The Snake Charmer's Wife and other stories

The Snake Charmer’s Wife

Once upon a time, there lived a snake charmer named Tipota.

He had a two-headed snake in his basket made of coconut leaves. He took care of his companion snake and he called it Goyan.

He set out everyday with his pot of milk for Goyan, the basket of coconut leaves, a bundle for his rest and a pipe to play music with.

Every morning, he set out from his home in the marshes, out to the market; where a lot of people came to see him and his two-headed snake, Goyan.

Tipota and Goyan were like each other’s eyes and ears. Goyan was both deaf and blind, but he could feel every tune that Tipota hurled at him through the snake charmer’s pipe. Goyan always got out of the basket and circled Tipota when he became merry. Tipota played from one side to the other and he too danced merrily like a child and enthralled the crowd with his moodful songs.

Goyan’s heads- they were two, they moved from one side to another and this made all the children merry with delight and they clapped their hands! Oh how! Tipota loved to show the children who gathered around that he was happy with his beloved two-headed snake Goyan! 

Tipota and Goyan would rest at noon. Goyan would sip milk from the pot while Tipota met his friends at the market. They spoke about the nature of life, the comings and goings of twon-folk till dusk gathered above. :Tipota is such a friendly manwith many charms” they all said. And he did too, when Goyan would climb over his shoulders and sit placidly on his arms and sometimes throw his tail over and around Tipota’s neck.

The other marketeers carried enormous birds with colourful feathers. One time, a man from the village on the shore of sea many knots and miles away even brought with him, a tamed lion for the crowd to see and they cheered with glee at that unusual presentation.

Tipota stroked Goyan in affection and some of the more adventurous children caressed the two-headed snake which made them all very happy.

Tipota collected fruits and flour, tea and spices for his wife’s cooking fire and returned home before long.

Huit, his wife, was a very beautiful woman. She had a knack for braising meat, a hand for plucking scented flowers in the garden and great big dark eyes that she decorated with kohl. She always wore a big dimpled smile on her bright face.

That evening, when Tipota returned home, onerous as he was feeling from his day at the market, needing dinner and a good massage, Huit was not to be seen outside their hut, like every other day. “ Huit!”, “Huit, where are you Huit na?”he called out, putting the basket with Goyan in its nook.

There was no answer. Tipota washed up, while Goyan got out of the basket, sensing that his master and companion was nonplussed and began snaking around the hut with two heads carefully for the sound of Huit’s trinkets and anklets. His mistress always wore heavy glass beads and bells around her anklets so that Goyan would know where she went. Sometimes, Goyan accomanied her to the fruit orchards where she helped the old lady who owned the orchards and vineyards pick fruit. Goyan would point out the fruits that were ripe for plucking, while they chatted about the comings and goings of town-folk.

Tipota had looked all around thir hut for Huit and he came back inside looking troubled and flustered this time. Goyan curled up in his lap with hood open, ready to receive his master’s isntructions to find and bring back the beloved mistress of their home.  

The moon rose above. It was full.

At that moment, Huit called out excitedly, from the paved road to their dwelling. “ Tipota! Tipota!Goyan! Goyan!,” she cried. “Where have you been Huit!”Tipota asked, relieved to see her.

“ You will not believe where I have been! Did you see the moon tonight?

Oh! The three circles and the oasis beyond the market and the fruit orchards…” Huit uttered breathlessly, while Tipota calmed her and sat her on his lap and offered her a cup of water.

“ You can tell me all about it, catch your breath a while, wife.” said Tipota to Huit. Goyan too was excited by higgedly-piggedly mistress and found himself a cozy spot in the tree, high above the hut and listened. One of Goyan’s favourite pastimes was to laze by the moonlight.

Huit smiled, as she began to relate her bold adventures that day, having found the three circles of ancient fortune, where she had found a golden locket. Tipota looked enthralled when he learned that inside of it was a perfect timepiece. “But first, I had to answer wisely , the three questions that Mandoo, the great, the king of the desert asked me, before he would give it to me as a product,” she added. “What were the questions and what did you reply, do tell us Huit, “ quipped Tipota, earnestly pleading with his own big blue eyes. “ The first came out like a riddle, “Huit continued. “Who, in the great desert, can slither through the distance or twirl as he likes, around the forest dense?” Mandoo had asked .

“Why, you, ofcourse!” Huit had replied, knowing well that Mandoo the great, the king of the desert thought so. “In the desert, one’s impressions about oneself can go unchallenged for a long time, you see?” Huit explained to Tipota, who was listening so very keenly to his wife. Mandoo had been very busy pleased indeed and had proceeded to ask her the second question, inviting her to the second circle. “Do you know what the meaning of life is?”

Huit, who was counting the number of circles she had already seen, blurted  “One!” and when Mandoo heard what he heard, suspecting skullduggery, blurted in turn,” Would you care to explain that?” to which pat came of her quiet quick-witted rhetoric, “ Is that another question, then?” when at last, Mandoo conceded his defeat and acknowledged Huit’s clever and laudable wit. They both broke into rapturous belly laughter at that, but Mandoo kept his promise no sooner. “You have mighty pleased me with your delightful presence Huit!” said Mandoo and led her to the third circle, showing her his resplendent abode where he told her, she would always be welcome.

