Teaching mosquitoes a lesson

Swatting a swarm of mosquitoes I made my way into the kitchen, cursing under my breath. Irrespective of climatic conditions, mosquitoes have a way of getting to me- literally.  A memory kicked in just as soon I began applying turmeric paste and lime to the reddening welts on my arms and legs which had fallen victim to the dipterous attack.  

 A cousin studying medicine at a college in Kolkata – known as Calcutta back in those hoary times – shared a room in the hostel with one Debuda, his senior. Debuda was known for his idiosyncrasies including drying his clothes over a skipping rope, drinking water out of a desiccated coconut skull and roller-blading through Kolkata’s sludgy traffic. But few instances to beat the one in which Debuda returned from a holiday with a mosquito net one summer.  And I am going to tell it like my cousin did.

“But Debuda!” squeaked one of his juniors, an earnest first-year medico, “how on earth are going to sleep in that?” Everybody looked to where he was pointing. A hole, about the size of a contact lens, was gawping from the carefully ironed mosquito net.  Another aspiring doc, a well-meaning roomy known for his meticulousness, handed over a threaded needle sans delay. The invitation to seam the vacuity was turned down just as promptly. “Too tired,” said Debuda, tucking in the net with hole intact.

A late riser Debuda was the first to spring from his bed. The rest, long accustomed to his snoring, woke up to his swearing.

“Those bloody blood-suckers!” the swearing too was a matter of habit, “didn’t let me sleep all night. Well, I’ll get even.” So saying Debuda rolled over in a bid to catch up with much-needed sleep, missing his classes in the bargain.

Come evening and the mosquitoes began humming their irritating ditty, forming pyramadic clouds on human heads. Debuda was fingering the mosquito net so lovingly packed by his mother, perfect in its creases and folds and practically seamless save for that innocuous-looking gap near the summit.

Instead of stitching the hole, however, Debuda was punching another one alongside. All heads in the room turned to the sound of rustling paper.

“And what exactly are you doing?”

Rolling up a newspaper like a tunnel Debuda concentratedly joined the two holes on the net.

Then he looked up and grinned:

“What am I doing? Teaching the mosquitoes a lesson, of course!”

Automating for transparency

The sight of farmers performing hectic calculations using their smart phones is not altogether rare these days. And yet when a professor from India’s premier rural management institute tried ensuring transparency the android way he ran into enormous bureaucratic obstacles.

“It took me six months to a year to convince the powers that be,” sighs Prof. MV Durga Prasad, who teaches Operations Research and Supply Chain Management at the Institute of Rural management, Anand (IRMA).

It was some two years ago that Prof. Prasad, who was studying the tomato market in Madanpalle in Andhra Pradesh, spotted the lacunae in the present oral ascending mode of auctioning. Lacking transparency, this method left the door open for ‘mandi’ agents to walk away with a fair killing leaving the poor farmer high and dry.

Having explored the markets in five states extensively Prof. Prasad set about installing an automated tendering process that would ensure transparency to the farmer and fetch him a fair price in the market. Having already authored a pricing model for agricultural commodities he now devised a system with the help of internet-based web applications.

Prof. Durga Prasad: The man behind the automation model

“The process is pretty uncomplicated,” beams the IRMA professor, “since the software is user-friendly.” All the farmer has to do is    register the number of units (crates) at their disposal and enter a minimum expected price of their goods. The buyers, on their part, enter a maximum quoted price even as the commission agent quotes a base price. All this is done over the web space.

“Having spoken to many farmers in states as widespread as Punjab, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh,” says the senior academician, “I realized that they were unhappy and dissatisfied with the opaqueness of the current system.”

Prof. Prasad has submitted proposals to various markets and even conducted a workshop to that effect at IRMA recently.  How soon the government will respond is the big question.

La Tulsi (in Spanish)

Uno de mis primeros recuerdos es el de mi madre rezando en el árbol de la familia tulsi. Yo crecícon el aroma de la planta de exuberantes perenne tarde supe era también conocido como el'albahaca santa'. Yo tenía doce años de edad cuando mi madre sentía que era seguro que medeje en la cocina para preparar té para la familia. Ella todavía recuerda con placer mi primerapreparación del té con una pizca de hojas de tulsi liberal y terrones de azúcar.

