Friends,
Let me share my latest encounter with one of the monsters in my backyard. On Thursday morning, shortly before entering the Puja room, the religious and always righteous lady of the house had distributed some leftovers in the alley adjacent to the boundary wall of the house for the "poor" cats and birds. This is a ritual we are all used to and I follow the food trails close to the underground drainage lines whenever I can from one of the ground floor windows that open into this particular part of the property. This time however I was absent minded... completely oblivious of the fact that I had taken my entire armory to the third floor for cleaning the day before. Reason, some people don't like the smell of gun oil and ballistol and the sight of torn oil-soaked patches scattered all over the floor and a man wiping his hands in clean hand towels instead of going for the soap dispenser first
So there I was, puffing away casually and staring through the window with no particular idea or plan of immediate action. I had to get ready and leave for office; that possibly was the only thought.
And then it happened. I looked down and there he was - looking straight into my eyes and casually munching into a piece of roti four times as big as his head. I moved, it did not. He sat there, confident and self assured. I started fuming, cursing myself for moving away all the stuff and trying to calculate how much time it would take to run up the stairs, call my mother to open the gate, get an AR, rush down and reach for the box of pellets..... "No, it won't work", I said to myself, "you nurture a pot belly and a perpetual back ache. You are not fast and fitness if not you middle name. Admit it. He is barely seven feet way, showing off his shiny coat and having lunch. And you can't do a thing. Tomorrow he will come again and enter your house, the way his family did last month."
And then something struck me. I have the pistol crossbow lying in the drawing room, hidden away from prying eyes. Suddenly energized, I rushed and came back like a lightning, the weapon cocked and a bolt in place... I inched closer to my kill. The monster looked at me... eyed the 80 lbs crossbow and kept eating. Now that's an insult, I said, and took aim. His head looked a huge as an apple from that distance. I was about to squeeze the trigger when I heard an oracle... "Darling are you trying to to take a life when I am performing puja?"
"No I am not" I lied without batting my eyelids. I always do in these situations. My life is precious to me
The monster kept sitting there, now grinning at me.. ridiculing me ...
I tiptoed back to my den... hid the crossbow and this time, returned with the camera.
The monster was still there....
