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Mom would duly open the gate and ask him into the front-yard. And he would ask his bear to sit down and the bear would do it sighing moodily. One by one each kid in the house would be hauled up on to the back of this bugbear amidst cries, shouts, and flailing of hands and legs. And the sobs would continue till we were offloaded safely.
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I was talking about the eagle-myths that crowded our childhood in Muthukur.
Let me now talk about bears, both grizzly and sloth (I can't spot the difference though). I can follow sloth ok.
Every once in a while there was this forest-dwelling tribal who used to walk our streets of Muthukur when we were busy playing our goli and gulli-danda games. And there would be a rousing alarm call:
"Bear, Bear, Bear!"
And we would all rush into the verandahs of our respective homes and keep peeking into the street with fear and fret.
And this silent awesome gent would duly appear in front of our home followed by his bear on a leash. Now I know it was a bearling but then it looked to me as a full-grown bear of gigantic proportions.
This bear of his appeared to be worrying himself constantly about some intractable research problem much like my Guide SDM. It was never interested in us nor our pastimes.
Mom would duly open the gate and ask him into the front-yard. And he would ask his bear to sit down and the bear would do it sighing moodily. One by one each kid in the house would be hauled up on to the back of this bugbear amidst cries, shouts, and flailing of hands and legs. And the sobs would continue till we were offloaded safely.
Apparently every housewife believed that whoever rides a bear once would never be afraid of men again in their lives...not of women though ;)
But our moms wouldn't themselves offer to ride these bears since they never feared their hubbies anyway...rather, the boot was always on the other foot.
After this grisly drill was over, the bearer would pluck a tiny black hair from the back of his bear and enfold it in an amulet and hand it to mom. And mom would tie that amulet on to her male kids' left upper arm. Apparently this charm warded off all evils forever...till the bear duly appears next year.
And mom would haggle the price for this benefaction and pay it up from her secret chest.
And the bearer would ask mom to feed his bear a spoonful of honey saying his bear was very fond of honey. Mom would fetch the spoonful of honey that the brother of this chap had sold us from his forest produce a month ago...recycling Nature's bounty.
Talking of bears and honey there is this charming tale:
Apparently after the honeycomb gets filled up on a full moon night, the waiting bear under the tree would claw his way up and sit down on a branch nearby and watch the busy bees guarding their honey ferociously from attacks of man and beast. And our bear would smile and paw off the buzzing servant bees. And these would take off in a typical Hyderabadi road rage and attack the midnight marauder trying to bite his back off.
And our bear would sit tight and keep smiling...for he is armed with a thick skin and thicker coat of hair.
After all the bees lose their stings and fly away, our bugbear would gulp and swallow the entire honeycomb not caring to wait or watch for the Queen residing inside.
Charming story that reminds me somehow of Russi Mody who was the Chairman of our IIT KGP Board of Governors 30 years ago (he breathed his last a few months back). His breakfast was saintly and simple...a wee 24-egg omelet.
Those were troubled times since our Teachers' Association went on a warpath with its Secretary as our Queen Bee.
And there was this prolonged agitation and a charter of ever-growing demands that ultimately amounted to asking the Administration to devolve their recruiting and promoting powers to our Queen Bee and his close associates (I was a mere servant bee then).
The then Director was too gentle a man to tackle this agitation frontally and sought the help of Russi Mody, the aspiring head of the vast Tata Empire, well known for his administrative skills...strong-arm as well as under-arm.
The Queen Bee then surrounded himself with a couple of hundred servant bees guarding him with their academic lives.
Russi Mody tried his formidable negotiation skills and failed.
He then pawed off us servant bees with one threatening stroke:
"I will shut down IIT KGP forever!"
And us servant bees went on their stinging spree holding up the IIT JEE and boycotting invigilation duties thus threatening the exam schedules and the future of our final year students. This alienated all students who cared more for their careers than their teachers' genuine demands.
Russi-da then did shut down the IIT...a master-stroke that was never thought of before or later...IITs being the Navratnas of our GoI in the education field.
The servant bees gave up and tucked their tails and apologized and promised to call off all their boycotts.
It was then that Russi-Bear devoured the Queen Bee forever and for good...
...Posted by Ishani
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