Thaali!

It was the final year of college and we were staying back on campus through our winter holidays. The hostel mess was closed and we needed to take our daily nourishment from the three or four cheap eateries in and around campus. This is the story about the Thaali that we used to eat at least once a day at this restaurant called 'Nairs'.  Why this Mallu Nair had transplanted himself and his family from Kerala and settled down in a small town in Bengal, was a mystery that we never tried to solve. We were busy figuring out how to get the most out of the Nair's Thaali.

Let me introduce you to the villain of this story. This is a friend called Narayanan Krishnamurthy who, as was the custom of those days, had become 'Nari' to all his friends and fans. He was good at studies and every type of sport, captained the basketball team, played the guitar and was probably (although the rest of us didn't like to think about that) the heartthrob of the girl's hostel. However, in the eyes of Nair, Nari was the villain who was driving him out of business.
 

Nari was a six-footer with an appetite that we thought was Nair's worst nightmare. In a roti eating competition, Nari had once legendarily eaten 28 chappattis with lots of sabzi and had come for his tea and snacks two hours later. The boy who came second had used his considerable will power to eat 27 chappattis with plain water before giving up. He was not seen in the mess for many days and came down with a raging fever that lasted a whole week.
 

So we would walk into Nair's under the owner's angry gaze, sit at the farthest table and order Thaalis. Nair would be watching us with sick horror as Nari demolished more and more rice and sabzi (even in those days Nari intuitively knew that sabzi was more important than rice). Nari tried to be gentle by calling different waiters and by trying to do it when Nair's back was turned to us. But Nair knew every grain of rice, every bit of sabzi and every drop of watery sambaar that went into Nari's bottomless stomach.

 

We were there for the month long holidays and when our college reopened, Nair took the Thaali off his menu. We heard later that he closed shop and left in a hurry. All our friends think Nari was to blame!

(Illustrated by Dinkar)

Bigger coconuts

Harimohan said, take some sugarcane from our garden back with you when you go. It is very sweet!

I told him the story about growing bigger coconuts that I had heard just the day before. A serious-looking bearded scientist was talking to a group of teachers about the mysteries of nature. The scientist said that there is a story popular with the coconut farmers of Kerala. They think that the coconuts that grow untended in school compounds become bigger than the ones they get with their best farming efforts.

There is also another story about how the coconuts from Tamilnadu are bigger than the ones from Kerala. But, said the scientist, if you look carefully you will see round punch marks near the bottom of the coconut trees in Tamilnadu. The farmers hit the trees with big heavy pestles and frighten the trees into giving bigger fruit. The fruits are a tree's way of reproducing and growing more trees. A coconut tree that is hit hard enough to form marks on it behaves like it is going to die and tries to protect its next generation by working harder to grow bigger coconuts. So that is one way to grow bigger coconuts!

The reason the coconuts are bigger in schools is probably different, said the scientist. Perhaps it is because the trees grow surrounded by the love and happy laughter of hundreds of children running around them. That is the other way to grow bigger coconuts!

I am sure that the sugarcane from your garden is sweeter than any I can buy from the market, I told Harimohan. Won't the gift of attention and love always be returned as the gift of fullness and sweetness by wise mother nature?

(Illustrated by Dinkar)

Indigestion

(Story and illustrations by Dinkar)

Two drunks

It was late at night in the small town. The weak yellow streetlights cast eerie shadows and two drunks were staggering and swaying down the deserted street.

'I could have killed him with one blow. Pata nahin apne aap ko kya samajhta hai! He doesn't know that I am a black belt in boxshing.' Ghanne the older of the two was telling his much younger companion Manne.

'You are very brave Ghanne-bhai. I was scared when the big mucchhad came to beat us up. After you told them that we wont leave till we had four more glasshes.

'Ha! I am not scared of anybody! Or anything! Did I tell you about the time I scared away two ghoshts?'

With some difficulty Manne shook his spinning head and Ghanne continued.

'This was many yearsh ago. I was coming back alone from the shop and jusht about here where we are now I saw two ghoshts.'

Ghanne paused the story and stood swaying looking around.

'Haan, it was just here on a full moon night like thish that I saw them. They were black from head to toe with red eyesh and hornsh on their headsh. I shouted GHOSTHS I WILL KILL YOU, and they lifted their lungis and ran away.'

Ghanne and Manne stood laughing in the middle of the road. They laughed even louder when they noticed that Ghanne's shouting had frightened some stray dogs and they were running away.

'Jusht like the ghoshts!' said Manne and both of them almost fell down swaying and laughing.

Their laughter stopped suddenly as if cut by a knife when they saw the two ghosts crossing the road in front of them. As they passed under the streetlight Ghanne and Manne could almost see the red glowing eyes. The ghosts did not look at the drunks and vanished down a side street.

Ghanne and Manne stood trembling violently. 

'Jai Hanuman gyaan gun shaagar....' Ghanne started the Hanuman chalisa in a broken voice and both of them clearly saw Hanuman with a lit beedi crossing the street behind the ghosts.

The ramleela actors going home cured our drunks for life. They drank only water and always shuddered while passing the street where they saw the ghosts. 

(Illustrated by Dinkar)