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Eulogy to a Frank-fArt-er, Chapter 1This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Dipankar Dasgupta | |
| Sunday, 17 August 2008 | |
Authour's Note: I am putting this up in response to a challenge from Phil. It's not exactly my story, but it is my version of someone else's story. I have deliberately given it the shape of a letter from a father to a son! This is somewhat longish though and the fun (if any) lies in looking at the Indian epic Mahabharata from a Western point of view. I am officially a Hindu, but I don't subscribe to any religion in particular. Devout Hindus may not be too pleased to be exposed to my point of view. I apologise to them in advance. As far as Western readers are concerned, the major problem would lie in their lack of familiarity with Indian epics. So, what appears as obvious to me, could mean almost nothing to them. To make the reading less tiresome therefore, I have broken it up into two parts. One has the choice of not going through the second. Of even the first for that matter, after the first few paragraphs.
***
My dear son:
Have you ever come across a frank-fArt-er? I always thought that the being was extinct. Indeed, if it did exist today, it would surely have qualified as the eighth wonder of our planet, don't you think?
Wait though my son, wait. It seems now that you and I, as well as other specimens of humanity whose footsteps have been guiding us, were utterly wrong in our convictions. Frankfarters exist in profusion, or so at least the menus of a delicatessen or two are advertising in Kolkata, the capital of bird flu ravaged Bengal. In large letters. At the very entrance of the shops. You can't miss them.
Come to think of it though, most of us might have been exposed to a somewhat lesser variety of the species, frankfarters minus the boldness of it carried by the first five letters. They exist and perform with gay abandon in night trains as well as crowded buses, as evidenced by the diverse range of noises one's ears are exposed to every now and then. And one can't help wondering. Is there a technology that can decode these audio signals, or at least unravel the mysterious emotions they represent? Pride? Anger? Mockery? Pathos? Humility? Mind boggling you know, a bit like the inscrutable smile on Mona Lisa's face.
Almost none of these musicians, mind you, have ever been accused of frankness. They remain as invisible to the naked eye as the mellifluous sound waves they produce. Yes, oh yes my child. I know you are as alert as a leopard in search of its prey. So you couldn't have missed my hesitation at the very beginning of this paragraph. "Almost" said I. And if you scroll back upwards, you will notice further that I suggested that the animal was extinct. This means, doesn't it, that there was a period in the history of mankind when it may well have existed. Dinosaur style.
But don't you start googling in search of the creature. Neither historians nor archaeologists will offer you help in your quest. When your thirst for knowledge overpowers you, there is only one reference you should consult -- the Mahabharata. That's the ultimate source of history that historians always ignore. Fortunately, I am not a student of history, so I never fail to pay my due respects to this magnificent compendium. And that is precisely the direction in which I ran the day I saw the advertisement at the delicatessen and burnt all the midnight oil at my disposal till I met with success. I am dying now to share with you my findings. The story of a magnificent frankfarter picked directly out of the pages of Krishnadwaipayan Vyas' personal diary.
The f-f in question was the venerable Agastya, of whom I daresay you must have heard. I reckon he was one of the most powerful amongst the Hindu saints who found their place in the epic tale. His abilities manifested in the form of a great many miraculous events, but none as great as the one concerning the demon Illwal and his young brother Bataapi.
What happened was that Illwal was a bad, bad, bad ogre who was particularly well-trained in the art of black magic. Where Illwal picked up his tricks, Vyas doesn't tell us, but I have this vague suspicion that Mahadeva had a hand in it. He was one of those Gods who had a habit of making indiscriminate promises to his disciples. I tend to believe that Ilwal managed to pass the entrance test of the Mahadeva School of Research, get himself enrolled as one of Mahadeva's research scholars and, what's more, solve a truly tough problem. Mahadeva must have been mighty pleased with all this and offered Ilwal the PhD degree, which, in those days, was invariably awarded in the form of some magical power or the other.
Whether this conjecture is correct or not, I can't say. Vyas confirms though that Illwal made a somewhat questionable use of his faculty. And to go straight to the point, it appears that Illwal had once approached a Brahman with a strange request. He asked this B chap to grant him a boon that his son be as mighty as the King of Gods, viz. Lord Indra himself, armed with thunder, fury and the rest of the paraphernalia. The Brahman unfortunately refused. To tell the truth, the poor chap really had no other choice. First, he didn't know Indra personally and could not therefore make someone he didn't know resemble yet another guy he didn't know either. Secondly, even if he tried to cater to Illwal's whim, it is doubtful that Indra himself would be too happy to oblige. I mean, there was always this stray chance that the Lord would be transformed in the process to Illwal's pampered child and be forced to remain in that state till the rest of eternity. That such possibilities are real enough will be revealed to you as you read through this tale.
So, the B refused and this Ill chap in turn was livid with anger. He decided to depopulate the earth of Brahmans. Towards this end, he began to invite all the Brahmans he could locate to his residence and serve them a variety of delicacies. Amongst them was a curry, made apparently out of goat meat. In reality though, he was using his magic to transform Bataapi into a goat. And it was this Bataapi *** goat that he was slaughtering to be cooked into a curry for the consumption of the unsuspecting invitees. No harm in this, since Bat boy could not die even when decimated, thanks to Ill boy's sorcery.
Apparently, the preparation made out of Bataapi's meat was real tasty and the Brahman's lapped it up with relish. However, immediately after the feast was over, Illwal would call out for his brother in a heart rending baritone and as soon as he did so, the hapless Brahman's stomach would explode and a smiling Batapi walk out unharmed from the mess.
There is a question that bothers me though at this point of the story. To the best of my understanding, few Brahmans outside Bengal are meat eaters. If so, do we conclude that Illwal was only after Bengali Brahmans? Unfair man, God's so unfair to the Bongs. Or, does it suggest that Brahmans living in other parts of the country, being more intelligent, got wind of Illwal's machinations and promptly converted to vegetarianism? Whichever, it's worth researching whether the forefathers of today's vegetarian Brahmans were vegetarians during V'deva's times.
Serendipitously enough, it was around this time that Agastya was seen in the vicinity. It was easy enough for him to secure an invitation card for Illwal's party and Illwal merrily went through the ritual. Agastya too ate up the meat to his fill. And then, just when he was about to lie down for a well-deserved siesta, Illwal strung up the Bataapi tune on his harp. In response, much to Illwal's dismay, Bataapi failed to reappear. And what emerged instead was a hurricane of sorts directly from Agastya's posterior, accompanied by great thunder and lightning. Make no mistake. Agastya admitted with all the frankness in his possession that it was he who had broken wind, thereby earning for himself the well deserved title of an f-f. Illwal was almost blown away by the force of the turbulence, but managed to hold his ground with the last bit of strength left in him. And as he stared open mouthed at Agastya, the latter smiled a beatific smile and came out with his immortal statement in chaste Sanskrit -- "Bataapih jeernah bhavah!" Which, translated into simple English runs -- " Bataapi dear, be thou digested!" In other words, following the rules of Physics, Agastya demonstrated the truth of what scientists describe as the Law of Conservation of Energy. He had converted a breathing Bataapi into as unattractive a form of energy as a blighted f**t!! And prevented Illwal from transforming his kid brother back to the energy mass he started out from. You see now why Lord Indra would have refused to undergo the requested change? If Bataapi could not be restored back to his original self, what guarantee did Indra himself have?
Continued ...
Copyright 2008 Dipankar Dasgupta |
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