian damsels had been swooning), I promptly reciprocated by taking up a brown Oxford and hurling it in the general direction of the noise. Unhappily, in my lethargic condition, I had neglected to open the window prior to my attack, and back came the shoe, landing with redoubled force directly on my rather prominent chin.

Furious, I flung off my nightcap, threw a smoking jacket over my pajamas, took down my bayonet, and flew forth in search of my flatmate, Major Fussleton.

"We're surrounded, old boy!" I cried. "Arm yourself!"

He was in the den, shuffling around the computer in a daze. "Look here, Fussleton. This is no time to bumble about. Prepare for war!"

He muttered something about the stock market and a certain unsporting options play. I shook him thoroughly, but it was no use—the major's mind was rolling out of a ticker-tape machine somewhere in New York.

I would have to take the matter in hand myself—after a quick bracer of brandy. I went to the sideboard, and found my best decanter missing.

"Lorna!" I bellowed. "You shiftless sauce-box! Have you taken my brandy again?"

The door to her room burst open, and obscenity-laden punk rock spilled out. She stood before me, blouseless and bekilted, her barbarous red hair shooting out in gelled spikes.

"Take it!" she said, hurling the decanter at me. "Tastes like camel piss, anyway!"

She swung the door shut, nearly de-hinging it, and raised the volume of her obnoxious music. I took a shot of firewater, and issued forth to confront the enemy, whose barking had increased in regularity if not strength.

I met the fiend on the beach and stared him down. The old cur was one of those maned collie dogs. He gave me a disdainful look, then began to growl and strain at his chain. I let fly some lines from The Mikado and stormed him in Samurai fashion, the bayonet drawn high over my shoulder. Just as I was about to give him a good whap, I tripped over a surfboard and fell on top of him. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a svelte man, and the brute had little recourse but to squirm and snivel beneath my superior bulk.

Beckerman, my neighbor, bounded onto the scene in his jogging togs and shoved me off my opponent.

"Look here," I said.  "I refuse to be used in this manner by an antique film producer in formfitting shorts."

"You old fool," said Beckerman. "Do you know what you've done?"

"What I've done," I said, shaking sand from my hair, "is silence the infernal howling of that demonic Baskervilles."

"You've flattened an icon, you idiot."

By now I was ambulatory, and more than a bit perturbed. "Icon? Helicon, more like it. The beast has been blasting bass notes all morning!"

"I'll have you know,” said Beckerman, attending the felled hound, “that this dog is the oldest living Lassie."

"The what, now?"

"Lassie!" shouted Beckerman. "He’s a retired star!” He flapped the patient's forelegs around, trying to revive circulation. “His lineage goes all the way back to the very first Lassie. His ancestors have acted with the biggest names in the business: Elizabeth Taylor, Dame Mae Whitty, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall..."

"You don't say! Old Roddy!"

"This dog has personally done scenes with Peter O’ Toole."

"Good God, I think I do recollect those pictures. A lot of children splashing about in wells, wasn't it?"

The dog was on his feet again, and somewhat cognizant of his surroundings. I remarked that he'd rallied quite nicely. Beckerman agreed, though a bit coldly, if you ask me. I bent down and gave the pooch a few "There, there, old sports" and "No hard feelings" and all that; but when I went to pat him on the head, he bit my hand. I drew the bayonet, then thought better of it. As I retreated to my flat, the mangy matinee idol recommenced his barking.

"I think that someone should deposit that loathsome creature in a well,” I said. “A very deep one!"

Setu, January 2019