Vive sola en mi piso en Delhi he decidido comprar un tulsi planta de la empresa. Yosimplemente no podía conseguir su delicioso aroma de mi cabeza. Entonces mi tía venía y donóotras macetas con variedad - ésta tuvo un rojo púrpura y hojas y olía como el cielo. Mi sierva,analizando tanto exclamó: " ¿Por qué didi, eso es radha y Krishna! ¿No sabes la pareja nuncasobrevive juntos?" De hecho, no ha de Radha ( ¿o Krishna?) murió poco después.

Las ardillas y gorriones atacado sistemáticamente ortografía su desaparición temprana. La otraplanta se va a prosperar y crecer, por otro lado. Yo todavía era echar agua en la olla del muertoesperando que nos devolvería algún día. Pero no fue así. Quiero seguir a llenar la olla derechohasta el borde más desesperadamente, tengo que confesar. Hasta que he notado un par degorriones agua potable fuera de ella. Pronto se les unieron tres palomas…

Master Ji

“God knows who he thinks he is,” Runu mausi jerked her nose towards Mr. Goswami, whom everybody called Master Ji. There was nothing in the art teacher’s demeanor to justify the epithet, though. Not to me that is. The term held the suggestion of a bony male frame, sartorially inelegant. Yet there was nothing inelegant about Mr. Goswami, as he resembled an Italian Lorenzo pipe, dark, brooding and sophisticated in a 3-piece tailored suit.
Customarily, he had cornered the conversation at Mr. Bhattacharya’s post-Durga Puja party. And customarily, he had listeners giving ear with partial enthusiasm.
“This was soon after I had finished my art course from Sorbonne.” Some of us stifled our yawns. The preface too was customary. Prudence, the district magistrate’s English wife, had stretched her eyes till her artificial eyelashes touched the edge of her eyebrows. Seeing me regard her thus she winked. Her husband, Sandeep, had turned his back towards the company. He was collecting his drink – ostensibly? – at the bar set up rather ostentatiously in one corner of the sprawling terrace. I looked up. The clear, spangled sky distended before my eyes, a billowing sari in zari-work.
Although we were in the midst of April, there was a nip in the air. Leaning out from the terraced roof of the Bhattacharyas both Runu mausi and I pulled our sari pallus closer. . The low-peaked bejeweled Mussoorie hills winked back at me.
“She said she was in love with me… she was lovely…” Now everybody craned their necks to look at the speaker. Including the disinterested congregation of listeners. Self-aggrandizement was another of Master Ji’s forte. Maybe not too much out of place in this instance, though, as he did cut a wide swathe amongst the ladies.
“Who did?” the voice was that of Shankar Menon’s, the Shantiniketan artist who headed the art department at The Doon School.
“The girl… my student I was referring to, Chameli.”
“Chameli? Sounds more like a housemaid than a painter.”
“Oh no, she looked rather hip, wore jeans with exotic tops and smoked heavily.” The sarcasm went unnoticed (I suppose) and the crowd pressed closer. “She was also taking classes in water colors.”
“Not Madhubani?” The voice was Runu mausi’s.
Everybody was familiar with Master Ji’s bold Madhubani-style paintings on Durga executed on hand-made paper treated with cow dung. He’d told us that he imported the paper from a remote region in the interiors of Bihar. Several artists, even students at art colleges, had approached him but Master Ji had, so far, guarded his knowledge like a child guards a much-loved toy. Many of his masterpieces adorned Runu mausi’s café-cum-art gallery, a unique diner concept catering to the town’s well-heeled.
“No, not Madhubani,” Master Ji replied staring at a point above Runu mausi’s head.
By now, several late-comers to the party had joined us. Everybody begged him to tell the story from the beginning. Master Ji, tipping his pipe on an ashtray in a well-recognized gesture of self-importance, cleared his throat.
“There was this girl I was teaching when I was a junior assistant professor at the Government Art College.” He began leaning forward in his chair.
“Was she young and pretty?” All heads turned towards Udayan Gautama, son of the poet Vanshaj Gautama and a dabbler in poetry. Udayan’s glad eye was a byword in the upper echelons of our small town society.
“You bet, she was. There were lots of boys after her, but she said she was in love with me.” Udayan’s eyes had narrowed in disbelief. So had, I suspect, everybody else’s. Master Ji was dapper enough but no Adonis, surely.
“I had taken this batch of students to view the cave paintings in Ajanta.” His eyes shone at the recollection.
“Those caves are something, aren’t they?” Sandeep’s voice cut in from the bar. “And did you take a stroll around the garden?”
“Oh yes, that’s when the entire incident took place.”
