Friday 21 September 2012

Gods of the loud speakers

In the morning, the loud speakers, while trying in vain to wake up the Gods, blaring out devotional music & chants woke up Titty in his small apartment. 


Titty was not his real name. A misadventure  in school had earned Thampy the name Thampy Thief which soon got abbreviated to TT and then to Titty. He was an adventurous child.
His parents were busy making money in the Middle East, his grand parents in Kerala - GOC,  raised him from the age of two.He was intelligent but not keen on studies. Music and Magic were his favorite pastimes. He mastered quite a few tricks at a very young age. At the age of ten an empty match box in his hand became full in front of his class mates. He could tell which one of the ten stones, arranged to form a question mark, you touched while he was away. Soon he could read the thoughts of his friends written on paper and kept in sealed envelopes with him. He was good at key board and Guitar.

Sunday 9 September 2012

Caesar, In fond memory of my black dog

Two things I liked about my job as an Inspecting Officer of the bank, were the fixed time schedule of work, and the opportunity to visit many places, where I would not have gone otherwise.
It was just five thirty and I was in the lodge, where I was staying for the last two days. The small town had only two lodges. The one in which I was staying was considered better, because of the tinted glass shutters it had. It was slightly away from the center of the town. But all the typical nuisances were available there too, including the the blaring loud speaker we've learned to expect in all small towns.

The occasional  announcements and the film music through the loud speakers provided free entertainment to the unemployed working class you find only in GOC.
But it was the unusual sounds that followed one announcement that attracted my attention.It was like a number of dogs barking together. 
I wanted to ask the room boy, a kid, why do they bark through the Mic? or What a place where dogs use the Mic set to make themselves heard!..But before I could find him, the barking stopped. Another announcement and then the recital of a poem followed. The poem contained many Sanskrit words which I did not understand. But I was sure it contained some reference to dogs. This only increased my curiosity about the barking.