The Nails

He was just a lad of about seven or eight; thin, small and clothed in rags because his widowed mother could not afford anything better. From his nostrils, just on the edge of his perpetually parted lips, hung twin yellow columns of mucus, which he would brush away with the sleeve of his shoulder when it was impossible to sniff up anymore. His hair was a mass of unruly curls, thick and black, hanging over his forehead and almost concealing the dark, round and bright eyes that peered out, ever enquiringly, ever searchingly. Because his lips were always parted, probably because he was always catching cold and therefore breathing through his mouth, his rabbit teeth could be seen more prominently than the rest. Even at that hour in the day, when the sun was just reaching its zenith, he appeared energetic, picking up the wood shavings from beneath the plank that an older boy was sawing under the supervision of his father.

“Watch out for his hand my son,” said the kind carpenter as the ragged boy plunged forward for the shavings, unmindful about the rapidly working tool. “The tip of the saw might nick him badly.”

“I am watching Father,” replied the older boy with an indulgent smile at the youngster and paused in his task so that his little friend might collect the chips.

“Are those for your fire then?” he asked as small, dirty hands rapidly collected the shavings into a sack nearby.

“Yes young master,” he replied with a sniff, which sent the lines of mucus shooting back into his nostrils. He always called the older boy ‘young master’ even though there was not much disparity in their ages. The older boy was tall, and was perhaps twelve or thirteen, certainly not more, for his cheeks were still smooth and pink and there was no sign of a moustache over his finely detailed lips. The eyes were very blue and deep, under a broad forehead and his hair was of a reddish brown, curling slightly at the nape of his neck. His work clothes were modest and though faded, were neat and clean and his whole physique looked healthy and tough. But what captured any onlooker was the utter beauty of his young, boyish face! The eyes were wise for his age, looking deep and seeing much, ever smiling in their brilliant blue depts. His demeanor was friendly and kind and his brow was not furrowed by a single frown of childish anger or impatience. Even at that moment when his young friend hastened to pick up the wood shavings, making more than three quick rounds in order to pick up every single scrap, he waited, turning his father’s attention to the window frame already completed, so as to subtly check the carpenter’s growing impatience.

“You may go on sawing Young Master,” the little lad finally said, sniffing hard so as to emit a deep, bubbling sound from his nostrils. He dusted his hands and rubbed his nose with his shoulder and added. “I will carry the sack home so that Mother can build a fire for our lunch.”

“What a good idea,” said the older boy’s father. “Now be off!”

“When I come back, will you teach me how to hammer nails into wood?” asked the boy to the carpenter.

“Well, we shall, if there is time,” answered the man, taking some measurements from the window frame nearby. “Now run along boy; you don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?” and when the little one had departed with a beaming smile, added to his son, “I like the little chit – but he’s a great disturbance my boy.”

“They’re poor Father. His mother is too poor even to be able to get a little wood for their fire. And with no father, it is very hard for them.”

“Mmmm, I know,” said the boy’s father with a nod. “It’s good that he is interested in the trade. He should keep at it so that one day he will be able to keep his mother in comfort.”

“He will be a carpenter one day,” murmured the boy, watching the little lad with the sack on his humped shoulder, his tiny bare feet scurrying like a mouse along the sidewalk. For a long moment, he continued to stare at the retreating image of his friend and then, with a slight tremor continued with his work.   

A quarter of an hour later the lad was back smiling hugely, the grime from his face having been cleaned off by his mother.

“Was your mother happy then?” asked the older boy with a smile as he worked.

“See, she gave me this bit of sugar,” said the child exhibiting his prize with a jubilant jump.

“You are a good little boy,” said the carpenter, softening from the displeasure of the disturbance when he saw the child’s joy over the bit of sugar. “Here’s a block of wood and some nails,” he continued offering the little intruder the said materials. “See that small hammer there? Well sit in the shade there and hammer the nails into the wood so that they all go in fully and straight.”

The boy set about his task with gusto, the block of wood between his legs and the hammer banging away at the nails.

“Mind, don’t hurt your fingers,” cautioned the carpenter and chuckled at his son while they continued with their sawing.

“I mean to be as good as you are Sir,” came the tiny voice amid the banging and the carpenter sighed and shook his head.

               

“See what I mean when I say that he is a great disturbance?” he told his son softly.

“He’s so small and innocent,” replied the boy wisely and his father raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Let him dream father.”

“One day I will make doors and windows and furniture and build houses and things like the way you do,” the boy continued and produced the block of wood before his mentors with its nails hammered in haphazardly. “See, I have done as you asked me to.”

The carpenter patted the little boys head and gently told him to sit in the shade and watch them. They worked with such synergy – the carpenter and his son – the older instructing the younger in one task or the other, or advising him against this or that. The little boy, seated on a stump of wood, his chin supported in his little hands, watched them and wondered why he did not have a father. Perhaps he thought, he would ask mother…but she always wept when he asked her about his father.

