Dheera's Workshop of Whimsy

The earth was silent, calm and still,

The air was frosted over with chill,

No surface feature had yet corrupted,

The pristine topography, no volcanoes erupted.

The continents remained a single land mass,

Before the evolution of pomfret or bass.

Then quite imperceptibly the climate altered,

The shallow seas got deeper, more salt-ered.

A tremour shook the even ground,

The contours moved, there was a sound,

Thus the Meso-zonic era commenced,

The conifers, frogs and starfish tensed.

Meso-zonic, incase you are confused,

Refers to reptiles and is often used,

To describe the clumsy Dinosaur age,

Tracing their history at every stage.

With the oddest names and voices in chorus,

At 24 meters stood the carnivore, Tyra-nno-saurus.

The smallest one, no larger than a chicken,

Was savage enough to make a pulse quicken,

Scaly, fleet footed, with vertebrae bent,

Ten times the weight of an average elephant,

Most subsisted on local vegetation,

Lush and obtained without agitation.

But the meanest, lean necked, small-headed saurus,

Roamed, mouth gaping, in search of tubu-li-florous.

Thus Dinosaurs ruled the sky, land and sea,

Wandering continental land connections, freely.

It has been acknowledged and often said,

That India is backward, its millions underfed.

A third world country, with problems galore,

Was a likely land for the Dinosaur to ignore.

But quite unexpectedly, an Indian excavator,

Out on a picnic, several billion years later,

Suddenly ran into a bone

And flung it away, mistaking it for a stone

The stone turned out to be a fossil,

Its importance in Indian paleontology, colossal.

For it was a precious vertebral piece,

Of an enormous creature, long since deceased.

The paleontologists fell into a scutter

They searched for fossils in distant Calcutta.

They hunted high,

They hunted low,

Up and against the Narmada’s flow,

They found more bones and then some more.

Until they had an even score.

They named it Raja-saurus and they built,

A whole new skeleton, with a jaunty tilt.

They researched and dug, until they found,

That in India the Dinosaur did abound.

They found that he was a carnivore,

He walked on hind legs and had quite a roar.

He was thirty feet long and had many horns,

They couldn’t quite decide if he had had any corns.

The reconstruction done, they had a bash,

Dinner and dancing, with pomp and flash.

The Indians felt happy, they welcomed the fact,

Of an Indian Dinosaur and that it had been tracked

The authorities were unanimous, as they concluded,

In a high level meeting, in chambers secluded,

The Raja-saurus must have an edge over the others,

He was rare, an Indian, quite unlike his brothers.

This Dinosaur was ethnic, special as could be,

So a smart tailor was commissioned for the next jamboree,

Where the reconstructed skeleton wore a GANDHI TOPEE!

I am a cat so thin and lean,

My uncle named me Gangadeen,

I wasn't always such a mess,

I was quite a cat but you'd never guess.

My brothers and I were born on a shelf,

Inside the cupboard of Mr. Delph.

The cupboard was dark,

As large as a park,

Stacked and stuffed as it could have been

His shirts were blue, pants all white and his underwear was green!

But to go back to my sad, sad story,

About my wicked Uncle called Mori.

It was a fact commonly known

That Uncle Mori had very often flown

To many distant unknown lands,

Of deep blue seas and pristine sands.

He told me many interesting tales,

Of mighty crocodiles and big blue whales,

About clever apes and foxes that flew,

Until I yearned to see the places he knew.

Better men than me were begat,

I was but a silly little new-born cat!

My weary mother, looking after her litter,

Warned, Deen, don't fall for this travel glitter!

But I was impressed and young and foolish,

I sharpened my claws and acted mulish.

Come let me show you the world! lisped Mori,

If I hadn't, this would've been a different story.

We left one night when it was late,

We left at nine or was it eight?

We were asleep, mum, brothers and I,

When Mori came crouching stealthily by,

Wake up you ass, he hissed looking mean,

Its time we left, young Gangadeen!

I'd never been beyond the gate,

Or ever roamed the entire estate,

I hadn't told my mother I was off,

Last minute I remembered I had a bad cough.

Uncle Mori sneered at my hesitation,

He dragged me protesting towards our destination.

The journey at first was a total blur,

I was not allowed a mew or purr,

My heart leapt up to my throat,

I felt I was about to choke.

But Mori sang

We will go to the South

To the river's mouth,

Then through the jungles to the sea,

We will cruise to the East,

Stalk the wilderbeast,

And ride back with the Bumble bee!

