Little Red Rajalakshmi

Long after India got independence, the Indian elders believed that the threat was still there. Education was predominantly "anglicized". Children were taught nursery rhymes that were clearly of western origin. There was no organized alternative in sight, as the local Pot-shaala systems were crumbling. The students in these Pot-shaalas were distinctly divided into two types, the have and the have-not. The "have-not" were weak, thin students who were in charge of maintaining the teacher's laundry, upkeep of the house and seeing to the nutritional requirements of the holy cows. The "have" category wore short dhotis, and flexed their pectorals at the teacher's daughter, without respite, until she accepted the proposal and made out. This invariably finished off the teacher with one swift coronary, as their arteries would already be clogged by the rich food served by the "have-not". So, there was not much scope for the Indian Cultural Education System to thrive. The Convents and the Missionary schools, on the other hand, were very professional, and were headed by imposing Mother Superiors who usually thrashed the living daylights out of students and then questioned the corpses. Students from all walks of the society preferred convent education. Even Pot-shaala teachers sent their daughters there. They were used to marrying off their daughters at ripe old ages of eight or nine, but the Government played spoilsport and made it illegal. So, the only way the teachers could shield their daughters from pectoral-flexing "have" youngsters was to send their daughters to Convents.

The elders were worried. After much research, they adopted the age-old dictum, "when you can't lick 'em, join 'em". They decided that adapting the western sounding nursery rhymes and stories to Indian characters and plots, would keep the children from taking up western habits and practices. They marshaled a huge army of patriotic Indian Intellectuals with some western education, like me, and entrusted these stalwarts of India with the task of "Indianizing" the corrupt western hymns and saving our poor children. In the gazillions of stories that we molded and adapted, I present proudly this one.

Little Red Rajalakshmi

Once upon a time, in a remote village in South India, there was a Iyer girl called Rajalakshmi. She always wore a red dress, and refused to take it off even when she took a bath. People called her Little Red Rajalakshmi, and avoided her judiciously. One day, Little Red Rajalakshmi's mother got word that her father Panjumama was ill and was, for all practical purposes, on his death bed. Panjumama was a Railway Ticket Examiner, and after retirement, lived in a discarded Railway bogie. His family gradually moved away to far off places, leaving Panjumama to fend for himself. You see, the railway bogies in India don't have a collection system for their toilets, and the end products were deposited on the railway track in all their grandeur. With Panjumama's incessant use of the toilet in his discarded railway bogie, no living thing could continue living, within a mile's radius.

Little Red Rajalakshmi's mother called her and told her, "dear red one, your grandfather is very ill. I want you to take this stainless steel sambadam full of sweets made with dripping unsaturated ghee to ease the poor man's suffering once and for all. Here is a Junior Vikatan calender sheet, I have written your grandfather's address on the reverse, just follow that map." With this the mother sent Little Red Rajalakshmi on her way. When she crossed the village border the villagers celebrated in gay abandon and burnt incence sticks and renamed their village Male Maruvathur. Everybody started wearing red to compensate for the absence of Little Red Rajalakshmi and the village gradually became very popular. Little Red Rajalakshmi hopped merrily across the countryside in gay abandon. She was so happy at the effect her shocking red dress had on the local flora and fauna. After some time she saw a huddled form at the side of the road. It was a Nari-kuravan, (meaning a gypsy in local language). This Nari-kuravan was relieving himself by the side of the road, when Little Red Rajalakshmi walked up to him and asked, "Sir, what's the time?" Nari-kuravan's bladder was only half-empty, and the sequence of events, once initiated can't be taken back or paused. So, he chose to maintain silence. Little Red Rajalakshmi was not told that she shouldn't talk to strangers, and if any person was not intimidated by the smell of her perennial red dress must be assumed to be dangerous. She took a step closer to the Nari-kuravan and repeated her question. That was when the smell assaulted the Nari-kuravan and he knew that Little Red Rajalakshmi must also be of his community, (the gypsies were staunch non-bathers too). He turned around and told Little Red Rajalakshmi, "Yenna saamiyo, bheero bheero". Little Red Rajalakshmi couldn't tell time, and so she thought what the Nari-kuravan said was the time, said her thanks and hopped away merrily. Nari-Kuravan finished irrigating the fields and stood up and saw the Stainless steel sambadam. So, he ran after Little Red Rajalakshmi. When he caught up with her, he asked her where she was headed. Little Red Rajalakshmi said that her garndpa was ill and she was taking these sweets to him at his house - a discarded railway bogie. Nari-kuravan thought that there would be no better opportunity than this to eat sweets from an Iyer's home, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He raced through the underbrush and went to the railway bogie well ahead of the merrily trotting-along Little Red Rajalakshmi. As he climbed inside the bogie, the smell from under the bogie's toilet was so overpowering that the dead squirrels that he had tied on a rope to his shoulder came to life and scampered away. Panju mama promptly asked him for his ticket, and Nari-kuravan was at a loss. So, he gave Panju mama an enema and pushed him inside the toilet and locked it from outside. He wore Panjumama's old Railway jacket and got on to an upper berth just in time to see dear Little Red Rajalakshmi climb aboard.

"Grandpa are you there?", said Little Red Rajalakshmi.

"Yaar angae abhishtu?" asked Nari-kuravan in the best iyer dialect he could muster.

"It's me, grandpa, your non-bathing grand daughter Little Red Rajalakshmi. I have brought you sweets."

"please come closer dear, I can't move, and I can barely see a thing."

Little Red Rajalakshmi got onto the upper berth and lay next to the Nari-kuravan.

"Oh what big arms you have grandpa." she said innocently.

"All the better to hug you with my dear."

"Oh what a thick sacred thread you have, grandpa" she said unaware that it was the rope that Nari-kuravan used to tie the squirrel corpses,

"All the better for prayer, my dear"

"Oh how dark your skin is, grandpa" she asked with suspicion creeping in her voice.

"The more visible will my vibhuti (holy ash) be, my dear."

That was when she noticed the empty Dalda tin tied securely to Nari-kuravan's stomach. For a brief moment Little Red Rajalakshmi panicked, but then the irony dawned on her. All she had to do was give this Nari-kuravan what he wanted, the sweets. And nature would take care of him. So, she gave the Nari-kuravan all the sweets from her Stainless Steel Sambadam. As the Nari-kuravan stuffed the last badhusha in his mouth, all hell broke loose in his intestines. Little Red Rajalakshmi graciously stood aside as he dashed to the toilet, forgetting completely that Panjumama was stashed in there. Little Red Rajalakshmi locked the bewildered Nari-kuravan inside the toilet with Panjumama and trotted merrily back home. Till this day, one can hear a howl from an abandoned railway bogie, and a monotonous rendering of how to check RAC status on a ticket in a moving train, and allotting a berth, in the background.

MORAL: Do not use the toilet in a train at a railway station.