One of my first articles in the college, touted to be sheer nonsense by most, and completely whimsical, by the more polite ones. For me, however, it represents the vast number of books that it has references to. So, read on.
Once upon a time, in a tiny village of India, lived Mohan, no Manoj,er……. A boy with a 5 letter word that started with M.16 years old, Manoj was a voracious reader who would pounce on any and every new book that would come his way. Manoj’s village was a small, poor village on the outskirts of TamilNadu.
Manoj would travel twice a year to Mumbai where his uncle lived, to buy books second hand. As his reading habit grew, he also started writing stuff, thus giving vent to his imagination and escaping the humdrum of everyday life.
One fine morning, in the middle of the night, Manoj lay in the sunshine and read under the starlight. A book named Eragon was read by him, and the age of the author (16 like himself) interested him. If a Paolini could write, so could he, but for that the world he needed to see. So, at the end of this crappy rhyme, Manoj set out to earn his dimes [write a book and earn big bucks….]
Manoj set out to explore the world, to gather knowledge and write his literary opus, along with his pet ant, “ant”. He bundled up his meager belongings, and started hitchhiking towards Mumbai, where he hoped, his uncle would finance his endeavors. On this way, he would either work at Dhabas, or put up ant circus performances at tiny villages. In this way, he reached a village called Thumkunta in Andhra Pradesh.
Thumkunta was a little town, whose inhabitants didn’t know what cheese was, and thus were ignorant about all the finer points of life. The inhabitants told him of a place called BPHC, where children of his own age were held captive and tortured with something called ‘tuts’. He did not understand what it was, but prayed for their
well-being and set off (to infinity and beyond).
Manoj arrived at the Hyderabad international airport. How, he didn’t know. A little man in a black overcoat came rushing up to him, and thrust a black suitcase into his hands, and mumbled something that sounded to him like, “Mein jer funckt, monsiéur, Telugu raadu “ and trotted away. Dumbfounded, Manoj looked around him, and then at the bag in his hand. He looked up, and saw some policemen running in pursuit of somebody. Always a fan of excitement, he stood and watched their frenzied search, interspersed with swears and curses. Suddenly, one of the policemen saw the bag in his hand, and to Manoj’s consternation, all the policemen ran towards him.
“You have been arrested on charges of international smuggling of drugs, counterfeit notes, and other undesirable things. You have the right to remain silent…….”
Manoj was sitting in a cell, in England. With the one phone call that he had been given, he had called his uncle in Mumbai who had promptly disowned him. He had been whisked away to London, and spent 3 days in a local constabulary. He wasn’t overly worried. There had been no torture like he had read in books, nor attempts to make him sign confessions. The food was surprisingly good, and it had been days since he had slept indoors. On the whole, he felt good and not a little entertained, kinda like Jeffrey Archer (only a glorified Indian version).
On the fifth day, the hurricane Henrietta hit London so unexpectedly that even the weather cynics weren’t prepared.(Weather cynic: “The weatherman says it’s going to be sunny outside, so I’ll just take my raincoat”.) It was a typhoon of previously unimagined proportions that damaged a great many buildings, and went about causing all sorts of carnage in general. As all the policemen abandoned the structure and ran for dear life, Manoj sat in his cell and desolately thought about his life. He expected his whole life to flash before his eyes, but surprisingly all he could think of was a potato. Eventually, a flying car came and smashed against the wall of his cell, liberating him. However, Manoj’s leg was trapped under the rubble and consequently, he was unable to escape. At this critical juncture, Ant grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out, but it got blown away as soon as it let go of his collar.
Tears welled up in Manoj’s eyes at the thought of his partition from his beloved ant, ‘ant’. After he had escaped, he had been hit on the head by a flying shotgun, among the other projectile debris. In a daze, he had picked it up and started walking aimlessly. A bank robber, who had taken advantage of the chaos to split with his partner’s share and a small tingling sensation that he had as a substitute for a conscience , saw Manoj walking towards him with a shotgun, panicked, mistaking his tired crawl for the slow stalk of a professional , 8threw 2 bags of money at him and ran away, screaming, “All right, ya happy now?? Don’t point that thing at me.” Startled, Manoj picked up the bag, saw what was inside and following the sound Indian teachings his father had imparted to him, kept the bags without another thought.
Manoj bought a car and other things and toured the entire world, picking up new experiences along the way. One day, as he was walking along a street in a market in Cairo, Egypt, he noticed that a dog had been following him pointedly since the past one and half days. Even when he tried to shoo it away, it kept coming back. Finally, he decided to see what it wanted. On closer inspection, he saw, that on a small white patch of hair on top of the dog’s forehead sat ‘ant’, his once pet ant, now the leader of Egypt’s renowned animal mafia. Happily reunited, Manoj and Ant spent many years travelling the world before finally writing his magnum opus, at the age of 68,
“Once upon a time, there was a dog,
Its name was Rover and the story’s over”.
Its name was Rover and the story’s over”.
TRUE STORY…………
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