Pranav was a prodigious kid. Full of beans and doubts which could stun and irritate the most docile and placid person. It was very irritating and quite frankly we were spell bound by his doubts. We simply did not have answers to his prolific and ‘always-on–tap’ questions. He could rattle off a sequence of doubts and expect his mother to answer them to his satisfaction! A tall order by any standard!!!
He was quite dubious and cunning about the entire thing. He would slide up to his mother and fire one quite innocuously with “butter would not melt in my mouth” demeanor. Some of his doubts almost made poor Padma jump out of her skin! We were very sure that his 8-year-old body would be twitching in delight seeing the hardships he was causing!!!
Many dishes were spoiled and many times Padma almost lost it. Even though she was quite calm and composed, Pranav’s continuous barrage of questions were wearing down her defenses. At times she had the haunted look of a person locked in a room with a machine that keeps firing questions at her just like cricket balls thrown at 100 miles per hour at a helpless number 11 batsman! Such was his volley of questions that he was quickly christened “Master Doubtfire” by his quite irritated and totally hapless mother.
Sample some of his doubts:
Why is it called Ladies Finger why not Gents Finger?
Why should we call it Mango why not Womango?
Why Handsaw why not Handsee?
Why T-shirt why not coffee-shirt?
Why Rocket and not stonet?
Why Octopus why not 8-pus?
Why Donkey why not Donlock?
Why Mongoose and why not Mongeese and not Mongander?
Why Breakfast why not Breakslow for a person eating slowly?
Why tooth paste why not teeth paste and teeth brush
And the mostly deadly one - Does a tiger eat a man with his clothes on, or does the tiger take the clothes off his victim before eating him?
We never had answers to such questions!!!
On an exceptionally hard day Padma was totally at her wits end. She was ready to say quits! Seeing the seriousness of the situation, I made the family sit in the garden and passed a diktat (order). In my most serious and dictatorial voice, I proclaimed with all the pomp that I could muster “For the next one hour our family will be the most silent family in Bahirdar”.
Padma the poor soul was delighted. ‘Silence is gold and I need a tonne of it” she must have muttered to herself. Sahithi all of two years was intimidated by my seriousness. She became silent and looked at her mother for support.
This was something not to Pranav’s liking. His 8-year-old self-rebelled against the idea of sitting silently for 60 minutes which otherwise could be spent fruitfully by asking mind numbing questions that would send any sane person into stupor or even into coma!
Then he brightened visibly and glibly said, “Sahithi, a silent family is a family that does not talk. Silence means that no one talks. A silent family is liked by everyone……………..” He rattled on and on. For the next ten minutes we were given a lecture on silence, why we need to be silent and virtues of being silent in the most noisy and raucous fashion! I SILENTLY marveled at the ingenuity of my son who adroitly turned tables on us! For once I was totally stumped! Game set and match - Pranav Pratheek, the noisiest boy in the world!!!
You can take an Indian out of India but you can’t take India out of an Indian. We were yearning for Dosas and Idlis but Minappappu (Urad Dal), skinned Black gram was not available in Bahirdar. Dr. Radhakrishna, a fellow faculty member made a monumental discovery. HE DISCOVERED URAD DAL in Bahirdar market and it was quite cheap, ten birr a kilo.
Soon there were stories making rounds in Bahirdar. Stories of how Radhakrishna’s family was enjoying Dosas and Idlis by the dozen. His family was the envy of the town. Soon a contingent of Indian teachers beseeched Radhakrishna and finally he consented with a kindly light took us to the shop in Bahirdar market which sold the URAD DAL. The shop keeper was nonplussed but solemnly sold us as much Urad Dal as we wanted.
Padma the kind soul, threw a dosa party. Kable 7’s Indians, Bala, Suresh, Krishna, Rajani madam and Clara were invited. Oh boy did we have a dosa party! It was the mother of all parties.
Padma made karam podi and potato curry and we all hogged. Many of us had three to four dosas. The dosas almost tasted Indian. Everyone dispersed after the dosa orgy. By afternoon all hell broke out.
Everyone barring Sahithi (who wisely had only one dosa) was having the most severe stomach cramps. So severe that it felt as if our stomach was being churned by an infernal washing machine in the fast wash mode and it looked like someone forcefully stapled our stomachs.
The pain was unbearable. Home remedies were tried out, including drinking water copiously, having soft drinks, digene but to no avail. Many Indians faced a sleepless night. We suffered too. It was like an Agatha Christie novel “Death by Dosa!”.
Next day I scooped up some of the innocuous and innocent looking skinned black gram seeds and took them to my Management HOD. She too was puzzled. She did not even know what they were! I was desperate to crack the mystery. I took the offensive grains to the Agricultural Department of Bahirdar University.
The kind professor who received us too, was nonplussed. He took the grains and promised a quick investigation as to why these grains caused so much pain!!
The professor was at my office the next day. He had an almighty grin. A grin so wide that it threatened to tear his face off. He was trying to control his mirth, but it was a lost battle, “Dr. Aneel” he almost shouted at me “It is very clear. What you ate is not for human consumption. It is a special grain that is used in Ethiopia to make race horses run as fast as they can. The grain is so strong that it is diluted so much that a kilo of this wonder grain is enough to boost twenty horses to gallop as fast as they can”. It was a shock of my life.
We ground the very strong and toxic grains and made dosas!!! And we had dosas with equally heavy potato curry. It was no wonder that we all experienced the most severe stomach cramps of our life. Light dawned. That is why the shopkeeper gave us such funny looks! He could not comprehend why these scholarly looking Indians were buying grains that were almost exclusively bought by Ethiopians who bred race horses that could gallop as fast as wind! But being a smart seller he was, he made hay as the sun shone! He sold us the wonder grain, while inwardly he must have been smirking “Oh boy, these Indians are as mad as MAD can be!”
As usual Pranav had the last laugh, “What Nanna? The solution is very simple. We can eat dosas and gallop all the way to Gondar (a historic Ethiopian city, 140 kilometers from Bahirdar)”. I was so annoyed and angry that I could not even muster courage to reprimand him! It was quite an ordeal!
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