She sometimes said that he didn’t have a father; then at times she’d tell him that his father was a great builder in some far country over the seas and that he was extremely successful and rich – but then, if all this was true, why was his mother not happy?

He forgot all about it when the older boy’s mother stepped over the threshold of their home and called out to her son and husband for lunch.

“Oh! Our little neighbour is here as well,” said she with a smile, when her kind eyes fell on the tiny one seated in the shade. “I am sure you have had nothing to eat from the morning my darling,” she told him sweetly. “Come and have something to eat with us.”

The years that followed were to take the little ragged boy and his desolate mother far away from the carpenter’s neighbourhood, where he worked hard in the profession that so interested him that by the time he had reached the age of thirty, he had a successful furniture shop, which attracted the rich from far and wide. A builder and carpenter himself, he designed intricate woodwork, built expensive homes for the rich, at times carved statues for heads of state and laughed in contempt at the ragged little boys and girls who ran up to his work table to collect wood shavings.

He had no friends, or none close enough whom he could term as ‘friend’. People he considered clients or providers of some sort of service. Time for him meant work and work meant money. He was a hard man to work for but an honest one, recognizing hard work and paying or being paid no more or no less. Often when he was in his workshop carving away at a block of wood or sawing a plank, he would remember the carpenter and his young son, the only people who had befriended his mother and himself, and if one were to catch him at that moment, they would find a glow of tenderness in his eyes. He had lived a hard life, beaten by most boys as a child, laughed at by most girls and scoffed at by most adults. Even his mother had not been spared, for she had been young then, with a little boy and no husband. This family had accepted him and his mother with no judgement and no conditions and the days he had spent in that little town were still vivid and warm in his memory.

He could never understand why his mother moved away from there, but he had been a little boy then. Perhaps it was because she had found a job as a handmaid to one of the rich ladies in this city and being offered a handsome wage for the post, took it with no question. Whatever the reason might have been for his mother to leave that little town, he had benefited by it and had climbed the ladder of society where he had reached such a height that, all who looked upon him, cowered in awe at his success. But on many nights, when he lay upon his bed, staring up at the ceiling he would think of the kind family and wonder what had happened to them.

He had never seen them again.

He had grown into a big, strong man with florid cheeks and hard, black eyes which only seemed to soften when he watched his ageing mother rock herself on the chair that he had made for her as a young apprentice. There was no trace of the cold that he always seemed to contract, except for the iciness that his gaze emitted when he was annoyed or upset. He liked to watch the ships out at sea and often wondered when he would build a vessel much like those upon the horizon.

“Your hard work has made you successful my son,” his old mother would say feebly, “and has given me a comfortable life in my old age. You must stop now and begin to enjoy life. There is my friends daughter…”

“I have prepared a design of a ship Mother,” he would invariably reply dreamily and his dark eyes would hold a faraway look. “I will become famous at the palace if I am fortunate enough to build it.”

               

“You are already famous!”

               

“Caesar does not know about me. Herod has never heard of me. I want to be known by kings Mother.”

               

And that would end the conversation between them, because to be famous at court was a privilege that was desired by all and which was only allowed to a select few.

It was a hot Friday afternoon and the big builder was hurriedly following his cart filled with planks of wood on foot, for he wanted to get home to start preparation for the Passover. A roaring crowd arrested his attention and he stopped for a moment to watch them. A band of soldiers, some on horseback and some on foot led the mass with a tall man, falling under the fury of a whip and the weight of a long solid plank of wood across his shoulders.

“A prisoner sentenced to be crucified,” said the builder in disgust and hollered to his man who led the cart, to move on. “We don’t want to get tangled in this riot!” he shouted. “Move on! Move on!”

The cart began to move down the alley with its master following indifferently and the angry mob following in their wake. He had hardly proceeded a few steps when a thundering of hooves behind him warned him of a soldier’s approach.

“Hold it right there,” said the man on horseback to the carpenter. “What might be your trade man?”

“All of the town knows me,” replied the big man looking up arrogantly at the soldier who stopped him. “I am a builder…”

“A carpenter?”

“The best that this city can…”

“Come along then for we are in need of one like you,” and with that he was thrust into the crowd, beside the condemned man who was just rising from having fallen under the blows of a soldier. He protested and shouted in anger, hurling heated words at the soldiers and demanded to know the reason for his being treated in, what he thought to be this degrading manner.

               

“How dare you,” he sputtered. “Do you know who I am? I will have the law on you for what you are doing!”

“We are the law,” laughed the soldier who had ordered him and the others guffawed at the astonished expression on the builder’s face. “Give him that pail of nails and the hammer!”

The said articles were thrust into his numb hands and the soldier shouted again, raising his sword and pointing it forward:

               

“Now, onward to Calvary!”

               

“I won’t stand for this,” spluttered the builder but someone thrust him forward, to follow the prisoner with the plank across his shoulders. “I am no prisoner! I will not be disgraced in this way…to walk beside a convict and to carry the nails by which you are to crucify him.”

