I climbed onto the plinth that is my drawing room and groped for the light switch. As usual, my tube light, true to its name, takes about five minutes and some 5000 flashes before it picks up. I start swearing by the fifth flash or so, and continue for as long as the darned thing goes on. I turn on the fan and make my way into the kitchen to open the window. That is the only source of natural air for my house. I have long lost the habit of trusting my ceiling fan. It mostly just stays there, loading mother earth a few kilograms more. But today, it runs.

As I turned away from the window, I heard a rustle in the bottom shelf. I made my way back to the entrance of the kitchen without making another sound. I peeked in; confident of the safety of the wall (my kitchen doesn’t have a door). I couldn’t see anything. Maybe I was imagining things. Since I have combated nature’s predators before, I was now surer of my instincts to pick them out from the recesses of my house. So I went a little closer to have a better look. Lo and behold! Mr. Frog! He is perched royally on the side of the cardboard box.

Mr. Frog is quite a familiar creature actually. I know each and every bone in his body. I studied him in biology, after all; what with all those carpals and meta-carpals, those tibia and fibula. I know him to be a very slow creature; remarkably lazy he is, they taught me. But nothing had prepared me for what was coming. I put one step forward.

All I could see was a green streak pass before my eyes. Mr. Frog jumped across like a flash of lightning and before I knew he was at the far end of the kitchen, smartly perched on the gas stove. Curse my teachers for lying to me. I stood still, my brain still processing the ‘supernatural’ event that had just occurred before my eyes. The normally relaxed I had turned into a bundle of rattled nerves. Somehow the frog looked more alien to me than before. Unsure of what is going on in his brain, of what his next move is going to be, of how he is going to outwit me, I went back a little and grabbed my only chance of survival; the broom.

The broom is a very strategic tool, if you come to think of it. It enhances your attack (you can attack from afar, like in those old English movies where they hurl boulders from afar); it improves your cover and it even cleans up after the ‘battle’. For instance, if you were to swing at Mr. Frog and if he were to jump, at the same time, then you could break his trajectory using he broom. Cut your swing short and bring the broom to rest, in mid air, abruptly. The lower strands of the broom will come to a stop before the mass of upper-layer strands do; the upper mass keeps moving with inertia and falls in line with the lower mass, thus creating a ‘shield’; an impenetrable fortress. I swung at Mr. Frog. He leapt again, this time landing on the cooker. He turned around to face me.

I was feeling like Agent Smith, facing ‘Neo’ (Mr. Frog), who was to run, but chose to turn back and face me instead. I would say, “Do you see the broom of inevitability, Mr. Frog?!!” and he would say, “My name… is Neo” and jump! I would hit the roof of the kitchen and the broom would miss ‘Neo’ by a whisker. (Ok. Frogs do not have whiskers. C’mon! I don’t have a better example.) And then Neo would climb up the cooker and onto the window sill; and return to the Nebuchadnezzar. The resistance will not lose ‘The One’.

He jumped, head on this time. I brought the broom to the fore and swung down. It caught Mr. Frog squarely on the head and he fell to the floor. Now was my only chance of driving him out of the house. I stepped aside and prodded him to move on toward the living room and then out the door. Either he was incredibly smart or incredibly stupid. He turned back and started toward the wall at the other end of the kitchen, finding refuge temporarily under the lower shelves, with Mr. Roach to give him company. He would be banished too, I decided, once Mr. Frog is dealt with. I charged again, and swung at Mr. Frog yet again. He moved toward the left wall and positioned himself at the absolute corner. Poor guy, he thought I wouldn’t try to reach him in that far recess of nature. I dug him out from that corner by another prod of the broom. This time, though, Mr. Frog showed a little more sense in handling the situation. He headed for the living room. I followed him down the hallway and into the living room.

Frogs show an amazing aversion to the main door, the easiest way out. Instead they grope around all the walls and try to sneak out through holes meant for ants. So would Mr. Frog. I expected as much. Before Mr. Frog could so much as imagine of going for the wall, I swept him across the floor to position him exactly in front of the open front door. I was just one sweep away from victory. But as I just said, frogs show an amazing aversion for the main door. Mr. Frog made for my shoe, again with startling speed. Before I could react, he had firmly lodged himself in the recesses of my shoe.