I was impressed, so very awed,

I sent up a prayer to the Lord,

The journey was long, with obstacles galore,

Mori was a gentleman, right to the core.

Whenever we were in a tight spot,

He pushed me forward, instructed a lot,

He always hid behind a tree,

Never allowed me to follow or flee,

This is the way you will learn, he admonished,

Soon I will have you trained and polished!

You won't ever fear anything in life!

Look how bravely I face strife.

We met a creature half Mori's size,

It said,

I want the little one's head as a prize!

That's a rat, informed Mori looking wise,

An unusual one, you must realize,

Us cats hunt mice, as a general rule,

So he must be mad, or clearly a fool!

But let us run as fast as we can,

Come on Deen, come, be a man!

As we hurried off, we clearly heard,

A distinct loud hiss which sounded weird.

We looked to the right and then to the left,

Mori pushed past me, he was quite deft,

A restless rope on the ground I could see,

But there was no sign of my Uncle Mori.

The rope was in pain,

It writhed quite insane,

I pounced upon it, intending to play,

It hissed a lot and slithered away.

Then up it puckered into a coil,

Right there upon the alluvial soil,

It lifted up a menacing head,

And from somewhere in the dark, Mori said,

That's a snake, Deen run or you are dead!

I ran blindly from the hissing snake,

And fell pell mell, into the lake.

Uncle Mori joining the race,

Bypassed the waterway with a dancer's grace

He saw me thrash and sputter and drown,

He meowed at me with a great big frown,

Gangadeen what a nuisance you are,

If I had known, we'd have gone by car.

As it happens, I must proceed

And off he vanished into the tumbleweed.

He never looked back, he seemed turned off,

By my chesty, choking, drowning cough.

I struggled, I spluttered and mewed and then sank,

While in the moonlight, upon the bank,

I saw the tail end of Uncle Mori,

But this is not quite the end of my story.

Soon something touched my trembling paws,

Pushing me up, I dug in my claws,

The earth moved with me on its back,

A voice said, I am Lakinder, you can call me Lack,

I saw your uncle treat you bad,

It made me feel so very sad,

I will help you Gangadeen,

I want to do it, I'm really keen.

This must have happened because I had prayed,

Lack took me ashore he came to my aid,

And while I lay there, spouting water,

Lack told me about his wife and daughter.

We are crocodiles, swimmings our profession,

Are you suicidal? Quick, make a confession!

Amid tears and sniffles and my cough,

I recounted my tale, from the time we took off.

Lack listened deeply without blinking his eye,

He said, ?Gangadeen, you are quite a guy,

Your mum would worry if she knew,

You're in danger of catching virulent cat flu.

You must be taken home to bed,

Any delay and you could be quite, quite dead.

And then very suddenly Lack behaved strange,

In fact I thought he looked deranged,

He lay very still and lifeless as pie,

I tried to move him, blew in his eye.

Then I heard a rustle nearby

There you are, you silly elf

Boomed the dear voice of Mr. Delph.

I could have kissed him, I could have shouted,

Instead of which, I thoughtfully pouted.

How had he traveled so very far?

Had he walked or come by car?

Wandering off like that, cooed he,

As he cuddled, what was left of me.

Kitty your poor mums a weeping,

Your brothers too are mewing and peeping

I craned my neck to smile at Lack

He winked and turned and waddled back,

On his way to the moon-lit lake,

When we got home, everyone was awake.

My mum brushed against Mr. Delph's shin,

She licked my face, my wee wet chin,

Welcome back child, where ever have you been?

Don't do this again, promise, Gangadeen!

That is about the end of my story,

But you may wonder what became of Mori.

Many months passed without word from him,

Our memory of him grew hazy and dim,

My brothers all became strong tom-cats,

I remained puny they called me Rats,

We came back home, tired one day,

After teasing and stalking a pesky Blue Jay,

And there lay a post card with a photo attached,

It was new and shiny and recently dispatched,

Greetings from Mori, sipping from a can,

On a beach in Hawaii, catching a sun tan!

Ishita Imp had run out of ink,

They laughed and jeered and rolled about

She stretched her arms and awoke, shaking the dew drops from her lids. The sun brightened and warmed the day. The bees got busy, the breeze fanned the leaves in the trees. There was a lot to do. Many tasks to perform, many roles to play. She spread her perfume in the air, her smile reached far and wide bestowing comfort. Waves of love emanated from her being. She soothed, healed and comforted.