The prisoner turned once and a pair of deep, blue eyes looked upon the builder for a moment. His face was calm, even under the hair matted with blood and a crown of thorns that someone in base humour had placed upon his brow. His back and sides were ribboned with red whiplashes and his shoulders were bruised from the burden that he staggered under. 

“Be at peace,” he softly said and proceeded on shaky, bruised feet past a crowd of crying women, one of whom rushed forward and wiped the blood and sweat from his face. Through all of this the builder walked, dazed, the pail of nails in his hands and a huge hammer shoved in his waistband.

By mid-afternoon the crowd had reached a mound called Golgotha where they gathered around to watch the proceeding, shouting and chanting in their madness. The prisoner was freed of the plank and was beaten until he had fallen to the ground. Then a shoulder roughly pushed the builder forward and thrust him to the dust, where lay another longer plank of wood.

“Nail this plank to that one to make a cross!” came the order and the mob yelled loudly:

“Crucify! Crucify!”

With a few hard blows, the nails went in perfectly into the wood, joining the plank that the prisoner had carried to the one that lay there to form a cross. As he hammered he thought back to the time, years ago when he collected wood shavings from under that young boy’s plank, recalled the afternoon when the carpenter, the boy’s father gave him a block of wood and a few nails to practice on and remembered the years of success that had followed.

“Has it all come to this?” he wondered silently as he did what he had been ordered to do. “Has all my hard work only to result in this disgrace?”

When he had completed his task he looked up at the soldier. “It is done,” he said.

“Will it hold the weight of this man?” asked the soldier and the builder shook his head in doubt.

“Well then man, do something about it. You claim to be a carpenter or a builder or whatever…Go on you fool! Get to work!” A whip lashed with a crack against his shoulders and with a scream of pain, he set about reinforcing the join in the wood with rope. When he was done, someone pushed him aside and laid the prisoner across the scaffold, spreading his arms across the plank.

“Tie his arms to the wood,” ordered the soldier to the builder, “and then nail his wrists and feet down…Stop gaping at me man. Do as you are told!” A second crack of the whip resounded and with gritting teeth and tears flushing his eyes, the builder brought the hammer down onto the nail where it pierced the wrist of the condemned man. There was a cry of pain; the builder trembled; then another hoarse cry as the second nail tore into muscle and ligament, sprouting a fountain of blood. He hesitated with the third nail, but the whip across his back sent him a clear message; gritting his teeth and sobbing he hammered the third nail into the crossed feet of the prisoner, securing them to the wood under the hot, pulsating blood that now gushed freely.

Then someone roughly pushed him aside, and with the help of ropes, the soldiers raised the cross into position, while the builder stared in awe at the scaffold before him. He trembled again and recalled once more the carpenter and his son many, many years ago.

A sob behind him turned his attention and he saw to his astonishment, a familiar woman weeping softly at the plight of the prisoner on the cross. Even in the moment of her extreme agony to see the prisoner suffer so in his last moments of life, she seemed not to waver and though she wept, she stood strongly at the foot of the scaffold till the end came.

He looked...then he looked again. Time had crossed her beautiful face with lines and had grayed her one time dark hair, but it was the same face and those very kind eyes. Long ago when he was little, he had always wondered why her face was so lovely and so smooth and why his mother’s was not – why she always seemed to smile in the face of the most trying times and his mother always lamented. He always wondered why this lady was so different from his mother.

               

He looked up at the man hanging on the cross and saw the deep blue eyes looking down at him, where all the wisdom of the ages appeared to have converged. Time had given that calm face the features of a man, but the builder recognized the smooth forehead, which the lines of impatience and anger had never the power to crease.

As recognition dawned, he dropped to his knees in almost a swoon and the tears came again, but this time it was not because of the pain of the whip or the disgrace he had suffered.

It was because he had helped to crucify the only friend he had ever known.

Bags and Baggage

One will most definitely be amazed by the amount of …trash that lies in my canvas haversack. Or is ‘amazed’ too mild a word? Should I say astonished, astounded, stupefied, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, dazed, shocked, or stunned?

When you look at it, it is just a normal old canvas bag, too faded to look respectful in any kind of company – except that of the utterly grungy type – and too serviceable to be ‘pensioned’, despite the truth that the old haversack has, a long time ago passed its superannuation! Slung across my shoulder, or simply lying upon my chair or on my bed or anywhere for that matter, I guarantee you that it would not warrant a second look – it seems totally illogical why anyone would want to look at it in the first place. Certainly the old haversack has been the bane of my back many a time when I have had this totally formal suit on and strutted into office, looking all professional and dapper. All the more when I have trotted through expensive shopping malls, or some elegant store exhibiting female fineries, or a huge bookstore, which only the rich and the awfully educated frequent, or just simply in the solemn silence of a church.