I had no idea how far inside he had gone. What if I pick up the shoe and he jumps out straight at me. Well, I do know that frogs do not bite, because they hardly have any teeth that are good enough to bite. And it would be stupid to be imagining a frog-bite. But fear, as it is widely known, has its roots in irrationality. And so after much contemplation, I picked up the shoe with a swift motion of the hand, carried it out of the house and placed it on the compound wall. I had just succeeded in that when another thought came to me. What if ‘Neo’, given his immense physical potential, would start flying around in the shoe push the shoe over the ledge. Then I would have to grope around for my prized possession in pitch darkness. Not a very comforting thought. I picked it up and placed it on the ground. That way, even if Neo managed start flying with my shoe, I had a better chance of breaking his flight.

I turned the shoe on its head and hit the sole with the butt of the broom a couple of times. Mr. Frog was lying on the ground under the mouth of the shoe. I carefully lifted the shoe and looked at the vanquished. He still just stood there, ‘royally’, glaring at me with jet black eyes. I turned around and went back in, my work done, leaving him to Mother Nature.

Now, shall we, Mr. Roach?

I am walking along the side of the road, unsure of which way to go for my next meal. Well, it’s not that I have no idea where my next meal is coming from. I just haven’t figured which way to go. I reach the main road, still quite unsure. The default dining place is a small eatery just opposite to where I stand. It’s called ‘Karpagam Hot Spot’, and it is quite hot inside. I look around a little bit, trying to decide what to do. I see another hotel beside my Hot Spot. That’s the one I used to go to, before what has now become of me. And then there is ‘Hot Chips’ (oh yes!!! Everything is HOT around here…) which is about two kilometers from where I stand. Hmmm. Nah! It’s too stressful! Come to think of it, there’s ‘Woodlands’ just round the next corner and it’s pretty decent, but I really hate the ambience, and the service. The guy takes one year to bring two naans and a plate of dal. Of course there’s ‘Delhi Chat’ which is another half kilometer from where I stand. That’s quite good too. I used to go there as well. As a matter of fact, I used to order food regularly from the guy, until he started screwing up the deliveries. He forgot that there is a poor soul lying here, in the recesses of nature, waiting for his kindness. He just wouldn’t deliver. And suddenly I found myself calling him up everyday screaming my head off in hunger. At the end of the month, I paid him his due, cursed him till I was satisfied, and then vowed to myself that I would never set foot on the land of that ungrateful wretch. And I am not going to break that vow. Rejected. ‘Food Fiesta’ comes up a little further away from ‘Delhi Chat’. But that’s too further up. Nah!

All options exhausted, I start towards my ‘Hot Spot’. There’s quite a lot of traffic and I stand at the edge of the road, waiting for the signal to go Red. It’s quite frustrating, you know, when you want that thing to turn red, and it just wouldn’t change, and the traffic keeps coming and coming and coming! Slowly the traffic starts widening, and I get pushed backwards more and more. I keep looking at the signal every other second. Finally! It’s Red! I walk like a king on the road that’s empty of all traffic for the moment.

I walk up the steps of my Hot Spot. I shall have to first pay the money, get the token, and give the token to the cook at the far end, who immediately cooks up whatever is printed on my token. I stand in the queue for the token. I look up at the menu list on the top of the wall, trying to decide what to eat today. I must confess; there is no item on that list I haven’t tried. Today it’s the turn of ‘Oru Plate Idli, oru kal dosai’. And so I walk up to the cook with my future idli and kal dosai in hand. I give him the token and he acknowledges. I sit at a table and wait.

He gives me the idli within a moment. I sit down to eat. I am not supposed to eat any pulippu because of my current stomach condition; the doctor’s advice. I am suffering from amoebic dysentery, yet again. By now I have gotten used to that feeling of utter weakness, heavy-headedness and unshakeable sleep. Coming back to the point, I finish my idli and wait in line for the kal dosai.

It’s really difficult to say who is at fault, but what happens next is why I am writing this whole story. I stand waiting for my kal dosai, while another gentleman is eating away at a plain dosai, and, as I am to learn later, waiting for an oothappam. The guy at the counter brings out two plates. One has two small dosais with chutney and sambar, while the other has one larger dosai. No one seems to be interested in either of them. I am pretty sure that one of them is mine. I just didn’t know which one. I move forward to ask the guy for my order. But before I can say anything, he looks at me and nods, as if to ask me what is it that I had ordered. There’s quite a din there, the kitchen being right beside us. And so, not wanting to scream, I mouth the words ‘Kal Dosai’. He points a finger in the direction of the two plates. I go back. Now is where everything went awry.

