The nostalgic murga

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