To do it justice, as a spanking, new purchase, it was an olive green colour, with a simple cylindrical design and could be pulled tight by means of a cord. There was a flap over the draw string that had a leather buckle, which jingled when I walked, like the sound you would hear from a cantering horse. Another smaller flap over a pocket along the front sported a similar leather buckle; smaller I have described this pocket, but it is so astounding the many bits and pieces I could store in there.

Canvas is always strong, tough and sturdy and though not fashionable or expensive, it is very durable. For while, while new, it was stiff to the touch, rough and unyielding, but after a few months of rain and sun, there was a feel so soft and feathery that not even the finest lace or satin could, in my estimation, compare with the aging canvas of my haversack. By this time, the dark olive green colour had vanished, to be replaced by a sickly, yellowish-green hue that belied the robustness of the material. Along the seams and edges, there were distinct layers of grime and dirt, the result of letting it rest in any old place and never being mindful because, after all it was canvas and not some fancy leather pouch. And the fadedness and the utterly sloppy look made an old friend tell me once, “love the dress my girl, but the bag is out of place. It’s time you got another one!”

Therefore, the reader would have by now begun to wonder why this bit of condemnation not worth even thinking about let alone writing about would become the muse of a poor storyteller like myself. So, please allow me to remind the reader of my first paragraph in this essay and softly urge him or her to peruse those lines again; to summon before his or her mind’s eye that thread of text, to ring that bell, before I sally forth into that domain of that secret recess, that world of miscellaneous nonsense and redundancies which the yellowish canvas safely hid from public view.

Now what is so wonderful about the contents of my haversack? Would a thousand eyes peep over a thousand more shoulders to get a mere glance? Would lips of all shapes, colours and sizes form perfect ‘O’s’ of consternation by just peeking at the varied assortment of its contents? Why if you, or even you Sir. or you Madam were to delve into the dark regions of my haversack and were to pull out a handful of muddy shells or an orange peel and thus stand stultified, I would dismiss your astonishment with a careless grin and say, “Oh that…” and proceed with some explanation to stand in defense of why the said muddy shell or orange peel were where they were. And I can tell you with conviction that your dismissing response would be, “Don’t give me that bunk. I’m not a fool! You’re just plain untidy.”

Well, fools will doubt even the truth if it knocked them on the head with a hammer, but that is not the discussion here. So before I move off into a tangent, talking about fools and their follies, I will harken to the call of my first paragraph.

It is actually amazing how some people can be such prime junk collectors. I wonder if the phrase ‘mixed bag’ was coined by someone who owned a haversack like mine! I could write volumes on my mother’s handbag, and her other two or three other bags, which contain the most absurd articles that have never felt the warmth of use or seen the light of day. I could deliver a paper on my Aunt Marie’s handbag; it is neat and sleek and made from black patent leather, with a magnet on the flap that is concealed by an abstract metallic design. But when you opened the flap, unzipped one of its many compartments and tipped it over, like you see many actresses do in search for that magical hairpin which would assist the hero to open a locked door, you will wonder at the quaintest articles and knick-knacks and wonder again how in tarnation did they all fit in there? I could deliver an essay on the contents of my math teacher’s pocket and its extremely funny contents, which included a five-inch long piece of white twine (the purpose of which we could never divine,) but all this will take pages and time.

It will therefore suffice to say that I misplaced my closet key somewhere at the bottom of my haversack and I was thunderstruck at the stuff I pulled out, in an effort to find it.

Now, I will draw up a list of what I knew my haversack to contain, and must contain, because I used these articles every day. I carry these in my bag day in and day out, from dawn to dusk and thereafter from dusk to dawn because they form part of my everyday use. It seems logical to do so, so that the reader would clearly demarcate the trash from the cash.

1. A diary covered with a courier flyer, which is gray. The flyer is extremely durable and hence could take the wear and tear that a cover would be subject to. This diary has some of my most personal details that I have scribbled over the past two years. It contains a poem, a short story, some math calculations and…a drawing of what I imagine a cow’s soul looks like. It also contains other important details like addresses, phone numbers and things I needed to get done and many blank sheets for many more poems and short stories and…drawings.
2. My identity card is something that I need every day when I enter the office. It is not one of those swanky electronic ones that you swipe at the door to gain access, but just a laminated card with my photograph and name, blood group and date of validity.
3. My wallet is rather important because…it is my wallet. It contains my debit card and some larger denominations of currency that I store in there. The coins themselves I normally fling into the smaller pocket in the front, or into the main part of the bag – but usually the smaller pocket because I can access it faster. You will remember that the main portion can be closed off by pulling a cord tight, and this renders it difficult to access anything quickly.  

That’s it!

So I am able, by means of that meager inventory, list what I would consider the ideal contents of my haversack. Of course a reader of great wealth might regard diamonds and gold as ideal, but wealth I have not and I think that has already been established by the some of my possessions listed. Never mind what the one with wealth should think. When I mean ideal, it is in relation to the articles that that were actually cluttered in there, and which, though added not even a miserable half a pound to the weight, certainly took me all the time in the world to locate one little closet key.