Now everybody leaned forward, including the arthritic Professor Shivraj Tarafdar who’d retired from Cambridge and built a cottage next to the Bhattacharyas.
“I hadn’t been expecting it. Her slipper having cracked she was hobbling behind the others who had gone far ahead of us.” Then, after a pause, “I had had to stay behind to help her along.”
“And that’s when she sprung it at you, is that right?” Shankar Menon’s voice was tinged with amusement and incredulity.
“Well, not really. First we talked of this and that. She told me about her parents who lived in Nasik. I learnt she had a brother and twin sister.”
Master Ji wasn’t a man for ironies.
“I told her not to be silly and concentrate on her studies. I also let her know that I was a much married man with two children whom I had no intention of leaving. We walked on for a bit and talked of this and that. By the time we returned to college the stupid affair was forgotten,” he beamed at his audience.
“Of course,” he continued, “there was some awkwardness which both of us tried very hard to ignore and nearly succeeded.” Looking at him it was easy to see that he wasn’t uncomfortable in the least; rather, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
“What happened then?” Professor Tarafdar asked.
“She finished college and went back to Nasik. I heard she was teaching art at a local college there. And then…” He paused, scratching his beard. “And then she died. Of pneumonia.” The silence hung heavy, an unwanted pendant suspended in air.
“But, there’s more.”The crowd dispersing at the periphery began to re-congregate.
“Ten years later I ran into her twin, Shiuli. Actually it was she who ran into me.””Shiuli? Another flower?” Professor Tarafdar’s cynicism was urgently shouted down.
“Do you mean Shiuli Chatterji, the artist?” the diminutive professor carried on, unperturbed. “I think she has an opening in Triveni in Delhi sometime next week. Did she also become your student, or what?”
“Oh no. The thing is… heck; I’ll begin from the beginning. You see, I suddenly received a letter out of the blue saying that Chameli wanted to meet me.”
“But I thought you said Chameli was dead?” Professor Tarafdar was beginning to sound uncharacteristically impatient.
“I wish you’d allow me to tell the story my way.” Master Ji’s voice had spiked just a microtone higher. ”Oh, okay.”
“As I was saying, I received this letter, couriered to me as it were. It was my wife who’d received it. Opening it on my instruction she it handed over to me.”
“And what did the letter say?” Shankar Menon sounded half-amused and half-curious.
“That Chameli was coming down to Baroda and that she wanted to meet me.”
Our narrator crossed and re-crossed his legs. “I met her at the station.” He took a deep breath. “The twin, I mean.”
“And I bet she was a spitting image of Chameli,” Shankar Menon sounded a little less amused this time.
“You bet she was. Well, anyway, I took her to see my art department. By then I had also won my second national award.” Many of us stifled yawns for the second time that evening.
“And when did you discover she was the twin?” Professor Menon asked.
“She told me so herself. I wouldn’t have guessed otherwise. They were so similar. Toutes pareils. And like her twin, she wanted me to give her some tips on my Madhubani style.”“And of course, you declined.” Both Mr. Bhattacharya and Shankar Menon chorused like schoolboys.
“Yes, I did,” continued our narrator, ignoring their pooled sarcasm
“Well, anyway,” he resumed, “I took her to see the Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery and the Pratap Vilas Palace. It was on the day she was leaving that she told me about Chameli’s death. She told me she was her twin. I never heard from her again.”
A tame end to a rather tepid story, said Runu mausi to me in private, later. I couldn’t agree more, I replied. Being tired I was loath to pursue the subject.
A week later I accompanied Runu mausi to Delhi. She had to buy ‘raw material’, as she put it, for her café-cum-art gallery. Our first stop was to be the Triveni Art Gallery not far from the Bengali Market. The suggestion had been mine actually; I loved its little café with its steaming parathas and fresh yoghurt.
It was Runu mausi who spotted the announcement. It said, “Shiuli Nathan’s Madhubani paintings on display.”
The painting at the entrance looked vaguely familiar. As always, it was Runu mausi who hit the bull’s eye. “Doesn’t it look like one of Master Ji’s works?” It did, certainly. The large paintings featuring the goddess Durga, especially. I turned over the brochure. There was a brief biography, neatly calligraphed. It listed her exhibitions in India and abroad. There was only one sentence about her teacher; it read: The artist had learnt from her deceased twin sister.