I look at the two plates, not able to identify the kal dosai from the other ‘thing’. I keep looking for a long moment, trying to reason out which one it should logically be. There is one plate with two dosais and another with just one. I am aware that I have ordered only one dosai, so the one with the two dosais surely doesn’t seem to be my order. I have ordered for only one! So with sound logical reasoning, I reach out and take the place with one dosai. I sit at another table and start feasting. After a few moments, I see the waiter walking around, looking for a customer who has ordered ‘kal dosai’. That’s me!!! I look down at my plate to see what it is that I am eating. The guy to whom I had asked for my order, directs the waiter to my table.

I am sitting at my table, like a jack ass, looking back and forth between the plate and the waiter. ‘Athu kal dosai aana ithu enna?!!!’ ‘Athu oothappam, sir!’. The guy I mentioned before, the one who was eating away at his plain dosai; this guy has ordered a plain oothappam and is waiting rather impatiently. I look at him and say rather dumbly, ‘Sorry sir, plate maathi iduthuten…’. ‘Oh, neenga thaana antha plate iduthathu!’ I don’t know how to react to that comment, so I force a smile. I guess my face says it all, for he looks away from me and goes back to the counter asking for his order. The guy at the counter, is equally angry. ‘Avar plate maathi iduthutaar, saar! Avarukku pota kal dosai inga irukku! Avaru onga oothappam iduthutaar !!!’. The people around start following this conversation rather closely, like vultures who move in on their prey; alone and spent. I do not dare to look around, for they might see through me; see the emotions churning the inside of me like a concrete mixture; see my face which surely would have turned pink by now. I say again, more dumbly than before, ‘sorry sir! Maathi iduthuten…’. Nobody says anything. Maybe they are too shocked to see someone of such intellectual ability, as to mistake an oothappam for a kal dosai.

I look back at the plate. There is a half dosai, half oothappam to be more precise, still there. I curse the oothappam for coming into existence at the same exact moment that my kal dosai did. I do not hear from them anymore. They continue packing more food for more waiting customers, and stare at me with rage in their eyes. I look away from them for the third time, and eat faster. I pick up the last piece of oothappam and simultaneously get up from the chair. The wash basin, that blasted thing, is right next to the same counter! I shall have to walk all the way back.

I start walking towards the wash basin, slowly at first, as if by doing that, I shall be somehow to restore the lost dignity. Halfway down, I make a break for it, no longer able to stand the dozen-or-so eyes staring at me continuously. I half wash my hands and almost run back out of the hotel.

Reaching home, I breathe a sigh of relief. I might have as well gone for the dozen other options I listed before. But I guess this just had to happen! I calculate that I have cost him an oothappam and a kal dosai, and one angry customer.

Well, that’s me.

Ambushed!!!

I could hear them hovering at a distance. The faint buzz was unmistakable. I managed to pull myself out of the recesses of my sleep and it was then that I noticed. The sounds were not the sound of some far off enemy drones; it was the sound of bees!!! About fifteen bees had made their way into the bathroom and were buzzing around in the darkness. I groped for the light switch. My first sight, as the light spread through the room, was a battalion of bees coming straight at me. I felt like that guy out of the Michael Crichton novel ‘Prey’; his micro-robots come attacking in a swarm of black dust; an invincible quarry. As I was reveling in the heroic character, I realized that they were going for the light. I stepped away from the bulb and they converged on it trying to get inside; ramming it with all they’d had. I observed that they were growing in number, even as I was watching them go about their act.

I stepped out of the bathroom; I had no choice. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer, though. Well, I thought, so be it. I stepped in again and made my way to the ‘hot seat’. I tried to make haste, but you know how these things are! The more I pushed forward, the more it pulled back. And so I came back out again, quite desperate and certainly more annoyed. It’s going to be a great day.

I sat at the front door, wondering what to do next. I glanced at the beehive that is still mounted on my front door grill. I had tried to demolish that one the previous night, in vain of course. It still stays on stubbornly; the bees go round and round the hive, happily, gleefully. Maybe this was some kind of punishment nature was subjecting me to, for having tried something so heinous. I realized that they will never leave the bathroom unless I force them to! And considering the logistics of this operation, I would be risking having to take them head on. I switched off the light and closed the bathroom door. I began the long wait; for dawn.

As I sat there in the darkness, I could feel the dawn growing and with it, a growing sense of hope. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad when its day. But I had no idea how bad it was going to get. At 6 a.m. after about an hour’s wait, I slowly opened the door of the bathroom. I looked around and found them shortly, on the window net, right opposite to where I was standing. It was then that I saw a larger, bulkier creation through the window. It was a kind of slow, steady, zigzag movement which I couldn’t quite comprehend. Then it dawned on me, painfully. Another beehive! Right next to the window!