I will rob the reader of the suspense and be a complete spoilsport. My mother always used to say, “never read the last page of a book. What’s the point?”

The point? The point is I would hate to read a book which ended tragically. It seems such a waste for both the writer and the reader to go through an entire work, to only find that there are only tears and sadness at the end. I remember a time when my mother chucked a book aside because it did not begin well! And I think it was one of the best books of that genre ever written. No amount of persuasion on my part could induce my mother to read that book, and all because according to her, it did not begin well. So, I don’t think that it would spoil any of the fun if I said that amid all the commotion and assortments in my haversack, at the end of it all, after picking out each bit of ‘tripe’ and laughing at it and laying it around me, like the spoils of victory, I found that elusive closet key!

Lists are made of important things. Lists are made so that important things are remembered, used, stored or acted upon in a timely manner. There are some lists that are made of unimportant things so that one will remember not to spend time, on them or as a reminder to steer clear of them. So they are actually important. Therefore, I can mathematically conclude that lists are made of important things. However, I will not subject the reader to a list of the unimportant stuff that I conjured up from the dungeons of my bag. In other words, I will not make a list.

Therefore I shall begin, in simple prose, to lay before you the wonders in my old, canvas haversack.

At first, when I delved into my bag, I grasped the biggest object it contained and that was the already listed diary. I laid it upon my bed (I was sitting upon the floor) and then drew out my wallet, which was laid accordingly upon that important pedestal – my bed. Then I began my magic trick. From my bag I drew out two envelopes and a sheet of paper folded along its length. Within one envelope were a few dried seeds of a long forgotten plant that I probably wanted to set in the garden. I cannot remember where I found them, although the image that hits my mind is St. Anthony’s School which had a beautiful creeper of red flowers behind the patron’s statue. The envelope is dirty, especially along the folds and is dog-eared, as is the other one. This other contained nothing but an address and phone number written upon it. The neatly folded foolscap is an old resume of mine, dating back to 31^st August 1999 and has along the folds a neat, and intricate pattern of dirt and dust. At the first sight of it, the viewer would probably be disgusted, but a closer inspection reveals an intricate web of an abstract pattern that tells the tale of weeks and months in a rucksack, dancing upon shells and sliding on pebbles. I will only say that if you opened the paper rashly, it will fall apart. I have three crisp copies of my resume and all of them within six feet of this bag, so I will discard this one. I ain’t getting’ no job with this kind of resume.

Then from those dark interiors I pulled out a handful of the shells I had mentioned before, some woefully destroyed and some whole. These I had picked up from the shores of a lake I had visited with my friend over six months ago and had thought them beautiful enough for my mother’s garden. Mingled with the shells were a few pebbles, foraged from that same spot and for the same purpose. I then picked out a black, spongy headset muff that was worn and torn and utterly useless, most so because it didn’t have a partner. There were six ATM receipts for transactions made over the last three months and one piece of a small orange peel that was dried and crisp. The remainder of it lay at the bottom of my bag in a mass of powder mingled with the sand from the shells and pebbles. Following closely was some small change and these I lay by my wallet. There was also a currency note, worn so terribly by the pebbles and the shells and the diary and wallet that it had a clear tear along its center.

Then I turned my bag over and emptied out all the dust and sand it contained and it fell like rain upon the floor. Now out from the small front pocket I pulled out the lanyard of my ID and as I yanked it out, there came forth a floppy disk, paper money, more ATM receipts, some bills, a piece of folded paper, some visiting cards, two chocolate wraps, some cotton wool, a roll of telephone wire, some cotton thread and one empty tube of glue. Also emptying out with my ID card were some coloured bits of cloth, two pens, a black bottle of nail polish that fell to the floor and broke right at the neck. The cotton wool and the scraps of coloured pieces of cloth helped clear the mess, but there was that divine odour of turpentine that prevailed that I could not quite get enough of. At the bottom of this…tiny compartment were a dozen or so coins and a few other notes that did not attach themselves to the ‘dog tag’ as it was yanked out. There were other assortments of pebbles and stones and bits of polished glass for a fish tank. There was even a wooden propeller that my brother had made years ago!

I peered at all of these things and laughed as my mother, who had been watching all of this commented with a grin, “and when is the rabbit to come out?”  My laugh was short lived. So far, the contents that I conjured up were ridiculous articles and of very little worth. How should I have known that something so deadly and lethal would also find comfortable residence in my bag? I scrambled back with a gasp, which sounded like “marmmee!” and flung the bag away from me.

“What’s in there?” asked my mother startled at being summoned so loudly. “Surely not that bunny?” She peered in herself, while I had some difficulty in forming the words, “black worm…black snake…I think!”

I hate worms. I hate caterpillars. I don’t mind snakes from a distance, but generally I hate anything that’s ‘creepy-crawly.’