A New Road

The wedding had been splendid, truly royal. So the Times of India had written. Nobody had expected Tilottama’s wedding to be anything less, in any case. Her grandfather had been a zamindar during the British Raj and her father, the only son, a high-ranking civil servant. To be sure, Tilottama hardly knew her father who always kept getting transferred out to new places. Her mother had died during childbirth and she had been brought up by her grandparents. Thamma doted on her and so did Dadu. The same couldn’t be said of her two sisters-in-law and mother-in-law, though. As a matter of fact she had hardly recognized her mother-in-law from the cheery fireball who’d lifted her chin with such love that it seemed to fill the entire courtyard where the family – even her extended one – habitually gathered for tea. Only that day had been special because Rathin’s family was coming to see her. The lone voice of protest had been that of Choto mashi’s who wanted her eighteen-year-old eldest niece to complete her B.A. in English and sit for the civil services’ exams. Tilottama, who had topped her 12th Board exams, wanted to study Spanish at the Jawaharlal Nehru University on the other hand. “Why Spanish, of all things pray?” Baba had thundered during one of his rare visits home. She had been too shy to let him know she adored the Tango songs and wanted to unravel their meaning. Between her youngest aunt’s ambition and her father’s need to dominate her existence her own dreams had wilted like a plant unwatered and uncared for.
She had met the groom – Rathin – only once. He’d appeared distant and indifferent and had even yawned while speaking to her. She’d caught a glimpse of his Colgate white teeth and wondered if they were false, they looked so unreal.
Rathin had been indifferent even on the night of the wedding. For one thing, he’d landed up drunk after everyone went off to sleep. He had barely looked at his new bride but switched off the lights and gone off to sleep snoring heavily.
That entire night she had lain awake thinking of Sohail. Sohail used to study at the boys’ school neighboring hers. A low wall separated these segregated institutions of hallowed learning, its slender altitude serving as a conduit for the sexes to mingle freely. Tilottama’s best friend Shalini had a boyfriend in the school next door. Arun was a family friend and the two exchanged letters and flowers almost everyday. The families were aware of the blossoming romance and had given it their blessings. Shalini was among the lucky few to have her parents’ blessings (as well as her future in-laws’) with regard to her future partner. Tilottama hadn’t been so lucky. Sohail had been Arun’s best friend and frequently accompanied them on their numerous dates and rendezvous. Dates to which Tilottama sometimes tagged along. That’s how she met Sohail and the two began exchanging notes and cards. Sohail could be so creative when it came to words. She came to understand later that he was the best essay writer in his class.
It was one of his well-crafted, superbly creative notes that got her in trouble.
She usually secreted the notes underneath the cover of her moral science book. One day the cover tore and the notes fell out. Before she was able to retrieve any Thamma picked them up. That evening nobody spoke at the dining table. The house had been this silent – Neetu, her ayah told her – the day her mother had died giving birth to her. Dadu and Thamma, so open in their affection, clenched their facial muscles tight in anger, grief and betrayal. If only they would shout at her. But then, who said breaking rules was easy?
Tilottama was promptly withdrawn from school despite Reverend Mother’s protests. The school allowed her to appear for her final Board exams privately, though. She never saw Sohail again.
Shalini told her during the wedding that it had rained fireworks at Sohail’s house post discovery of the beautifully-crafted love notes. Dadu had gone over personally to speak – actually, ‘warn’ would be a more appropriate term – to Sohail’s family. Sohail lived with his mother and maternal grandparents and an unmarried uncle, his father having died when he was a baby. In contrast to the iceberg that had formed in her household, it had rained fireworks in his. His maternal uncle whom Shalini described as a ‘brute’ had smitten his face with a rose bush cane, bruising it badly. Tilottama had imagined the red-blue gashes across Sohail’s handsome features and winced. “Please keep still,” one of her distantly-related aunts priest warned as she applied alta to her feet.

