It was yet another day in the everyday holiday life of
a retiree, except that Aunty didn't have to cook lunch that morning. A common friend
hosted lunch to a senior couple going abroad for a few months, and he invited us too.
One
enjoys such bonus free morning hours at home with an extra cup of coffee with
something to go with it. “I give you two options,” said Aunty. I guessed, it must be Idly or Dosa for
breakfast. “Should we,” she quipped, “weed out the attic of things we had hoped
we would find a use later or, should we re-set the furniture to be remotely
close to my friend's enviable interior in Oak?” (Comparative dissatisfaction,
thy name!)
Observing
my stoic silence on both these labour-intense projects, she reduced the
sentence. “Or, shall we just dust the living room?” I agreed. It was ages since
the living room furniture came in contact with a duster. “We shall
complete the job before the help-lady comes so that she clears all the
accumulation in one go,” she clarified.
We
started the operation right earnest. Moments later Aunty got the jolt of her
life. Her hitherto challenge to all and the sundry that no one can spot a
single cockroach in her home was shattered. A medium size cockroach surfaced
and played around merrily to give Aunty a real hide and seek discomfiture.
“I
say, where are you?” she shouted. I was momentarily out of her sight, which I
should never be during such joint ventures. I rushed. By then she had gathered one
broom in her hand and another ready to hand me. She briefed me on her plan of
action. She would deploy all available means at her disposal to provoke
the cockroach to re-emerge and I, at my end, should stay ready with a raised
hand with broom to perform in no uncertain terms the executioner's job. But it
looked that this particular breed was made of a different stuff. It chose to remain in hibernation. With
nothing in sight after a twenty-minute non-stop operation including turning the showcase
topsy-turvy, the never-say-die Aunty changed her strategy. “Now I will empty
the show-case of all its contents from the drawers, and see where it seeks
asylum.”
She
spotted two egg capsules in the process. A student of science having done several
dissections in the college lab, she began to explain to an unwilling economist
how each of these could convert itself into nearly 30 cockroaches, i.e., 60, to speak
of the minimum with the stock identified.
The
doorbell rang signalling, much to my relief, the arrival of the maid. That
brought the operation to an abrupt halt with the Cockroach & Co getting a respite. Till the next battle, that is.
On
the brighter side of this abortive attempt was that while emptying the showcase,
I found my long-lost collection of CDs which I thought I had handed over lock,
stock and barrel to my friend in Hebbal before moving to SFV. Thankfully I had
retained these select few – Anthony Ventura, Paul Mauriat, Kenny G, ABBA,
BoneyM, Haridas Bhajans...
The
maid got busy with her job, I enjoyed Anthony Ventura in my laptop as I
attempted this write-up. Aunty played Haridas bhajan in the living room as she
condescended to make coffee, simultaneously branding me an NPA in the cockroach-hunt
that, to me, transformed itself into a musical bonanza. I can now hear these CDs
by turn as I used to in the 1980s when I attempted writing some pieces for
Hindustan Times or Times of India.
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