“Snake!” she exclaimed. “Snake? Now don’t be stupid. How can a snake get in here? You have the heights…you mean this?” and out from the pocket she drew a long, black and shiny shoelace that now looked just as menacing as a bunny – which I’m sure, had it been safely stashed in there wouldn’t have surprised her at all...or me for that matter.

Sowing And Reaping

It had been a sweltering day; wheeling his bicycle up a slope that was nearly quarter of a mile of merciless grey, dusty road shimmering in the heat was no easy task. His frame was huge and stooping, and his muscles bunching and coiling under the strain of the upward drill, were whipcord and seasoned. His battered bicycle spoke of years of use – the tires were almost bald, the spokes and rims were rusted – a spoke or two in the front wheel was missing; the paint that was probably once black, or perhaps a dark green had dulled to a rusty brown, and the long leather seat was shiny; polished from all the years of use.

Two big half-filled nylon bags – the kind that is used in India to store fertilizer, hung from either side of the bicycle’s carrier weighed down by coconuts. A thick coir rope, about 30 metres long with a large hook at one end lay coiled in one of the bags. In the other was a leather foot strap, very intricately plaited, resembling the tail of a rattle snake, and with it, another similarly braided waist strap about a metre and a half long. In the brake lever of his bicycle was a black sickle, or ‘motchu’ as it is called in local parlance – his bore the shape and design of the ones usually used by the folk of the neighbouring state, Tamil Nadu. The ‘motchus’ of Karnataka are curved, like the crescent of the moon and are made from truck leaf springs. The ones from Tamil Nadu are a little straighter with a beak-like tip.

Regardless of shape, both are very effective when it comes to cleaning coconuts or chopping just about anything.

He now trudged up the slope of the busy road, the heat dancing before his hurting eyes and the dust swirling from the heavy vehicles that whizzed by him. He reached the top of the road, a trickle of sweat pouring down his temples, under the cream towel wrapped around his head. He turned left under a flyover where the momentary shade under the masonry work offered some respite from the heat. He mopped his brow with the towel, flung it over his shoulder and then delved into the pocket of his blue shorts under his ‘lungi’ for his stash of tobacco and beetle leaves. He meticulously made his fix, eyes watching the road where the traffic buzzed under the flyover and a cop barked instructions to the motorists. He popped the leaf with all its juicy contents into his mouth and his huge, uneven teeth, clogged with red and black deposit from all the tobacco he had eaten through the years chomped away, forming a ball against one cheek. He then wrapped his towel about his grey-brown curls, sent a jet of beetle juice against the pillar of the flyover where it almost sizzled in the heat, hopped onto his ramshackle bicycle and headed for a particular house in the neighbourhood beyond.

He chuckled, and his face split into a wide grin, creasing the leather of his cheeks and the corners of his eyes. Two weeks earlier, he had visited that same house, had effortlessly climbed the two coconut trees in the yard with the help of his foot and waist straps and had trimmed the trees of their loose branches, pods, dried flowers and coconuts that were ripe for harvesting. He had made off with a good number of tender coconuts that the young ‘saar’ (sir) had given him, as well as a bag full of mature nuts, plus a good payment for his labours high up in the trees. The young saar was kind and compassionate, and according to the coconut tree climber’s slurred gossip with his cronies in his local village tavern, a little green around the ears. He knew nothing of coconuts, trees, motchus or the value of money. He gave freely, trusted completely and was foolish. The saar’s wife was even more foolish. She was fair skinned and did not appear to belong to the land. She couldn’t even speak the language well. What did she speak? ‘Inglees’ or something like that.

The couple was so easy to fool, he had boasted to his buddies when he had downed enough spirit to make him chatter, so damned easy to fool.

He had cleaned the young saar’s trees two weeks earlier, and ordinarily, his services would not have been needed for the next two or three months. However the coconut climber had committed one dastardly act, and it was to reap the fruit of this that he now rode into the neighbourhood beyond the flyover.

When he had climbed the trees the previous time and had done his job cleaning the tops of all the erring branches, coconuts and pods that had threatened to fall, he had also half chopped one or two green boughs on the tree that stood closest to the gate, with the expectation that within the week these heavy, life threatening leaves would topple, thus compelling the young, naïve saar to whip out that mobile and give his number a call. It was good money. He had taken 500 per tree the last time, in addition to half a bag of ripe coconuts that he had sold for 30 per coconut. On top of that, the ‘yelneers’ had fetched another 30 per nut. He had made a killing that day!

Now he wondered as he neared the young saar’s house if any of those branches had fallen. It had been two weeks, so it would have been impossible for any of the branches to not fall. The young saar had not called him, but to be fair there had been many strange numbers of the calls that he had missed on his phone. He could not read, and he could not write that funny language the saar’s wife spoke. He just recognised the numerals of that strange lingo, and had memorized a few phone numbers that were important to him.

