A tale of two tales

There are these two incidents that affected me in totally different ways and are absolutely unrelated, but I shall club them together in one post for two reasons - for one, they both brought an amused smile to my face as I mused on how queer and interesting human beings and human relations are; secondly, I'm a lazy fellow and can't be bothered to write separate posts. I'm sorry, it's as simple as that.

The first incident occurred when I was walking my dogs. It was a hot day and the sun bore right into my scalp, leaving me feeling quite weary. But I had to keep a watchful eye on my two pets waddling at my feet. It calls for an almost militant watchfulness as these animals can test every sixth sense that you've ever wanted to have. They are desperate for anything they can snatch up off the road and the least likely of things you would expect them to want to ingest they will surprise you by going for. It may be a small piece of plastic, a bone of some creature that decomposed days ago, or something equally micro and dangerous. You'll be careful to keep them off the fresh cow dung, for which I've noticed dogs have a peculiar fascination (they eye it like any of us would eye a particularly large piece of black forest cake). But you can hardly be careful enough to keep them off the small stuff for which they have the advantage of being able to sniff out and you have the disadvantage of being separated by about 5 feet nine inches of height. Anyway, all this has little to do with the incident I am about to narrate, which actually is quite short in the telling. All I am trying to do is set the background.

So I was walking my dogs and generally feeling hot under the collar when two local men of the streets approached me. One of them asked me in Tamil what breed of dogs they were. I was at a point when I would welcome just about any conversation with a human being, to cool my parched throat. So I replied they were called 'dachshunds'. The guy tried rolling his tongue, missed the pronunciation altogether and then quickly moved on to the next question. How much were they worth? I gave him my regular answer - the right one actually, but it always serves to discourage people from asking me any more embarassing questions as to whether I could supply them with dogs, like I have some breeding machine with me at home. It's about 4,000 bucks, I said, vaguely remembering somebody who had knowledge on the subject telling me some such thing.

Well it worked. But then the guy surprised me by asking me - in Tamil again - if I could give him the pup? I stared at him, not knowing what to say. What? Give her to you? - My bewildered eyes seemed to ask. Why? "Friendship, sir," he replied in English, touching his hand dramatically to a place somewhere in the region of his heart. Wow. This guy couldn't be serious. I slowly walked away. He did look like he wasn't joking, though his crooked smile made it difficult to tell for sure. But would he do something to me? I am, after all, fairly lacking in the biceps on which men usually depend to attempt to defend themselves with. But we kept looking at each other as I retreated, me with that amused expression on my face that I told you about. As I walked away, his friend, who was looking slightly embarrassed, pulled him by the hand and slapped him right across the back of his head.

The second incident happened yesterday when I went out with my good friends for a concert at St. Joseph's Commerce College. In the first place, they took so dashed long to let us in the gate. We stood mulling around outside like a bunch of lost sheep. When they finally let us in, it was in single file, actually two single files - one for the guys and one for the girls - because there were these student marshalls waiting there to frisk us. I was impressed. This was high security indeed. Once they had frisked us, this guy asked to examine my bag. I gave it up willingly. I have always said my life is an open secret - I have almost nothing to hide (except my e-mail password). He peered right in while muttering that he wanted to examine my wallet too. This only increased the smile on my face. "Is it okay," I asked. "You've got a Bible," he said impressed, or at least he sounded so. Well, so I did, and I was proud of it too. I take this bag with me everywhere, to church as well, so my holy book comes along. With the smile only growing on my face I asked him, "Do you want to look through my wallet now?" "No, you've got a Bible," he repeated.

I walked away, feeling a mixture of amusement and delight. It was a strange feeling. Living at a time - what we Christians will call the 'last days' - when almost anything said with regard to Jesus is scoffed at, when being anti-Christ, though maybe not always ostensibly so, is a popular sentiment, it was a pleasant surprise to witness something of the subtle, almost grudging respect that people still harbour for the name they otherwise so deliberately and disdainfully cast aside.