Pillayar Chaturthi was four days away and Kulasekharan’s (Kulu) parents were busy that evening at the Bamboo Grove temple preparing the temple for the big festival. They were bringing cartloads of sugar cane, jaggery and drawing large drumfulls of water for all the elephant folk who would be visiting the bamboo grove temple for the biggest festival in elephant-land.
Little Inbasekharan (Inba), seven years old, had come down with a cold and so they had asked his eighteen year old brother, Kulu, to be at home to make sure that Inba did not go out to play in the rain and worsen his cold. The parents wanted to be sure that both their children would be in good shape for the big day. Kulu had incentive to be there, at the temple, his classmate Swarna (Swarnamukhi) would be there all decked with her new anklets with bells on them. However, Inba was turning out to be a little different, and, the parents wanted to be sure that they offered prayers to the Big God to make sure that Inba turned out allright…
For Kulu, this unexpected development of having to stay at home because of Inba’s cold had thrown a spanner in his works. While leaving school he had planned with Swarna that they would meet at the Coconut Grove, far away from the Bamboo Grove temple where her parents would also be. He was wondering how to deal with this, perhaps give Inba a strong dose (three barrels) of cough syrup so that he would go to sleep ? Just when he was thinking such thoughts, Kulu’s cell phone buzzed with a text message,
‘r u coming to get gold ?’ Yes, that was Swarna, Kulu knew…Gold was the code word they used so that their parents would not find out…
Kulu did not know what to do…While this Gold girl always responded to him, she was a little moody…if he were to say ‘No’ she would throw a pachyderm sized tantrum…even at seventeen a she elephant tantrum is difficult for a growing tusker to handle…once Kulu had to study and when he refused to go to the Coconut Grove, Swarna told him that she was going there with Narayanan, the bull elephant who had left school and opened a security business providing elephants to various temples, and, who was always texting Swarna…
As these thoughts were crossing Kulu’s agitated mind a second text came ‘gold cannot come because little gold has cold…’ This was Swarna, hundred percent…she would first wait for Kulu to say something so that she could attract attention by throwing a fit and then come up with her own excuse…Kulu, breathed deeply through his trunk trying to observe his breath as his friend Bharadwaj had taught him after attending a meditation course…women elephants were all the same…
‘gold and little gold can come here…’ Kulu texted back…’and do what ?’ Gold texted back…
’love (code name for Inba) is not well and I will tell a story…’ Kulu texted back…he knew that was sure fire…Gold loved his stories and he could see her large eyes grow in excitement as he told his stories from history…he would throw in his own additions like the time he told the story of the Cheraman Juma Masjid, the world's second oldest mosque, where the worshippers worshipped a light lit from an old wick lamp, and, how the elephant hero Majid Sultan protected the light from extinguishing in the middle of the monsoon rain…Kulu added a bit of a sexy scene to this story by saying that Majid cuddled up to a she elephant and that is how they protected the light from extinguishing by keeping it in the space under their bodies…these flourishes only got Swarna excited and the seventeen year she elephant old would often think of sitting trunk to trunk with Kulu at the temple protecting the light…
In fifteen minutes the tinkle of anklets was heard nearing Kulu’s house…Swarna and her little sister Gajalakshmi were coming…Kulu, quickly went, sprayed a little BOSS perfume on himself, and, both Swarna and he touched trunks as they came in…Gaja, known in text language as ‘little gold’ was too sleepy and Inba had no time for girls…soon, the two littler elephants were asleep…
‘Did you see that news item about Maharani Pooja Devi, the Maharani of Jambalpur, dying ?’ Kulu said…’Of course, I did…she was one of the ten most beautiful women in the world according to Vogue, wasn’t she ?’ Swarna replied, swishing her trunk to adjust a hair on her forehead…
’Yes. But that was before you were born…’ Kulu threw in, and, knew he had hit home…’These dialogues…’ Gold smiled and let Kulu touch her trunk playfully…
