All Creatures Great...

Monkeys are revered in India - after all without the great monkey king we would have lost our Helen. But they’re feared too for practical reasons (rabies) and otherwise. A couple of years ago rumors of a half-monkey, half-man creature that stole babies spread through Delhi. Mobs lynched suspects and the old city lived in fear until the hysteria passed.

Outside Shiva’s temples for a few coins cobras will dance for the charmer or a giant creature will wrap itself around you. It’s my weight and at least twice my length but its head is as light and fast as a feather, it’s eyes unflinching. I would have fallen with Eve too.

But it’s not just the great creatures that leave an impression. In Bodhgaya I counted the bites left by mosquitoes and bedbugs and lost count after a hundred every time. In Rishikesh I escaped both except there was a giant cockroach in my room. Ahimsa. Non-violence. We left each other in peace.

Then one day it took off. It could fly! But it was like a drunken pilot, unable to control itself in the currents of the ceiling fan. I dove under the sheets every time it swerved near. Ideology was quickly discarded. But perhaps it wasn’t its time, perhaps fear made my aim poor, but it would live in the room a lot longer than I.

Dominant Genes

He went to New Zealand from India and married a local woman. He died young and his family lost contact with that distant land until his granddaughter came to learn a little of the culture that was written all over her face.

Native Tongue

I speak Hindi now 90% of the time, faltering only when the idea is complex (above 10th grade level unfortunately). It’s a wonderful unfamiliar feeling where everyone knows your name (or at least how to spell it).

But English is creeping in everywhere in urban India down to lowest socio-economic levels. Even when it’s written in Devangari script, the word is still “parking.” So it was a shock when I heard ‘mitti ka tel’ instead of the ubiquitous petrol. I know English is a necessary part of India’s future but something is lot in the English translation of ‘the oil of the earth.’