One summer afternoon, when my friends and I were playing marbles on the sandy street of our seaside Village, Muthukur, all of us lost in our single-minded pursuits, we heard from afar the tinkling of bells which we knew were from cattle. As the sounds grew louder and we saw clouds of dust obscuring our vision there were shouts of, "Get in!, Go in!!"; and we all ran inside our house.
And curious as all kids ever are, we climbed up a nearby branch of our tamarind tree and landed safely on our open roof and saw that the two great bulls of our Village belonging to the two great rival Reddys at either end of our street were locked in their intertwined great horns and were pulling and pushing each other back and forth and back and forth all along the street in a gigantic combative mood.
The heavy stamping of feet, the loud jingling of bells and columns of dust kicked up were all a great free show for us.
And we were terrified and petrified.
The seesaw battle raged for more than an hour, and we relaxed and were betting on the one or the other...but after all that bellowing rage and fury on display, the two suddenly came to a standstill, unlocked their horns, turned back and strolled to their respective courtyards.
It was a tame draw.
I recall this scene vividly because only the night before that battle I was reading under our hurricane lamp the story of the mighty fight between Hector and Ajax which made a great impression on my young mind.
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Sixty years later, I recalled this fond incident when I read the other day the following story in DC, with a lovely color photo, dateline June 21st:
"...The Union Cabinet Minister (UCM) and the local MP on Tuesday abused each other in foul language in full view of the public.
When both the public representatives attended the inauguration of a school building, the MP found fault with the Collector over his name being placed at the bottom of the inaugural plaque and not prominently on top.
Hearing this, UCM intervened and supported the district authorities and told MP that he is making unnecessary noise over a non-issue. This irked the MP who immediately took the UCM to task by leveling corruption charges against him.
At this stage the minister raised his tone and retorted, "I know how much you have collected from the Congress candidates in Cantonment elections."
The exchange between UCM and MP lasted for some time. Followers of both the leaders abused each other and almost came to blows. A shocked District Collector left the place followed by UCM.
Later, talking to media-persons, the MP said that he will ensure that the UCM is removed from the Cabinet.
He added he will complain to the Chief Minister and the Pradesh Congress Committee Chief about the corrupt activities of the UCM.
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Once again a tame draw, sigh!
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