"Wowww...”  said Murli still panting and resting cross-legged against a large rock in one end of the colony playground. “That catch was so much fun!”.

 

  "It’s not called a catch Murli... " said Nandu pouring water on his muddy face and head from a water bottle “Its called a hunt.”  He scrubbed his face with a glowing white handkerchief and brushed his wet hair back. “Very few people can do it.”

So the five little boys - Murli , Nandu, Tyagi , Kisley  and Hanni were gathered on the grass in the middle of the colony playground. All of them were taking their well-deserved rest after a long day of slaying evil creatures. The five were closely scattered on the grass, wet and glossy green from a recent rain.

 

For the past one hour, they  had been running about the colony grounds , jumping in the puddles and   laying traps for all the little creatures they could catch. Frogs, chameleon , Mudskippers, butterflies, wasps and anything worth the chase. They thumped the puddles, crouched and rolled on the wet grounds, climbed the trees, stoned the borrows and did all that it took to force the inhabitants out into their traps. And now, they lay, soaking in the joy of achievement. All around them were glass jars, tied up cloth bags, cardboard boxes-all containing their prey that were beating desperately against the walls to reclaim their freshly lost freedom.

 

“Poor little Tyagi here didn’t get even one” mocked  Nandu, making sarcastic sympathetic faces at Tyagi.

“I’m not little!” screamed Tyagi, a bony young boy and the shortest among them. Quick to respond, he jumped to his feet and yelled “I got one toad, two chameleons and three beauty-flies! That’s more than YOU will ever, ever hunt!  ”

“Brrrr…I simply donated all that to you to save you shame tingu” said Nandu  calmly, making faces again. “The only toad you chased was twice your size and  peed on you and escaped.”    Tyagi  sprang on Nandu in fury and the two were rumble on bare ground.

 

In the next half an hour Hanni and Murli were walking back home. Murli was holding, clasped against his chest, two muddy glass jars which might originally have held biscuits As he walked, he made sure, his pants were firmly clasped between his tummy and the jars. His pants had been deviously slippery today. The glass walls showed frog and mudskipper abdomens pressed  against them as they tried to pull upwards.

 

Murli was Hanni's cousin, who'd come over for a couple of weeks .  He was a thin boy  with a pointy face.. His hair was cut short and stood straight up. "What are we going to do with this Hanni?" He had a squeaky voice.   “We can’t eat them, we can’t tame them and no one will buy them.”  

 

Hanni was holding one small cylindrical bell jar and the rest of his catch had been lumped upon his younger cousin. He  liked to call Murli younger, otherwise, they were almost the same age, and Murli was nearly an inch taller than Hanni.

Hanni looked into the small jar he was holding. It was too small to hold three butterflies and a neon blue dragonfly that were intermittently flapping their wings only loiter within the glass walls.

 

"These are our prisoners" explained Hanni." They have to be locked up somewhere they can’t escape."

“Why did we capture them Hanni?”

Hanni stopped to look at the two jars that Murli was holding and paused to think for an answer.

“Because they’re ugly! ” He finally said “And so they shouldn’t be around!”

“What about the ones you are holding?” Murli stuck his eyes on the butterfly jar. ”They’re not ugly…“ . Through the  cylindrical glass walls, the butterflies and the dragonfly expanded across the curvature  creating vivid and exquisite patterns. “And these other guys” he continued patting a jar he was holding “ are pretty much hidden all the time”.

Hanni paused a little bit more to think.

“We’re hunters and we hunt creatures. That’s how it is. Now come with and find a place to hide these”

"I know!  Bibiji’s Closet! The one at the bottom… its empty except for the polythenes …We can keep them there and that way, we can...."

"No stupid! we can't take these into the house! We can't even be seen with them. … And you can’t tell anyone what we’ve been doing…We have to get in through the backyard and hide them where they can’t be found "

"And Can't Escape!"

