Thrill of the hunt
Saw them both at the same time. They were swooping from opposite directions towards the car in front. Both were regulars at the signal. A tall eunuch with short hair and a gnarled old man with broken sunglasses. The car shivered slightly from their combined assault. The occupants paid up hurriedly. The eunuch was unhappy at the old man for operating at the same signal. He yelled at him first and then asked him if the takings had been good. The old man smiled back, his glasses giving him a twisted Zen master look.
We were next. They counted their coins casually and converged at our auto. The driver was cowering in his seat. The eunuch patted his head kindly and told him he would live to see his grandchildren and their children’s children. The driver shot him a strangled look.
The old man ignored them and hobbled up to me. “Plis Maidam,” he croaked pathetically. He knew i would break. Like bumping into old pals at the Indian Coffee House, we had met before... and to my disadvantage.
The eunuch now turned his attention backwards.
He seemed to think for a moment. Grandchildren may not appeal to everybody. He was quick to see that. Since i wore glasses, he put me down for a college type inclined to read. Accordingly he wheedled, “madam i no study” and waited expectantly.
I was putting my purse away when i had to admit— he certainly knew his stuff. The sins were scarlet, the books not read, but the takings?
The takings were good.

Pop had been floating motionless beside a feathery green fern for an hour. He was busy gazing through the glass at the cricket match on tv. Australia were playing India and in the last overs of the game the play was heading to a most exciting finish.
Pop lived all alone in a fish tank with only a few coloured pebbles and a deep sea diver for company. He was owned by a family named Menon who lived in a place called Perumbavoor in Central Kerala.
On this day, the family had arrayed itself around the tv set in different positions. Nitin and Nitya were jumping excitedly on the couch whenever India made a run and their father was trying his best to peep between the waving arms and legs of his family at the tv screen in front of them.
Cholmondely the cat was sitting on a peg table looking supremely aloof. He was washing his paws while looking scornfully at the excited group. Now and then when Cholmondely’s eye fell on Pop, his tail would wave ever so slightly and his glassy eyes would assume an even more glassy tint.
Pop was not afraid. Whenever Cholmondely took it into his head to thrust a clawed paw into the tank, Pop would just hide away behind the spiny sponge till the cat gave up and skulked away in disgust! Pop laughed bubbles and bubbles whenever this happened.
Though the family did not know it, Pop was intensely interested in cricket. He loved to see the batsman lop the ball over the heads of the fielders, or send it wham! into the boundary. When the ball left the hand of the bowler to crash into the stumps, Pop nearly went mad with joy. He never played sides during a match, but enjoyed every minute of the game.
This was a wise thing to do because Pop was a crimson spotted rainbow fish, which meant that he was a native of Australia but lived with an Indian family. He was an extremely captivating fellow with beautiful pink dimples on his cheeks. It was hard to make him out if he stood still and the tank was dark but in the light, he shimmered a lovely electric blue as he darted about his tank like quicksilver.
Nitin and Nitya loved to watch him scuttle between the ferns and sponges in his tank and nibble at the glass when one of them touched it with their finger. Cholmondely was most disgusted at this admiration for Pop. If anybody deserved to be admired, it was him— a champion ratter and undisputed leader of the straggly cats in the neighbourhood. Today Cholmondely was looking at Pop particularly balefully. He had not had anything to eat in four hours and was dearly in the mood for a silver mouthful as part of his mid-meal snack.
He looked around at the family and then slowly at Pop. The family was dead to the world till the match ended and Pop in his excitement was floating near the glass to get as close a view of the screen as he could. Cholmondely smacked his lips and advanced stealthily towards the tank. Pop was so engrossed in the match that he didn't see him and forgot to hide behind his sponge.
Cholmondely leaped on the tank silently and dipped a claw-encrusted paw towards Pop. All too late did Pop realise which way the ball was swinging as he tried to escape his mortal enemy. To his dismay he realised that his way to the sponge was blocked. Cholmondely was at this moment trying his best to jam Pop against the glass and kill him so that he could drag him up against the glass and devour him before anybody noticed. But not for nothing are fish called slippery. Pop used his gleaming scales and slipped past Cholmondely at least a dozen times.
Any other animal could have made a noise and called for help but Pop was a dumb fish. Thankfully he was not a ‘dumb’ fish and proceeded to work out a plan to defeat the fanged and temporarily deranged Cholmondely. Pop knew Cholmondely was getting tired of sticking his paw in water. Of all things Cholmondely detested (and these were quite a few) water was at the top of his list.
Wiping out Pop from the face of his tank was proving to be more difficult than Cholmondely had expected and any moment now one of the family might look back and see what he was up to. It was only a matter of time thought Pop. He was right. In desperation Cholmondely thrust his paw deeper into the tank and the next moment fell with a loud splash into the fish tank.
The next few minutes were terrible for the cat. Before long he was being scooped out of the tank by the scruff of his neck. The next few hours were even more painful for a dripping and crushed Cholmondely who got the first thrashing of his young feline life. But truth be told he suffered much more from a loss of pride than from a loss of skin. Sitting there with his beautiful fur all clumpy and damp, the king of the prowl had been made to look ridiculous by a dizzy fish! If ever his pals at the local dumpster found out, he would never live it down.
Cholmondely decided to do what members of his species have rarely been known to do— go into hibernation for a few months! And Pop is safe for now; the family having decided to protect their beloved fish by building a beautiful wooden roof over his tank. What’s more they have shifted his tank closer to the tv so they can keep an eye on him. As for Pop; he is laughing bubbles and bubbles of pure joy in between watching matches.
Open Sesame- March

“I thought you had given them their lunch,” screamed A Zeena. “I took just one tiffin,” offered Cade, who was rapidly turning red in the face. But why did you take just that one boy lunch? Why not the others? at this point Anil intervened unhelpfully— “He’s in love with that boy, “ he pointed out to A Zeena. “That’s the boy with the clean-cut face and the fair complexion.” “He’s in love with him, “ he repeated pointing a fat, black finger at Cade.
Cade had begun to grin despite his anoyance. A Zeena was turning purple and refused to share the joke. “Who was it cutting the trees behind in the afternoon?” she yelled. “My grandfather,” said Cade between his teeth.
A Zeena was in a bad temper. Cade had just that morning caught a krate in a bottle and presented it to her with every sign of filial affection. A Zeena, who suffered from a nervous constitution, was in no mood to be presented with wriggling snakes in bottles, least of all if they were slithering in a most evil fashion and biting the glass in savage fury. She had nearly collapsed from fright at the sight and had shrilly begged Cade to get rid of the “horrible thing.”
This Cade did do but after playing about with the bottle for a few minutes and naming his snake ‘Kate’. Uncle Lloyd was enjoying himself hugely at this point. Uncle Lloyd was happily aware of the fact that as Cade was not his son, the combined weight of his mischief could not be laid at his door on judgement day: or any other day for that matter. Hence Uncle Llyod made a pretense of backing up A Zeena and even sufficiently recovered from his mirth to tell Cade to be careful while he was getting rid of Kate.
The whole family had that day celebrated a housewarming party on the other side of the hill. The old house that had remained silent and sad for so long had that morning been filled with laughter and company.
The previous week, the walls that had turned green with the encroachment of thick vegetation, had been scraped and whitewashed. The taps were running, the tubes were whirring, and the brown charge of termites which like grubby fingers had disfigured the creamy insides of the house, had been vanquished by the cheery swishing of vigorous moppae and scoppae. The well had been drained and the Pentacosts who had set up shop on the other side of the wall filled the air with their hearty chanting. The hill had changed.