Burn or be burnt

 "He is giving me murderous looks," my little one complained about her brother. What the transgression was, is not up for discussion. Mainly because I was least interested in finding out. 

My sleep had been disturbed by the Malabar whistling thrush. Not knowing that it was the handiwork of a hard to reprimand avian, I had murmured unprintable epithets at the neighbours thinking they were showing that annoying trait of excessive cheerfulness which no one wants to encounter in the morning. Sleep having been disrupted, and mood thoroughly ruined, I set out to return the favour to the world at large.

First off the block was a fellow guest at the resort we were staying at, who had set his arms on a slab near the live counter. 

Taking offence I pointed out how he was non-compliant with safety protocols against the virus. Unfortunately he was made of sterner stuff and he refused to get intimidated by me. I had been lulled into a false sense of complacency by my family's unquestioning adherence to my dictates. He coolly told me to mind my own business.

The opportunity presented by the little one's complaint was not to be lost. I set out to train her on returning the murderous look so that he would be suitably chastised. 

"Knit your eyebrows while glaring fixedly at him." I advised her. I figure this kind of training in intimidation is essential, seeing how the world survives on bullying..

I needed to improve my own technique and practiced hard at looking fierce. My daughter forgot all about her complaints and laughed at my facial expressions.

"She's mercurial as ever," I reflected. I wondered if she was just hard to train. I remembered the time she brightly pointed to the right corner of the dining table and exclaimed, "That's a right angle!" Not bad for an eight year old, I thought, chest swelling with pride. And then she spoilt it all by pointing to the other corner of the table and saying, "And that's a left angle."

Ruminating over my ineffectual training methodology, we all proceeded towards the big ground where the resort had organized the burning of the effigy of the rakshasa king Ravana. As the ten-headed king burnt down, probably inhaling the smoke even more with his ten noses, the audience shouted 'Jai Sri Ram." And I suddenly had my voila moment.

The perfectly innocuous devotional greeting had been transformed in recent years into a war cry. All my daughter and I had to do, to intimidate anyone was to shout it out. 

Burn or be burnt! Simple as that.