“Right! And then we go through the backdoor, slip into the bathroom without being seen, dip our clothes in water  and ONLY THEN  put them  in  washing machines. And leave your slippers outside in the backyard”

 

In the backyard ,the two  rummaged about from place to place. Murli was having a hard time with his pants. He was having to stop every now and then to put the jars down, pull his pants up- which by the time would have slipped well  below marjin. In the yard, he paused near the most enormous tree around. It was a peepal that might have been there for quite long. He found a hole in the trunk of the tree large enoungh to fit his head.So, he stuck his head into the hole.

"How about this tree trunk hole?” Murli  called out , pulling out his head from the hole  of  the tree.  “Its Hidden. They can't find them here. We can also throw them out of the jars.  They cant escape Its too high for them. Then We can bring more prisoners in these jars tomorrow."

 

Hanni Looked at the tree, paused and then  stared at Murli for sometime.

"No silly.." He finally said "Frogs don't like trees."

"Hmmm...ok" Murli smiled back.

With that both of them started walking towards their garage in the backyard. They opened the rusted steel gates and entered. It was an unpainted room. It was  empty  since Mr. Siddhu had taken the car out of town , except some rusted clutter here and there  . It was dark inside save the sunlight flooding in  through the doorway  and a few shafts shooting through holes in the asbestos.

"There! " pointed Murli to a  thick cement shelf just below the roof of the garage. He pulled a stool and prepared to climb on it, to deposit his Jars.

"wait!" called Hanni "Not there silly!".

He pulled the stool a little sidewise, climbed on it and deposited all the jars. ”Here is fine.”  Hanni smiled.

It was dark. It took sometime for something to settle in Hanni’s eyes. A little away from the jars, Hanni could see could see  a fluffy white fur coat the size of a handbag. He could see it wiggle and move. Hanni shut his eyes tight and opened them again. Little by little, it was becoming clearer -  patterns in black and brown on  fur, straight  pointed ears ,a greyish patch around the  left eye, pointy whiskers radiating from under a small nose and  a bushy tail of pure black rising and falling harmoniously .

“What is it Hanni? What are you looking at?”

From underneath the pointed ears, two green shining marble like eyes were staring straight  at Hanni like he was an intruder. The two stared face to face for a while. Two miniature fur-balls were cushioned  under its  abdomen,  squeezing and sucking from its belly. 

“More prisoners…” Hanni chuckled  back…

 

********************

 

 

 

“Stand still Hanni and don’t twitch!” said  Mrs Siddhu  shaking the boy by his left arm. She ran the wooden comb down Hanni’s long black hair, freshly washed and massaged with coconut oil. Fresh from a shower, Hanni stood on the floor naked, facing  an elliptical mirror on the wall. His mother sat behind on the bed, his hair flowing down her hand and down to his waist. She was humming to a tune while the comb smoothly went down Hanni’s silky, gleaming hair.

“Maa… Why can’t I have a haircut…Murli has so short hair. All my friends have so short hair.”

“Why would you want your hair cut Hanni? Your hair is so beautiful…”  She gathered all of the hair into one thick strand and began slowly coiling them from the end around her palms. “Remember what your father said about your body?”

“That it is God’s gift” Hanni  sighed. He took a closer look at the mirror and said  “I look like a girl.”

 

“GET IT OUT!! GET IT OUT!! GET IT OUT NOWww!! ”

Bibiji’s voice croaked from the kitchen. Hanni and his mother rushed out of the room. “UNDER THE TABLE! UNDER THE TABLEEE!!”.

Under the oval dining table, a creature briskly drifted from one end to another. Open haired and bare bodied, Hanni leapt into action and slid under  the  table. Under one of the chairs, there she was…positioned in a perfect stance to make a leap. Her gaze was constant, unflustered and confident.

 

“Its that Cat!” Bibiji was saying, pointing to the table. “The fish is all contaminated now! Get it out”

The narrow slits were locked on the bare human. The two got a good look at each other now. The animal’s composure clearly mocked and defied this great hunter’s  authority.   Hanni crawled closer. The cat Didn’t  move.  The slits narrowed further ,the claws peeked out, and the canines protruded in a purr . The patched eye looked somewhat intimidating.   Hanni, was insulted. A creature less than half his size was throwing a warning. His brows tightened, his fists clenched, his stance taken  and then….