“Boudi, this is for you,” Ranu, the driver’s wife who also did the cleaning and dusting had brought in an inland letter. She turned the sky blue epistle over. The neat hand-writing seemed to be Rathin’s Dida who, unlike the rest of her husband’s family, appeared to dote on her. The words were formed like pearls.
“Boudi…” Ranu was twisting the end of her sari pallu. “Bordi would like to speak to you.” A chill caught at her throat. Whenever Bordi wanted to speak to her there was trouble. This past week Bordi had sent for her thrice. She never looked forward to these summons. A fire burst inside her forehead; she could feel her temples throbbing wildly.
“Tell her to come here instead!”
She counted till five. Her eldest sister-in-law flung open the door and shouted, “Just who do you think you are! Ranu broke the fish bowl didn’t you hear?”
“But you did my dear, why didn’t you pick up the pieces?” A male voice spoke before her mouth could file a protest. It was Arvind Maheshwari, the richest jeweler in town, also Bordi’s ex lover. Bordi’s conquests had been legendary, right from school. It was said of her that if you joined all her ex lovers from end to end they would form a chain around the globe.
What had made Bordi enter into an arranged marriage with the school teacher Mohit Bhattacharya was something Tilottama failed to understand. Some said it was because her last boyfriend, a professor of English Literature at the local college, had ditched her. People who’d been close to the professor said his mother had been extremely vocal in her protest regarding the entry of ‘an infamous coquette’ in her household.
Mohit da and Bordi fought constantly. Correction. Bordi fought with Mohit da constantly. As a result, Bordi ended up spending much of her time at her father’s house. Every time she walked out on her husband there would be a fresh wave of trouble for Tilottama or Tilo, as Chhod di had taken to calling her.
Chhod di was supposed to be the brilliant one in the family. An Oxford graduate in Botany she was the only one amongst her luminous coterie of friends to return to India. She was currently the head of the Botany department at the local college. Of her three female in-laws Chhod di appeared to be the least hostile. Or so she thought.
One Sunday afternoon, when the entire household was asleep she woke up to hear a small movement in the kitchen. She saw Chhod di reading her personal diary next to the stove. Like a wild animal she tore at her and snatched it out of her hands, her eyes live coals. Chhod di had reacted by not speaking to her.
The collective hostility of her in-laws was hanging upon her like a sword. Did Chhod di and the rest know about Sohail?
Bordi’s spectacles glinted antagonistically under the lamp light and she advanced menacingly. Arvind caught Bordi’s hand as Tilottama stepped back involuntarily. Bordi opened her mouth to hurl the choicest abuses available in her arsenal when Arvind yelled ‘STOP!’
If Tilottama had a knife in her hand she could have sliced the silence with it, she thought as blood rushed to her head. She looked up to find Arvind winking at her conspiratorially, his smile reaching the corners of his large eyes. A gurgle of laughter formed in her throat and she coughed to cover it up. Bordi’s eyes were ablaze but she said nothing. For the first time that she had stepped in as a bride Tilottama didn’t feel intimidated.
A storm broke loose when Rathin returned that evening, though. She did not know what it was that she abhorred more: the theatrical ravings or the icy silence and solitary confinement. Finally, the driver was summoned from his sleep at 11. He was given directions to her natal home. Ranu helped her with the packing.
No one saw her off as the family’s old Ford revved to a roar inside the porch.
To Tilottama it felt as though a large boulder sitting on her neck was finally being lifted off. Once the hell-spot she called her in-laws’ house was out of sight she pulled out the note Arvind had hastily thrust into her palm. She reclined comfortably, her first relaxed posture in months.
Her voice rang out loud and clear as she read out his address to the driver. The Ford was soon speeding by a new road…

