Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Of Mice and Men
There used to be a cat called Linus that lived in Seema Sawhney8217;s home or rather under her diwan.I actually never got to examine the cat, even though I stayed in her house for almost six months. He8230; she, or it, as far as I can recollect, was a mottled red and black cat with a bit of Persian in her and was the most neurotic cat I8217;d ever seen. It used to live under the diwan, but almost five times a day used to ricochet around the room at great speed missing objects of great value and dive back to its haven, the divan, in a blur of movement. When and how it performed its ablution, etc and at what time, nobody knew. Everybody in the house used to pretend that this stupid cat did not exist.
One day, Seema came upon a good looking ineffectual young lothario named Prashant, who had a camera perpetually slung around his neck. He looked very intent and serious, furiously focussing at objects of desire such as single Lufthansa airhostesses at the Oberoi pool, pretending to be a high-fashion photographer. Prashant chanced upon Seema and immediately went into whisper mode. This is a very successful technique used bymen who have very little to talk about. They act shy and diffident, dropping their voice to a cultured but hoarse whisper with long pauses in between, where the listener has to lean forward and listen with great concentration to figure out what the man has to say usually nothing. For Prashant, this always worked when it came to women and never when it came to men as they would lose their patience and tell him to shut the up.
Seema invited young Prashant home to brief him on a speculative shoot and Prashant dutifully, with dollar signs in his eyes, landed up at 11.00 am sharp. Now, very few people knew that Prashant was a chronic asthmatic patient and other than constantly going into wheezing fits and using the phus-phus thingy, was extremely allergic to cats. He was so paranoid about cats, that his friends used to say, quot;Cat!quot; instead of quot;Boo!quot; to frighten him. Nobody informed Prashant about the cat, as Prashant did not advertise his pet hate for them.
So, Prashant rang the bell, and was let in byHabib Miya, a devout Muslim cook of Seema8217;s, legendary for his reshmi kababs and other culinary delights. Seema swept in, delighted at Prashant8217;s punctuality, enthusiasm, height, looks, cultivated stammer, and hoarse whispers in that order; and proceeded to brief him in the middle of the drawing room. The cat chose this very moment to hurtle across the room at great speed, bouncing and ricocheting off various nooks and corners in his normal fashion. Seema, engrossed in our young man, hardly noticed the cat. But Prashant did. He lifted on his toes, his eyes bulged, and wobbled wildly, his breath choked, his mouth opened and shut like a cod fish, and with a hoarse whispered croak, keeled over with a resounding crash and passed out cold.
Seema leapt up with a startled cry and Habib Miya the devout, came rushing out of the kitchen and they both stared at this body stretched out in the middle of the drawing room, frothing gently at the mouth. Habib Miya, Gd-fearing and all that, decided that the young and nowlate-lamented Prashant had left for the happy hunting grounds.
Now, panic, as we all know, is infectious, and immediately infected a tough and seasoned warrior queen like Seema irrevocably. Convinced that Prashant had now landed them with his unwanted body, attractive as it may have been and all the baggage of questions and explanations to the police, Seema8217;s brain went into overdrive. She barked at Habib Miya, who had by this time had hit the beads, and was furiously incanting all gods in creation. She instructed Habib to grab a limp ankle, while she grabbed the other and they dragged Prashant8217;s cadaver across the room, through the front door, down the empty corridor and deposited, in front of the ancient lift door, unceremoniously in a heap. Seema and Habib then scuttled back to the house to remove all traces of young Prashant8217;s presence and crouched near the peep hole to see what the liftman8217;s reaction would be. In typical Bombay fashion in those days we hadn8217;t discovered Mumbai, the lift man stopped,looked, spat paan in an already speckled corner and pronounced: quot;Piyala padela hai!quot; The door was quickly shut and everybody heaved a sigh of relief.
A good half hour later, the doorbell rang and Habib Miya opened the door to find a pale, dishevelled Prashant, with a large lump on his head, standing there. Prashant had quot;come toquot; and completely forgotten that he had already been to Seema8217;s house. All he remembered were his dollar signs and his appointment with Seema! On seeing Prashant, Habib Miya screamed! Prashant, caught unaware, also screamed! Seema, seeing a glimpse of this apparition, screamed too! Prashant thinking he was late and therefore all the screaming apologised profusely even though he couldn8217;t understand the large and painful lump on his head. Seema, nervously casual, invited him in for the second time, while the trusted Habiba Miya patted the cushions reassuringly. A visibly shaken Prashant, obviously having suffered from total amnesia sank gratefully into the large stuffed sofa.
Later wediscovered that the cat Linus was actually a female on heat and was renamed Lucy. Young Prashant had activated both Linus / Lucy / Seema in the same way! When last heard of Prashant was negotiating the streets of NYC in a yellow cab having long abandoned his camera and dreams of being a famous photographer. To this day, Prashant remains happily innocent of that high drama he was part of that day8230;unless he chances upon this piece.
Prahlad Kakkar is an ad film-maker.