BANG!

 

The animal was swept away from its place by a swing from Mrs Siddhu’s mop. It Instantly jumped to its feet and  Mrs Siddhu gave it a chase out of the front door.

Hanni crept out from under the table and looked out the window. The cat slid out their front  gate, leapt on the brick fence, turned back , sat straight up and gazed back at the boy.  

Mrs siddhu locked the door and came in. ”I wonder where that came from. We don’t have many  cats in the colony…”
 

Hanni grumbled something and went inside banging the ground with his every step.

********

Hanni and Murli were walking back towards the garage in the backyard. They passed their small cabbage plantation,  onion plantation, green-peas and  maize plantation. They were walking on thin patches of -raised land that separated these planted grounds. “ So what’ll you do?” asked Murli.

 

Hanni  was furious.“Teach it some manners. I’ll catch it ” He pulled out from his pocket a packet of dry milk powder, its mouth wrapped and sealed with a rubber band, ,some milk biscuits  and a small polythene containing the remnants of the fish they had for lunch.

 

The garage was located towards the front side of the house, with its wide gates opening to the main road and had another small entrance from the backyard. The two unlocked the backdoor and entered the dark room.

Carefully, Hanni broke the biscuits, laid them down, and made  a trail from the entrance to an empty trunk  inside, that had  only a curled up hose pipe. He sprinkled all the fish remains into the trunk, pulled a stool and climbed  on to the cat’s shelter spot.

It wasn’t there. Instead, there were two the little fur-balls curled over one another. Little kittens, long lost in  a blissful siesta, one’s head rested over another.  Hanni looked closer. They were hardly ten centimeters long. The babies had their eyes tightly shut, unsuspecting any danger. Both of them where white, one with a ginger tail and the other with a black patch over its head and another big drak patch on its tummy. He produced a finger to touch one of the two little heads. His finger tapped on one’s head and brushed all the way down to its neck.  A broad smile stretched across his face. In response to this subtle disturbance, the two cats began twitching . Their eyes slowly opened.

 

Then in a fit of terror, they vigorously pushed themselves backwards, spraying away a small cloud of cement dust. Their four round eyes were staring at the large monstrous head that had suddenly bobbed before them. They were shaking all over. Hanni produced a finger to touch them again. But the cats pushed further back pressing themselves  against the wall behind them. One of them exposed its tender jaws, with unformed teeth in a snarl  and hissed at the intruder.

 

 Hanni sprinkled some dry powdered milk in front of them. But all they did was press further back and shake more and more. 

Hanni’s face fell. He backed out a little bit. Slowly , the ginger spotted cat crept close to the sprinkled treat, sniffed it  and started licking the powder, all the while its eyes fixed on the giant round head floating before it. A little later, its alert eyes eased in and it was joined by its other sibling. With every subtle movement from Hanni, the cats would back out, stare some at him and then get back to powder licking after the paused. Hanni took more milk powder from inside his pocket, pressed it with his thumb to make small solid shapes and tossed it  from the little distance to the kittens at regular intervals. When the shapes landed, the babies would dash towards it pushing, biting and scratching the other’s head to get there first.

 

From within the glass jars that rested just next to the scene, a group of frogs, toads and mudskippers was giving an audience- blankly staring outside, their throats blowing and shrinking. They had given up trying to climb out of the glass jars and had made peace with their captivity-at least most had. There were some that wouldn’t  quit.

 

 A long time passed thus and having run out of food to donate, even the ones he’d laid down to capture his prize, Hanni closed the garage door and came  back to the yard. Murli was outside ,walking around the yard tracing lines on the soil as he went  from one end of the yard to another with a long thin twig. Hanni wobbled back happily and walked past him without saying a word.  An  effortless glow and  a wide smile were pasted on his face.

 

*********

 

“A little Further!”

 

Murli was pushing the tall ceiling-cleaning stool closer and closer to  the huge steel safe, while Hanni was mounted on it trying to reach the top of the safe.