Two Incidents

Two incidents
One of my earliest memories is that of my mother praying to the family tulsi tree. I grew up with the aroma of the lush perennial plant I later learnt was also known as the ‘holy basil’. I was twelve years’ old when my mother felt it was safe to let me into the kitchen to prepare tea for the family. She still recounts with delight my first tea preparation with a liberal sprinkling of tulsi leaves and sugar cubes.
Living alone in my flat in Delhi I decided to buy a tulsi plant for company. I simply couldn’t get its delicious aroma out of my head. Then my aunt came over and donated another potted variety – this one had red and purple leaves and smelt like heaven. My maid, looking at both exclaimed, “Why didi, that’s Radha and Krishna! Don’t you know the pair never survives together?” Indeed they didn’t for Radha (or was it Krishna?) died soon after. Squirrels and sparrows attacked it systematically spelling its early demise. The other plant continues to thrive and grow, on the other hand. I was still pouring water into the dead one’s pot hoping it would revive some day. It didn’t. I would continue to fill the pot right up to the brim rather hopelessly, I have to confess. Till I noticed a pair of sparrows drinking water out of it. Soon they were joined by three pigeons… The tulsi plant died a long time ago but it left a watering hole even as it breathed its last.
Significantly, another incident took place just then. Being slightly late to work I was surprised by the overwhelming silence at the office. A peon, who was busy dusting the furniture, jerked his head towards the north of where I was standing. I saw that he was indicating the theatre where films or slide shows related to the company’s line of business were sometimes displayed. I smote my head. Of course! The Product Development Manager had announced a film on real estate marketing in Europe earlier that week. I missed most of it since I was late. The lights came on and the Product Development Manager announced that the film-makers had a short 20-minute film they wanted to show us and that we could stay back if we wanted to.
The film had me enthralled. Entitled “Plastic: The Synthetic Menace” it revealed how toxic gases released in the air aren’t the only threat to the environment. Non-biodegradable substances like plastic pose a threat right from its inception as some of its constituents are benzene and vinyl chloride which are known to cause cancer. The devil in the pack even during production, plastic releases noxious substances like ethylene oxide, benzene and xylenes which can cause cancer, birth defects, damage the nervous and immune systems, as well as the blood and kidneys. That plastic waste around the region of 500 billion to 1 trillion is added to the earth every year is a deeply alarming reality. Environmental groups in the United States estimate that nothing short of 84 billion bags is produced in that country on an annual basis. The film showed disturbing sights of mounds of plastic choking rivers and canals.
The film being over, an eerie silence cloaked the hall. Speaking for myself, I was truly devastated by what I had seen. Coming out of the theatre I cringed at the sight of foam cups next to the coffee vending machine, as I am sure quite a few of my colleagues did too.
From the following week I started taking my own coffee mug to work. To my surprise, I discovered that everybody else was doing the same. Some of us liked to have tea instead of coffee, for which a tea-seller would be called in from outside. We told the tea-seller that henceforth we would be drinking tea out of earthen pots which were biodegradable. Money was collected to buy the biodegradable pots.
I also noticed that some of my colleagues, especially females who would do their shopping after work, were now carrying shopping bags to shopping centers and refusing plastic. I, on my part, have been doing the same since. Plastic bags in the office were also replaced with paper envelopes – perhaps not the best solution but at least a more moderate one.
One earthen pot and one film. Two seemingly unrelated incidents changed my life, not dramatically but significantly…

