The allure of Alakapuri

My daughter announced one day “Lion is ‘A’s’( her carpool mate’s) best friend. In my usual distracted mom mode, thinking 'A’ had a soft toy, I responded “ does he growl?” So she said “Not Lion, lion.” I agreed “ Yes! Lion.” In frustration she stomped her foot and said “Why can't you understand? I mean ‘lion’.” That is when it dawned on me that she meant 'Ryan'!

Many years ago, on our honeymoon, we took a road trip across Kerala. The last leg of our journey was at Thekkady which has the Periyar forest reserve. We were booked in a hotel which was situated inside the tiger reserve.

The man at the front desk cautioned us to keep the windows closed when we stepped out, as there were a lot of monkeys in the vicinity. Indeed, I had seen a couple of monkeys sitting on a parapet happily throwing a stack of neatly folded towels on to the floor, not all together as one would imagine, but one by one, as if counting them as they went along.

Imagining that we were safe from the monkey menace while within the room, I had opened the windows wide. Spying a bunch of bananas on the table, one rather vicious looking monkey started advancing menacingly into the room. Petrified, I called out to my fellow honeymooner who was mooning in the loo. Seeing that he was busy and the monkey had already entered, I just ran outside the room shouting “monkey, monkey” and with commendably quick thinking, despite the stress, I latched the room from outside. People from the adjacent rooms rushed out responding to my distress calls. The monkey was persistent, like a stalker on the streets of Delhi. He had followed me and was knocking on the door.  Shrieking like Nirupama Roy, who after banging her forehead in the temple in ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’, magically regained her eyesight, I screeched hysterically to the bemused audience, “see the monkey is even banging the door!” From inside I heard a voice say “open the latch you egg head, it's me.”

My husband's demonstration of bravery at boldly rescuing the binoculars and camera and pushing the monkey out with his token prize of bananas could not even be rivalled by the fleet of the Starship Enterprise. I knew this man was a keeper.

I realized then, that wildlife and it's admiration was hugely over rated.

The next day we went on a four-five hour trek and sailed on bamboo rafts and I hoped against hope that we wouldn't see a single wild animal. If a monkey could make me incoherent what would happen if I were to actually spot a tiger? The guide would keep pointing to elephant dung and tiger crap to show us we were on the right trail. He didn't need to convince me that we shouldn't be disappointed. I was beaming internally while trying to keep an expression of dejection plastered onto my face.

The disinterest continues to this day. But the guide might have evoked a different kind of interest, an interest in crap. The other day I asked a friend who owns an aquarium to send me some fish poop. Mildly amused, he offered to put me on to someone, who stays closer, for my supplies. I told him “I am not willing to take random people’s crap.”

Before you, kind reader, imagine me to have weird tastes, let me quickly clarify that my plants are misogynistic. They happily take any crap I dish out, whether it comes from the venerable cow or from pigs, which aren't even three eyed or smart like Peppa pig.

Despite their weird tastes, I find myself obsessing over them. I check them daily for bugs, I lovingly strain out compost and feed them.

I go giddy headed when I see bees circling the flowers, like a mother proud at the gaggle of admirers surrounding her daughter.

My children worry that instead of singing to them at night, I'm going to start serenading my plants. I haven't yet told them that I plan to learn a musical instrument, so that I can play classical music like maybe a Raag Malhar in the rainy season.

'Meghadootam' written by Kalidasa, tells the story of a yaksha who is banished from the kingdom of Alakapuri in the Himalayas by the king Kubera for some infraction. Yaksha’s were demigods with magical powers but this particular yaksha of our story had his powers stripped off him and pining for his young wife while stranded in the hot plains of Madhya Pradesh, he notices a rain cloud and starts imagining the journey that the cloud would make. Suddenly his despair turns to hope and he sends a message through the rain cloud to his wife. He describes the journey northward and the places that the rain cloud could rest at and finally describes his hometown, his home and wife and gives a message for her. At the end of the soliloquy, seeing the good omens he is sure of his message being delivered.

My home, my family and my rooftop garden are my own Alakapuri and I imagine, if I were banished from it, I would write a magnificent poem which would be talked about many centuries from now. 

Seeing that I have no concept of rhyme or meter, it will become a cult classic incomprehensible to anyone. Resulting, but naturally, in it being taught in schools with unintended allegories and metaphors being pointed out by earnest young teachers.