As he neared the house he grinned and his face wrinkled again, baring big, red teeth. Lying on the pavement, just over the compound wall was a coconut branch, severed by a motchu. So one dammed branch had fallen after all. They’d be happy for him to climb the tree again to clear it of the ‘dried’ branches – which meant another 500 per tree, plus some coconuts.

He mounted off the bicycle and wheeled it to the gate, where their dog appeared from under the car parked in the porch and barked his head off. The door opened and the saar’s wife stood there, raising her eyebrows at him.

“You were here only two weeks ago,” she observed reasonably and her language was a mixture of Tamil, Kannada and that strange ‘Inglees.’ He wanted to laugh, but didn’t. One never laughed in the faces of the masters. “How come you’re back again?”

He pointed up into the tree closest to the gate and then indicated with his nose at the dried branch lying on the side.

“They are still falling,” he said in his language. “I can see some dried ones up there,” he continued with a lie. Where is saar?”

“He’s not at home,” the woman struggled with the language but she managed. “Come back after two hours. He will be home by then.”

The coconut tree climber looked around. The area around the gate was inviting. It was shaded by a young Sampige Maara, (Michalea Champaca tree) that spread over the gate, just high enough to allow for their car to pass in and out. Unasked, he parked his bicycle and settled under the cool shade to wait.

“Very hot,” he observed with a red smile. “I’ll wait for saar.”

She shrugged and went back indoors. He took his towel off his head, dusted the flat stones around the gate and lay down, listening to the crows that cawed from the rooftops, and to the distant sound of traffic on the main road over the row of bungalows opposite.

Pretty soon, with the familiar sounds of the birds and the traffic, and the refreshing coolness of gusts of summer breeze that sometimes blasted in from over the bungalows, the coconut tree climber dozed off in the shade.

Somewhere in his slumber he heard a cat call from beyond the gate, and heard the woman talk to it in that funny language that only white people and those who went to ‘Kishchen’ schools spoke. He wondered at the wonder of it! Even the damned cat understood that language! Then all was silent again and he once again dozed off into a light sleep.

He must have been dreaming of massive wings swish-swashing the air, because he heard the sounds clearly, like it was almost real, and in his dream he wondered what bird it was, because he could not see it. It came from somewhere high up, and for a few full seconds it lasted, lashing the air, or lashing something before, with an almost explosive thud, it crashed, not a foot from where his head lay on his towel by the gate. The coconut tree climber started awake with a howl. The dog barked excitedly and loudly through the gate at the bewildered man, and the woman charged out of the house.

She hushed the creature and sent him to his kennel; then she leaned over the gate to ascertain what had happened and the man gaped up at her from where he had lain, his red mouth hanging in utter astonishment. He shuddered and leapt up, picking up his towel and chucking it over his shoulder.

Fallen across the gate was a severed coconut branch that had only just missed knocking him out or killing him. Wordlessly he carried the branch to the side where it joined its brother that had fallen days before.

“Tell saar I came,” he muttered, but for some reason he could no longer look at the woman in the face. How many did he cut? One? Two? Surely not more than two. He shuddered again and looked up into the tree, scampering out from under its high shade that now appeared to mock at his trickery. He quickly wrapped his towel around his head and took off on his bicycle.

The young saar and his wife have not seen the coconut tree climber since.

Chinna

Chinna is a Border Collie.

Of course, growing up in India, I had been only exposed to dogs of certain breeds as a child. German Shepherds where the most common. Then there were the snappy ‘poms’ or Pomeranians, tiny white dogs with pointy faces and hard, black eyes. There were also many Samoyeds, or at least I think they must have been Samoyeds. They were big, fluffy and fawn coloured, with black noses and mighty curly tails. As a child, I had always been scared of these dogs because of their size. For some reason, as the years went by and as I grew up, these dogs appeared to vanish from Indian homes – no family kept them anymore. Perhaps it is because our climate is nowhere close to the chill of the Siberian Tundra, and therefore rearing these dogs as pets is difficult.

And of-course, I had seen hundreds and thousands of the Indian Pariah dog, strays on our streets and sometimes in the homes of kind families.

But Border Collies? No! I had never heard of them.

I suppose there were people who raised Bod-Collies, but we had always known them to be ‘black and white Poms’ and had left it at that.

Anyway, back in 2005, my aunt Marie who is very fond of animals, came home one day with a little dog in tow. It was small, with fluffy floppy ears and a shaggy coat of black and white dapples. The dog was also filthy and flea and tick ridden, and when we tried to pet it, it shrunk back in suspicion and fear. It had a small, black lump on its left eye, just on the eye lid, and we tried to pull it off thinking that it was a tick. The dog howled in pain – we realised it was skin – a wound that had healed all wrong.

The dog was in a bad shape – not ‘dying dog’ bad shape, but just ‘unhappy and unhealthy dog’ bad shape. Its shaggy fur concealed a protruding rib cage and a shallow stomach, and its eyes were caked and crusted with infection. One would think that with the mal-nutrition, this dog would have wolfed down any food that it was given. Not so. This little ball of matted and dirty fur only glanced hesitatingly at food, swallowed a few morsels, and then slinked away slowly to a dark corner to be away from any kind of creature that walked on two legs. When Marie left the dog with us, and turned to leave after scratching its ears and whispering to it that all would be okay now, we all wondered at the tears in her eyes.

