by M. Mohankumar
Walking into his room during lunch-break,
I saw him sullen in his chair, fidgeting.
“What’s the problem, Shanti?” I asked and
waited for long seconds for an answer.
“See what he’s written,” he said, pushing
a file towards me, and retreated into silence.
I read it: the single line in green ink, our boss’s
large hand, scrawled across the page. “Why,”
I said, “this is an Upanishad mantra!” and,
intrigued, turned to Shanti for enlightenment.
“Read my note,” he said, and went on fuming.
I read the three-page typed note. An elephant
had run amuck and gored an old man to death.
The police shot it dead. They had no option,
they said, the day waning, and the animal
uncontrollable. Shanti’s wide-ranging note
spoke of many things: the place of elephants
in mythology, the winged creatures they once were,
talking like human beings. It bemoaned the loss
of ancient texts like Hastayurveda. It attacked
‘the execrable practice of trapping and breaking in’;
the tortures they suffer. And, rising to a crescendo,
condemned ‘the ineptness of the police.’
It read like a prose poem, anger and dismay
mingling with erudition. I wasn’t surprised
for Shanti was a budding poet. (We would see
his full flowering later.) But, was it fair? Then
the words of the boss echoed in my mind,
the playfulness of it, smoothing ruffled feelings,
falling like a benediction, gently:
Oh, Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
Pic : https://www.flickr.com/photos/navaneethkn/