 

Hanni and Murli were retrieving Hanni’s Videogame Set . Mrs. Siddhu had heard a lot about the stereotyped kid that was an addict to these machines and lost track of reality and ruined his real life.So she had   stacked it away  on the safe and only brought  it down on Sundays and holidays , so that it didn’t   turn Hanni inside out. This noon however,  She was over at Mrs. Mehta ‘s.

Hanni’s hand was almost there  “Push more Murli! Push a little more!”. Little by little his finger tips started to feel the plastic . A little more, and he could pull it down. 

 

“AAAAAA AHH Hhhhhh!!”

Hanni snapped his Hands back. There were four parallel scratches, deep  and beginning to bleed. There she was again.  Clenched between her teeth was a half-sliced pamphlet  fish that Mrs Siddhu had saved for dinner.  Hanni looked at his hand, the pain was awful. Two tiny droplets were appearing  in his eyes. But at the same time, he was also furious.  He lifted the empty VideoGame box and slammed it on the cat.

But the swift creature dodged it by pouncing on his shoulders, scratching his cheek , jumping all the way down the safe and shooting out of the room.

Aggrieved and Furious Hanni dashed after it. The cat ran with its tail straight into the air, and rushed into Bibiji’s room.  The old woman,  who was in her worship attire rocking in back and forth reading the holy book, screamed  when the creature dropped the fish in her lap.  She immediately sprang up, cursing at the top of her voice  and almost dancing as the cat sprang out of the window.

 

Hanni wasted no time in taking a diversion. He ran out the front door that lead out to the yard outside Bibiji’s window. There was moss on the bricks that lead to the place, and Hanni slipped and slammed on the bricks face down . Now,  he was scratched, bruised, furious with a swollen red face and streams already running down his eyes. He grabbed the metal rod that his father used to dig the garden grounds and dashed again after the beast.

 

Humiliated and infuriated, Hanni swung a long metal rod with all his might as the chase continues. The cat effortlessly dodged  all his blows. Then in a fit, Hanni swung  the rod putting in everything into one blow.

 

The moment froze as he felt the rod hit right on the cat’s right side of the skull. The cat was thrashed away and landed on its side at a distance.The boy stopped there, with the metal rod, still puffing with fury. The cat lay where it was for a while, twitching.

After jerking for  a while,  the cat got to its feet and walked unsteadily. Bit by bit after walking waveringly for a distance the cat quietly retreated against a wall and lied down. It looked into the distance, resting against the wall, not once looking back at the boy. Hanni was quiet now. After sometime, the cat  got up , resumed  its unsteady  walk and managed to jump over a wall and leapt out of sight.

 

 Hanni stared blankly at the same wall for some time, unable to decide which of the mixed emotions he should submit to. Finally, he broke down , and heavy  with guilt and shame, ran back into the house wailing.

 

*********

 

“Hanni!  Hanni!!  How much louder do I have to scream to get you to answer?!Can’t You hear me call!?”  Mrs Siddhu  strolled down the grass strips, irritated and holding a mug of hot chocolate milk. “Can’t you see It’s evening now? Get up and come inside. Go take a bath and clean up for prayer time.”

 

 Hanni was sitting all alone in front of the garage, his back leaned against the house. He looked at his mother for sometime and sank back to gloominess. “No ma. I’ll come sometime later”. Mrs Siddhu went close to him. His eyes were swollen,  and his check had gotten rounder and puff red.

 

“oh dear! Have you been crying again beta?” she placed the milk jug on an outer window sill  above Hanni’s head and sat down beside him. “Look at you…how miserable have you made yourself. Come here let me fix you up.”. She took Hanni into her arms and he placed his head on her lap. “Is it the cat that’s bothering you?”

“It is not coming back ma, I have waited for so long.”Hanni said sobbing a little bit. “Could it die? It has got little babies inside. Did I kill their mommy?”. His head was still buried in Mrs Siddhu’s lap. “If she doesn’t return…they’ll be scared”.

“Oh no silly…I’m sure its alright maybe its even inside now…It could have come in through the front door na’.come let’s see”.

“No ma. I don’t want to go inside.” He paused, and looked sideways. “What if the babies go out in search of her  and get eaten by a dog?”