The same day, my brother and I got together, muzzled it, cleaned it of as many ticks as we could, and rubbed a flea oil all over its body. Then we gave it the longest bath we had ever given any dog. When we brushed out the matted, dappled fur and allowed it to dry, the little dog stood as radiant as an angel before us. For want of a better name and ascertaining that it was female, we called her Suey.

Suey’s story, till the day she stepped into our home had been sad. I reckon that as a puppy she must have been very cute, and must have been sold to the family who initially had her, with claims that she had been a St. Bernard, because her face had the markings of such a dog.

However, I suppose that it did not take long for the family to realise that they had been conned.

Suey was no St. Bernard.

She was just another common ‘black and white Pom.’ She must have been beaten as a pup when she chewed up slippers and shoes, or ripped newspapers, and that explained the lump of skin on her eye-lid, and was probably fed the stalest and the scrappiest food that only street dogs have the luxury of eating. Then, as she grew older and lost her cute, puppy face she was relegated to the open terrace of the house, chained to the corner with not so much as even a bowl of water to quench her thirst when the Indian sun scorched her back.

Poor little Suey.

My aunt Marie who lived opposite the house brought Suey home one day, stating that her neighbours had given her away because they could not look after her anymore.

Now we already had Blossom and Chancy, two of our own dogs, plus a host of cats, so keeping Suey was going to be difficult. Therefore on the off chance I asked my boss at that time if he wanted a dog.

Walter was an expatriate, living in India with his wife, so it was a shot in the dark. Normally expatriates stayed for a few years and then went back to their home country. Walter had already been in India a couple of years and had said that he really wanted to make his home here. So when I asked him if he wanted to adopt a dog, he only replied:

“I’ll take her – on one condition that when we have to go out of station or back to UK for any reason, you will baby sit or take her back.”

I agreed. It was done.

Walter had also added, “I’ll take her provided I can change that ridiculous name you’ve given her to something else.”

A dog by any other name is just as sweet!

And finally Walter had said, “she is a Border-Collie. It’s a kind of sheep dog.”

So Suey was conveyed to her new home in less than two weeks. She was then taken to the vet, given her shots and steralised, and was showered with toys, a soft bed, good food and plenty of love. She was also renamed Chinna, which means ‘gold’ in Kannada.

Twice I baby sat little Chinna, once when Walter and his wife had to go on a trip to Hyderabad on work, and on the second time when they had to go to England on a holiday. It had been almost a year since Chinna had joined her new family, however it was choking and very fulfilling to note that when I first stepped past their flat door to take responsibility of my charge while Walter and his wife were away, Chinna silently walked to me and rolled onto her back by my feet.

She remembered.

It’s the 31st of December 2018 today.

On Christmas Day, Walter texted me to wish me for Christmas. He had moved to Germany in 2008-2009 and a few years after this, he and his family moved back to England. Walter and his wife had jumped the hoops and the red tape to take Chinna back with them.

On his message profile is the picture of himself in something that looks like an old boat, and beside him, proud and very happy is Chinna, older by at least 12 or 13 years, but very, very happy.

When Walter had been in India, and when we would chat about Chinna and her condition when she first came to my home, he would sometimes remark with a smile:

“Was your aunt really given Chinna? Or did she steal her?” and then, “no, don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to know. Chinna is our pet now and that’s all that matters.”

After Walter left India, I got the story out from my aunt.

Marie lived opposite the house where Chinna had been tied on the terrace. In India the terraces of houses can be accessed by a cement staircase from the outside, so even if people are away, anyone nimble enough could jump a gate and access the terrace. It was here that poor Chinna had been tied. Marie had heard her intermittent cries for food or water one day and had tried to alert her neighbours. When there had been no response from the house, Marie, assuming that they were out on work or at school, jumped the gate or wall and tried to feed the frightened dog. When the poor dog cowered away in fear, my aunt had left the food and water in the corner and went back to her own home.

She had waited for her neighbours to return home to tell them off. They didn’t.

Two days later, Marie had realised that the dog was home alone. The family had gone on a holiday, leaving Chinna, chained to the terrace wall, with no food or water. So Marie fed the dog, and this went on for a whole week, until Chinna, now probably understanding that this person was a friend, did not cower anymore. Then she unchained the dog, carried her down the terrace and brought her to our place from where, within two weeks she was taken to her forever home.

Chinna now lives in England, and enjoys long walks with Walter and his wife. I doubt that, if she could remember me, and thank me for two weeks of love and warmth with a sweet roll at my feet, she would have forgotten Marie who fearlessly rescued her, and gave her the chance of living a full and happy life in the love and care of a real family.