‘The Jambalpur Royal family had a huge collection of priceless jewels…each one costlier than the other…so many that no one really knew how much they were worth…’
‘Bloody bourgeois’ Swarna chimed in…Narayanan had been telling her all about the class revolution that the elephant philosopher Kiril Marakkayan had foretold, and, she had been reading a lot of left literature herself…btw, Narayanan had also given her a bamboo stem with a sweet smelling weed attached to it…burn the weed and eat he had said…she had felt giddy and somewhat light after doing so…she did not tell Kulu about this…he would have thrown a tusker size fit…
‘Be that as it may,” Kulu continued…’since no one knew how much jewellery the Jambalpur royal family had and had no way of accounting for something that maybe stolen, they needed really trustworthy people to guard them…as we all know, no human being is that trustworthy…’
so the Maharaja of Jambalpur spent many days offering Pooja to the Big God at Bamboo Grove temple…
one night, after many days of the Maharaja's pooja, when it was very heavily raining, the Big God stirred from his seat…the Maharaja had brought in several cartloads of jaggery and sweet modakas waiting for this day…when he saw the Big God moving,
the Maharaja moved out of the way, and, stood behind a bamboo bush…the Big God moved towards the cartloads of jaggery and sweet modakas…it was ages since he had a good feed, had been too busy meditating…after all this was cooking from the king’s kitchen…he sat down…and started eating…the jaggery was a good appetizer and the sweet modakas were laced with apples…a secret that only the king’s cook knew…the Big God was feeling happy…this meditation stuff was difficult, no food in the evenings…didn't know how his Dad, the Big Dancer, had done this meditation stuff for aeons...
All this talk of food, even if it was in the story, was making Kulu hungry…so he quickly nipped into the kitchen, pulled out a barrel of apples and brought them to the living room so that Gold and he could munch on them…he did not bring two barrels because this way he could touch her trunk as she reached for the apples in the single barrel, as she listened to the story…
Once Big God had finished eating He felt thirsty and walked towards the temple tank to drink water…as He did so, the King slowly came out of the bamboo bush…the Big God, like all Gods, Big or Small know, knew exactly what the King was upto…but let the King do the talking…
‘Was the food good, Big God ?’ the King asked…’Yes. It was good…I know no King does anything for free…what is all this about ? Let’s get down to business quick…”
“You see Big God, I have a lot of jewels…”
“All acquired because you have taxed the poor farmer,” Big God said. Kulu threw that piece in, not part of the original script, knowing that the Kiril Marakkayan touch would work with Gold.
“…and I do not trust any human being to guard them, because no human being is trustworthy enough particularly since I don’t know how many precious jewels I have…”
“Very true,” replied Big God…recalling the time the priest had taken the gold necklace put on his neck by a woman praying for her daughter’s marriage…”that is humankind…can never be trusted with anything or anyone…they will do anything for Gold…” that last piece of dialogue was from Kulu to get Gold’s attention which it did…she smiled and playfully nipped him with her trunk…
“So, I thought of coming to you and asking for your help, Big God” the King said. “Elephants are very trustworthy, they remember well and can remember every jewel. So, I thought some of your community could help me guard these jewels…”
“Very true,” said Big God, again…
”Very true” seemed to be becoming Big God’s refrain…
Big God continued ”However, since I started meditating I do not have any followers anymore…since I cannot give them anything and only ask them to watch their breath...go to the Elephant King, Airawat, who is with the King of the Gods, Indra, and Airawat will help…”
"Can you text him please ?" the King asked, quick to cash in on this referral...
"Sorry. I do not bring my cellphone or Blackberry to the meditation place..." Big God replied..."Will write a note to Airawat..."
Big God quickly scribbled a letter of introduction of to Airawat on a palm leaf, gave it to the King, ambled off for a drink of water and then back to his meditation…
(May be continued)
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