THE BLACK & WHITE OF THE MATTER

This is just a narration of an incident that happened when I was very active in an organisation called the PFA [People For Animals]. A few days after joining the group, I assumed the role of joint secretary of PFA. The secretary happened to be a very stern looking woman named Leela Latheef . She had this nasty habit of making me do just about everything she was supposed to do and take the credit for it. And on that fateful afternoon, my beauty nap was shattered by a telephone ringing, so furiously, as though shouting all profanities you could imagine at me. The only person who could bring about such conditions on inanimate objects was Leela Latheef.

I picked up the phone, " hello Leela chechi"

"how do you always know it is me?"

"never mind. What's up?'

"Now listen, dingbat. I found this strange looking ant which hasblack and white marking on its body in my kitchen"

"say what!!!"

"Yes, an ant with black and white lines on its...er...buttocks."

"Ant's buttocks !!!!!???"

"well, whatever you call its rear end".

" Chechi, are you sure it is an ant? As far as I know, only zebras have black and white lines on their body. Are you sure it is not a zebra?"

"listen you dingaling. I have that ant in the palm of my hand, righthere. You couldn't do hold a zebra in the palm of the hand, now could you? "

She had a point there, and a very pertinent one. She weighed about 15-20 kg less than an adult zebra and her palm couldn't be big enough to hold one.

" now what do you want me to do?"

"Now go to Prem's house, find out all you can about this particularspecies of ants. I think this is a very rare find..something that was thought to be extinct. The world could be in for a shock, Venu, whenI tell everyone of my findings. After Prem's, go off to meet thedirector of the zoo,Mr. Ravindran and report the finding to him and get back here, in my house, in five minutes, pronto".

Prem was supposed to be a walking encyclopedia on animals, birds,insects, and all creepy-crawlies. He was very short man, in fact, he was so short, he was always the last one to know when it rained. His face had a perpetual frown, acquired from years of squinting into holes and crevices made by insects. I always kept my nose tightly shut, in his presence, for fear of him poking a finger in there to check for anything that walked, creeped or crawled.

"hi Prem" I yelled. I never go too near him lest I get inspected with those fingers.

"Hi bud, what's crawling...I mean.. cooking?

"I told him the story.

"Never heard of any such species. Let's check it with Mr.Ravindran, anyway"

We were made to wait for an hour at Mr.Ravindran's office. He hated all the PFA members and needless to say we had this feeling we were Antartica, looking for penguins and seals. Ravindran was a tall, thin man in his early fiftees. Until you walked upto him, you couldn't be sure he was facing you frontward or sideways....he was that thin. He was always wired to his seat for fear being blown away if someone just much as sneezed and of course, he never switched on the tablefan.

"what do you want?" he growled

"Sir, we found this strange looking ant and an ant that...."

"Listen, Venu. I have my hands full of work this morning and I don'thave the time nor the inclination to listen to this story of ants.Make it very short."

"Sir, it is very rare species of ants"

"ok, put it along with the other insects".

"Now Sir, if I may point out.. we do not have any other insects".

"Whatever happened to the other members of the PFA?"

We came out dejected and depressed. I was going to mortally ruin all chances of Leela chechi's dream of getting into history books withthis rare find. I decided to confront Leela chechi with my findings on the issue.Leela chechi lived in a big house, half of which known only to the dogs and cats that lived there. I mean it took an excruciatingly painful, long search of the surrounding to find out where she was in the house. She was in the company of Sarala, another PFA member, whose husband was a building contractor. Sarala was what you called a 15 year old boy's dream, I mean, she had big muscles and even a faint ghost of a mustache. She and Leelachechi greeted me with wide grins, Leela chechi's being wider and broader. You would think if she didn't have ears at the side of her head, the ends of her lips would meet each other behind her head.

" know what, Venu?. Sarala's workers were painting the windows white and iron grills black. This irritated a colony of ants, which had colonised the crevice on the window. You know, these ants... when they are angry, they raise the back side in a show of temper, which rubbed against wet paint on the grill and window sill, leaving those black and white marks on their body. And I thought...hi..hi.. And youdingbat, you told the entire world that I made this silly mistake. You have a big mouth".

Yes, I needed a big mouth because that is where I kept my foot.