 

“Hanni..” Mrs Siddhu admonished  gently, pulling the boy, close so  his head rested against her waist . “Don’t Talk like that. Come with me. Let’s see.”

 

She lifted Hanni to his feet and they both walked into the garage. There was a strong smell of rotten fish inside. Hanni pulled the stool while Mrs Siddhu went to switch on the lights.  He lifted his weight wearily over the seat plank and pushed his weight up on his toes to get a clear view of the shelf top.

 

There was no one .

 What used to be a safe and hidden haven for the cats was now abandoned.

The neon bulb went on and Mrs Siddhu walked  next to Hanni. “Dear god…I wonder where that smell is coming from. Must be a dead rat…”

 

Then her eyes fell on the Jar of dead and live frogs, on the dead insects and on the open trunk with leftover fish. The smell from underneath the shelf was so strong that it almost chocked the lady. “Chheeee!!!! Hanni!!! What in God’s name is all this!!!” she screamed out “ Did you bring all these here?!!”.

 

There was no reply. Hanni simply took two of the jars that contained frogs and mudskippers, descended the wooden stool and walked out , his head and shoulders hanging low. He walked thus to one end of the yard. It was a little spot swamped with vines and creepers. He opened the jars and spilled everything out on the soil. Three toads, one frog and a mudskip that had died in their captivity fell flat on the ground, motionless. He sat down there and watched as the rest skipped their way to freedom.

 

*********

 

“The ant”  Bibiji’s little fingers walked down Hanni’s round tummy and down his flabs. “The little hungry ant”. The fingers walked down his thighs and reached his buttocks. Hanni smiled in his sleep. “The hungry hungry ant..” with that, the frail old fingers , with their sharp nails, sharply pinched into the boy’s flesh. Hanni woke up to the morning , laughing and giggling beside Bibiji.

“Did my sweetie plum have a good sleep? Is he still sleepy? Should the hungry ant have another bite?” The old woman continued to whisper into his ears in smiles  as the boy’s large eyes looked into hers.

 

Hanni wriggled about in his bed topless. He had fallen asleep last night  feeling miserable but a good long sleep had washed all the guilt away and had replaced it with new-born freshness. He sank further into the comfy cushion and into his granny’s arms.

Then he reluctantly sat down. His hair was all over him. His fists  rolled round and round all over his eyes. After a while, Hanni slid out of his bed and walked into the backyard, wearing only a small black half-pant, buttoned and zipped just underneath where his tummy went inwards.  Although it was, a pleasant morning, with the sunlight only pleasingly warm, it was still cold outside.

 

Murli was there, although, only the lower part of his body was visible. His head along with his chest was stuck into the large hole of the Peepal tree  that had caught his fascination the previous day. When he heard Hanni approaching, he popped his head out.

“Hanni! I told you this would be a good place for our prisoners” He smiled. “Come see.”

Hanni stuck his head into the hole.  He could feel a vast hollowness in this part of the trunk. “I can’t see anything!” He heard his voice bounce back from the walls of the trunk tens of times. He  forced his plump arms through the little gap that was left in the hole next to his head, switched on a flashlight and pointed the light to the bottom.

Underneath, two conceited eyes looked up, shining back in marble green. The straight whiskers, the pointed ears , the white fur , the dark patterns and… the patch around the eye.  It  was lying on  its sides, curved and aligned along the curvature of the trunk. Under the abdomen, pressed against it, were the two furry babies, one  rested on its dorsal and the other wriggled over it, both drifted away  in a peaceful sleep.   Slowly the cat began to recognize the being above it, and bent down its straight ears . It was afraid.

 

After a  brief while of savoring the demise of his guilt and fear before his eyes,  Hanni popped his head out of the hole ,sat down with his back rested against the tree and looked at the sky with dreamy eyes. He was smiling again, in deep contentment.

 

 “See! They’re hidden well.. Our new prisoners!”

“No stupid! They’re not our prisoners.. they’re our…..”

Hanni paused to think of something to complete his sentence.

“Let’s go get some milk powder” He finally said.

 

 

 

 

 

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