Epics have been penned around Satan’s machinations to entice
Adam and Eve with lust. Wonder, who invented the insidious ownership of land by
humans! Ever seen a peacock wasting time getting a piece of forest registered
in his name! Or, lions waging a war over a piece of land!
Only humans own up stupidity. Forced by their incorrigible
insecurity—they move tehsildar’s office to UNSC—over a piece of land. I too was
doing my bit. Sitting with a bunch of insipid clerks, sipping their heavily milked
and sugared tea served with salivating eyes to get some underhand dough for
doing their paid- by- the government- job.
I wanted the process to speed up. They won’t let it.
Governments are meant to instil patience in us.
One among them got nostalgic talking about a childhood spent
in Chamba. His father was an upright
veterinary doctor, if that could be believed, who migrated from Rawalpindi in
1947. Once, a simple pahadi brought a healthy murgi and murga, as a gift for
saving his cattle. His father refused to accept the gift, on principles. The
poor man insisted, he won’t leave till his simple offering is accepted by the
devta. The doctor relented. The family being vegetarian, didn’t know what to do
with the birds.
Anyways, eggs were laid and the children started to
distribute them in the neighbourhood. After a year or so, the doctor was
transferred to Ropar. Children had grown too fond of the handsome rooster in
the meantime; their sole flauntable possession. They would rather not move to
Ropar than let go of the murga.
Their father found a
way after must negotiations. He decided to donate the rooster to the zoo.
Even that gauche, ungainly clerk acquired a degree of
humanness, dipped in nostalgia.
I never knew
nostalgia would taste just as sweet, even in a dingy sarkari office, sipping
cheap tea.
Vandana Shukla