“And that’s what kept me so long, so far beyond…” said Huit, snapping a big yawn, when Goyan, hushed among the trees, rescended and snaked away into the bushes to meet Mandoo the great and munificent king of the desert. Who knew perhaps Goyan would find a treasure of his own!

Acquiring a Reputation and other Pastimes.

A Friday to Monday Journal.

So, here I go again.

Wait. That did not occur to me, as I downed another shot of whatever was going around. After 3 Vodka largesses and random helpings of a drink that I know as only the half full glass. Rancid! I agree.

Had it occurred to me, would I have changed anything? Perhaps. But misdemeanors don’t lead to misadventures as easily, if that were the choice. And at 30-something, a girl needs misadventures like the sea needs it’s salt.  But that’s just my excuse.

Call it opportunity, call it a habit, call it the first time. I was played and I allowed it. I’m not complaining, ‘cos playtime is always fun. Even if it ends up in buckets of that awfully putrid stuff that simply has to get out and won’t let up until it does. Even if it then involves the bloomin’ head ache that won’t let up. Even if, after all that, the ridicule won’t let up.

But as ol' Yolanda always said, drunken cows produce the best beef. And when the cows come home, they tell of good herdsmanship too.  

And in between minutes of pellucid chagrin and hours of reason tried and tested the very next day, a very basic, juvenile, and almost artless unless do-you-know-any-better-kind-of a sobering reality, happens. 

At the pub last Friday night, the DJ acknowledged a request and then didn't follow through. Now DJs have never been on my list of favourite people. Not ever. Don't they seem to think no end of themselves? And it is a sort of subjugation they're after, not any fun over libation. Why else would a DJ not play your request, you being the patron and instead keep playing what he wants to? What makes them so cocky?

So, off I went, when that happened, to un-clutter myself from the mess and the agony of being displeased under the influence. 

And I thought ‘he’ would understand. Mistake.

‘He’, as it turned out, was an idiot. Here I was, in the middle of a crowd of people dancing to the beat, everyone apparently enjoying themselves and feeling quite out of sorts. Then I saw someone whom I thought may have been feeling like I was. So I decided we ought to start a band or something. So far, great idea.

But the jolly good fellow didn't really listen to me, with the loud music not helping and proceeded to misread my heading off with him for a tête-à-tête for something else.

(Yes, I did head off with him; I kind of dragged him out of his circle of friends and demanded a sudden friend for someone who needed to be understood) & (Ok, so that was a little unplanned- so what??)

He interrupted me even as I was introducing myself, and said he was married.

So I turned around and said to him, “ So am I.” 

So am I? So this now is something I discovered: In a conversation at the bar, just to keep up with it, one can say, one does say, one is completely within one’s umbrella of sanity to create a rapport thusly: A: I’m a fan of Ed Norton. B: So am I!!!

One does not go about it like this : A: I’m married. B: So am I!!! But what else could I have said? 

The next thing I know, I’m standing in front of a group of people who have the look of gasping for air on their faces and total and utter bewilderment- Look @ her, did she just do that, no compunction whatsoever??!!!  Uh- uh.

At this point, the alter ego wisely observes: So what, you have a life! And you’re living it. Or was it following through from what happened about a half hour ago? Or worse, it wasn't the alter ego at all, but the "wild shadow side of me."

Since I was being so misunderstood, very wisely, I must have thought I should give that a crack again. Trust a conversationally vexed, misinterpreted, misunderstood and completely facile-by-now shadow to come up with Plan B.

Then, the next discovery happened: the discovery of exactly how ditzy I can allow myself to get.  I discovered that women, even at a full and clocking thirty, can still not have a decent chat; a random conversation anywhere with a guy and lord forbid if it happens to be in a bar. 

The overwhelming dud-ness of the connotation of such a chat in our socially vexed pub culture is something I never foresee; no matter how times I have had the benefit of that hindsight. 

Oh but on the other hand, a guy can chat up a girl, and she may even hold that conversation. And while I don't grudge that, since that’s what supposed to happen ideally, I do become the exception to the rule when I initiate. But regardless of who makes the first move,  can people chat without a footnote to accompany that says: MOJO RISIN' in Bold Capitals? 

So here I was, out for just a bit of fun and fast becoming messy. It was after this rather mechanical and tedious turn around that I gave up trying to control the things I should not have even needed to.

People can chat, people can dance, people can sing, people can hug, people can kiss, people can ride, people can walk together without any of it meaning whatever the bold lettering of a paranoid culture’s histrionics can ever espouse. Unless it does. Will that ever be clear enough?

And believe you me, it is a discovery for me that Gumption + Good Intentions does not always = A splendid time.  Unless it does, because on the other side of my asinine misadventures, I still had a pal willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. So I’d just lost my marbles temporarily and was on the road back to Recovery. That’s something, and a bit.

And then came the dizzy bump on my head, from banging into the lift door. Or was that a tree? And with a little help from my friends, the ride back home, the bed and the bucket.  

Pen fed 'n ink drunk