I stood for a long moment, staring at god’s creation; then turned and went back into my living room. This was bad! This was worse than bad! Fifteen bees were formidable; a hundred and fifty was abominable! I stood in the middle of the room, totally numb and considerably shaken. I saw the time; ten minutes past six. I don’t know how long I stood there, but after what seemed like eternity, I went back towards the bathroom, my steps more certain. They had to be lured out, toward the door of the bathroom and then out, or be driven out, which didn’t seem quite possible.

I looked around, not sure what I was looking for. My eyes fell on the water below and a thought struck me. I picked up the mug and filled it with water. I stood at the bathroom door, preparing to run as soon as I am done. With a giant heave, I threw the water towards the window, and ran for dear life. Standing at the far end of the living room, I waited. Nothing happened. Another long moment passed. Nothing. The silence was louder than ever before. I put one step toward the bathroom door, then another, and another. I reached the door of the bathroom, my heart pounding in my chest.

The bees would be reeling under such an aquatic assault, and they would try to get away from the wet net as fast as possible. When they would find that there was no way they were getting through that net, they would use ‘logic’, and come toward the door and then out. And then I would somehow find each one of them and drive them out of my den. That was how the plan was! I peeked in.

There they were all right! Right where I had left them; on the net, the stupid creatures, prancing around happily. They hadn’t moved an inch! The only thing that had moved was the water; thrown right out of the window, for no apparent reason! I leaned against the wall, looking for my next weapon of assault. Thirty minutes past six. It was getting brighter by the minute; the bathroom as dark as ever, pushing the bees to the light; willing the bees to go to the net, away from me. So then, nature was against me as well!

I could only see their silhouette on the net against the clear blue sky. I switched on the light again to get a better look. They were more in number than when I had first seen them. There were more on the window frame which I noticed only in the light. There they were, all at the net, playing, dancing, making merry. And here I was: quivering, intimidated, outnumbered, trying, planning, scheming to somehow get out of this alive; a sorry sight. As I looked on, not knowing what to do next, one of them approached the light. He sat on the wall, just below the light bulb, savouring his little bright yellow sun. I darted into the living room and grabbed a thick newspaper. I came back to the door as fast as possible, not wanting to lose him, folding the paper as I did. He was still there, lost in his own world.

I took position, and dealt my first blow. It caught him squarely on the head. Phew! One down. And I didn’t know how many more to go. I waited for more of them to make the same mistake. Another approached the light bulb, more cautiously than the first one. Must they be warning each other? I didn’t know that either; I didn’t care, as long as they came to the light bulb. I swung again. Another man down. And then they stopped coming all together, as if they’d sensed my presence. For another five to ten minutes, they stayed clear of the light bulb. Then another came, and another. I swung twice. Four down.

Four, no more. They stayed on the net, as if sure of their safety, and of course very close to their brethren on the ‘other side’. There were about six to eight still sitting on the net, stubbornly. I ran out of options yet again. I weighed the chances of hitting them as they were on the net. But they were scattered on the net and moving all the time. Even if I swung, I would get one of them, maybe two. But the rest of them would be alerted, and then maybe, god knows, come attacking. So to swing at the net, I had to be sure that I get as many of them as possible. That meant just one shot.

I moved in closer to the net and waited. They were quite cleverly staying clear of one another, so as to exceed the range of destruction of my ‘missile’. I waited a little more, for the right moment. They would converge at a point, a couple of times, but before I could bring myself to swing, they would go apart. I couldn’t take it any more. They came back around again, and this time, four of them converged at the centre of the net. It was now or never! I swung, and moved back in panic in case any one of them was to come stinging. Nothing came, so I moved back to survey the extent of damage my ‘missile’ had caused. I had gotten all four of them. Now I felt braver, having demolished most of their army. A couple still walked the net, oblivious to the blows. I swung again and found my mark both times.

I won! I had successfully vanquished the enemy, without any casualties. I went out of the bathroom, covered with sweat, congratulating myself on my victory. I had saved the pride of the human race, by single handedly defeating the enemy.

I set about cleaning the bathroom. I removed the ‘dead’, and set them outside the house, to be given a proper burial, a soldier’s burial; by mother-nature of course.

The battle has been won, but the war is far from over.

Till then I shall remain…