Honestly, life was a roller-coaster ride, with myriad events of varying magnitude happening all the time. Olly and I contributed liberally to the pandemonium. Like when Mama’s niece came home to show-off her latest electronic gadget, a laptop with a half-eaten forbidden fruit as the brand logo. Everyone crowded around it as if it was a new-born pup. Now the problem was that my dearest Big Mama was simultaneously packing her bags to go for a conference somewhere. Naturally I was in an egregiously bad mood. I expressed my displeasure by plonking right on top of her trolley. The innuendo (if you want to use a subtle term) was clear to one and all: “DON’T GO, PLEASE” . But instead of trying to mollify my wounded sentiments everyone just went “ Oh, look at Lou, he is so cute”. Cute, my left paw, I was hopping furious. But then they treated my disgruntlement disrespectfully. The niece did not help matters by trying to click pictures of me and asking me to pose. I studiously ignored her. I was no pushover. But soon my moment to extract revenge on this paparazzi behaviour arrived, almost with impeccable serendipity. There was an emergency. They all rushed to the kitchen where our famous cook had apparently forgotten to switch off the oven resulting in smoked banana muffins whose aroma probably wafted all the way up to the monkeys on Malabar Hill. This was an opportunity I was not going to let go. I grinned to myself, encircled the laptop once, twice, thrice, and then lifted my leg and dropped a sizeable portion of my pee onto the computer’s keyboard. Then I quietly trooped to the kitchen with a sorry expression to sympathise with the cook who was being made to feel that she had just committed a bank heist. To be frank, the burnt banana had a sexy smell. The house-help ( I don’t remember her name as their turnover was higher than Apple Inc.) deserved a Michelin star for this nouvelle cuisine breakthrough. Anyway, I waited for the moment of epiphany when Mama’s niece would discover that her keyboard had sweated under Mumbai’s scorching heat. It came predictably within minutes.
Sanjay Jha
My Illegitimate Son
Rupa Publications, 2023
“I think someone has dropped water on my laptop” the young lady rued mournfully. Perhaps she had a bad case of sinus because I am very proud of my distinctive smell or stamp of authority. Mama looked aghast, but then she did not have a bad cold, and her first suspicions had hit the jackpot. From one end of the house I heard her scream: “LOOOUIIIIIIIS”. I refused to budge preferring to ensconce in the comfort of the sofa’s underbelly. But Mama can be as adamant as me. She stood like a towering inferno in front of the sofa and ordered me to come out. “ Louis, come out, instantly. You have been a really bad boy”. Now let me tell you a secret. Ol and I had through conscientious research analysed that whenever we did something wicked and the reprimand was that either of us had been “a bad boy” meant that we could manoeuvre out of our predicament, our situation, if we handled it with diplomatic finesse. Bad boy basically meant, bad for sure, but also somewhat slapstick. There was some hope. Therefore pretending to be woken up from a deep sleep, I stepped out to confront Mama, my heart palpitating away. Mama lifted me off the ground holding me by my two front shoulders and looked straight into my eyes and muttered under her breath ( mostly for her niece’s benefit, I think): “ Louis, why did you do that?”. From the corner of my eye I could see M1 and M2 in paroxysm of giggles, while Beard appeared unconvinced that I, a model of perfection, deserved a hollering for one minor peccadillo.
“Do what?” I wanted to ask her, but better wisdom prevailed. I looked back straight into her eyes, a personification of hurt and distress combined. I was a master of this ingenious trick. It had the desired repercussions; she looked down sheepishly, pretending to be apologetic about wrongly suspecting me of the crime (it could also be Olly, right?), while I carefully controlled my laughter. That was typical Mama, blow hot blow cold. Of course, I also knew I was the apple of her eye. After all, it was me and not Beard that she cuddled with under the blanket when we went to sleep, right? The niece felt gratified at my chastisement (although in all fairness she took the keyboard attack in her stride). The moment she left, Mama gave me a short fat chewy stick good for my gums, which had a delicious dry pork as a head. I resolved to pee more often on keyboards if I got the opportunity. I got my chance to however wet a real sophisticated tripod.
Now Beard strangely was a politician of sorts; I say “ of sorts” because he wore well-tailored Brooks Brothers suits in the daytime and woefully ill-fitting Nehru ( if someone is offended that I haven’t called it something else more contemporary, go take a flying fish) jackets in the evening. Big Mama would often joke that if Beard could be a politician, then pigs could fly. While all through the day Beard would use cuss words and behave like his ancestral monkeys, in the nights he would abruptly assume an air of gentlemanliness. Basically, he would be politically correct and extremely boring after sunset. Olly and I did not like this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde schizophrenic behaviour of his. Worse, our house had several television crews in the evening who for some absurd reason or the other wanted to hear Beard’s views on the state of the country ( no one knew that nobody listened to him at home to begin with). The idiot box and Beard were an inseparable partnership. I was jealous of this and promised Olly that I would jeopardize this growing affinity. Olly was madder still because the entire drawing hall would be cordoned off during this curfew time. While Beard was normally the coolest dude at most times, he would transmogrify into a sullen dour faced yawn when the camera lights were on. I did not like this.
Sanjay Jha. Photo: Special arrangement
One evening I quietly sneaked out when the tactless house-staff left the door slightly ajar. I headed straight for the camera-crew who looked flabbergasted to see me, an overgrown slug in a choleric mood. They ran helter-skelter, tripping over wires with one almost falling on Beard’s lap. As it happened, the live transmission was on, so all Beard could do was to give me a sharp dirty look, warning me of dire consequences later if I did not behave myself (which meant a soft whack on my buttock that was more ticklish than anything else). I ignored him and gave the tripod my signature piss. Then even as the hapless crew watched with astonishment I jumped on to Beard’s lap ( his bony legs were so uncomfortable unlike Big Mama’s , frankly). But the principal cameraman responded with remarkable alacrity, egged on by Beard’s nod, and promptly changed the camera angle. Damn! My chance to express my views on animal rights, besides inflation, rural distress, social polarization and crony capitalism on NDTV was gone.
Excerpted with permission from My Illegitimate Son by Sanjay Jha, published by Rupa Publications.