The magic thief

Suddenly the number of thefts seemed to have gone up in the town where Suman lived. Dadi told him one day on his return from school, “Did you know that Lala Karorimal’s shop was looted today? No one knows who did it.”
The grocer Gajanan Lal’s jewelry shop had been looted the previous day. The thief had disappeared without leaving a trace. The policemen of the town were shocked by the cleverness of the thief who simply left no clues behind.
Lala Karorimal’s precious diamond pieces had disappeared before his very eyes as had Gajanan Lal’s jewels and Seth Mithailal’s sweetmeats.
“The thief must be supernatural,” Suman told himself and then sat up straight. What if the thief was gifted with supernatural or magical powers? Then he had a sudden brainwave.
Having finished his lunch and homework, he proceeded to meet with Billoo and Blackie. He’d heard dadi say that animals were gifted with keener senses than humans.
Walking along the main road he heard an announcement:
“Hear! Hear! The mayor wants the townspeople to look after their own belongings. The invisible thief is too difficult to catch.”
Suman came upon Blackie and Billoo beneath the mango tree in the market place. To avoid being overheard by passersby, he led them both towards the bushes behind Shyam Lala’s shop.
Billoo told him that he’d been able to smell out the invisible thief at Karorimal’s shop.
“Are you able to smell him now?” Suman asked. Blackie the Bull replied, “Billoo has a stronger sense of smell than I do!” Then Billoo added, “Why don’t you speak to Lalu the Dog? His nose is even sharper than mine!”
The three set out in search of Lalu.
They came upon Lalu at Seth Mithailal’s shop where he was eating samosas with relish. Seth Mithailal’s servants loved the dog and often sneaked him snacks and other eats.

Suman and his two friends held a quick conference with Lalu who agreed to smell out the invisible thief.
The next evening after Suman was returning from the market place having sold his toys he saw Lalu speeding towards him.
“The thief is in Sameeran Bi’s house!” Lalu was panting with his tongue rolling out.
Sameeran Bi happened to be the richest lady in town. And just as generous. She’d opened a school for girls from poor families. She was also known to feed the poor and beggars once every week.
The thought of the thief entering the house of such a respected and big-hearted lady upset Suman greatly. He proceeded towards Sameeran Bi’s house determinedly. Lalu, Blackie and Billoo did the same.
Lalu stopped and sniffed the air. Sameeran Bi’s house was in view. “The thief’s here!” he barked and bounded towards the godown. The other followed suit without a further thought.
The godown was choc-a-bloc with sacks filled with crops. Lalu ran towards a particularly fat sack and growled, “He’s in there!”
“What are you doing here?” Sameeran Bi’s watchman had suddenly appeared in the godown.
“We are looking for the thief,” said Suman. Furious, the watchman exclaimed, “What! Are you mad? That thief has managed to remain unseen so far and you say you can actually spot him. I never heard such nonsense in my life!”
“What’s happening here?” A melodious voice made itself heard. Now its possessor had also made herself visible. Suman wheeled around: it was none other than the gracious Sameeran Bi!
“Sameeran Bi!” Suman cried excitedly, “the thief is here, hiding in that sack. I’ll just get him out, you’ll see!” He began rubbing the ring vigorously. The sack began to wobble rapidly. “Stop! Please stop! hee! hee! hee…”
Sameeran Bi and watchman held their breaths in amazement when Suman, who was still rubbing his ring announced, “I’ll only stop when you make yourself visible to us!”
“Alright! Alright! Hee, hee, hee…. I’ll do so…hee, hee, hee…”

The thief was still laughing when he emerged from the sack in person. Everyone gasped in shock. Why, this was Bhiru, Seth Maithailal’s trusted servant!
Bhiru was now sobbing helplessly. Sobbing, he told Sameeran Bi that his master Lala Maithailal had never given him enough money for a living, nor enough to eat. He was even thrown out of his job without being given a reason. That day he was passing through the forests when he rescued a dwarf who was drowning in the river. The dwarf gave him the gift of disappearing at will. But he also warned Bhiru against misusing his gift. “But I did!” wailed Bhiru. He begged forgiveness of Sameeran Bi and of all those present and vowed never to steal again.
Once he left, Sameeran Bi turned towards Suman and asked, “How did you know where he was hiding?”
“It wasn’t me who discovered him,” Suman laughed, “it was Lalu the dog who found him!”

(This work has been copyrighted)