His wife, wearing an old
sari, her hair tied in a bun and a few strands hanging loose on her troubled
face, came running to the living room completely vexed. She looked way older
for a person who has seen only 30 years of life. He, in his early forty’s, was
reading the newspaper while sipping in a hot cup of coffee. There wasn’t anything
worth reading, sensational news than sensitive news. His wife said, ‘A Bat has
entered the kitchen from nowhere and it is troubling me. Please do something
about it!’. He wondered ‘from nowhere how is that possible???’ He got up from
the sofa and walked towards the kitchen with his wife following. The kitchen
was a perfect mess. He couldn’t find the Bat. Then suddenly something fast and
black flew over him. His wife started running behind it with a broom in hand
trying to hit it. He caught hold of a stick from the corner of the store room
and started running behind the bat. The bat put up a good fight for an hour and
a half and was finally chased out through the kitchen ventilator. They were
really tired. His wife went to get the jug of water.
He
returned back to the living room and sat in the sofa, tired. He remembered the
lines in an interesting article that he read in a fortnightly magazine,”…..If Bats
had human faces then they would have been the most interesting mammals to study…….”
He looked at his black long coat that was hanging and thought, ’who said there
are no Bats with human faces. I think the author forgot about the Bats in the
law courts’ and laughed to himself.
The bat became a
regular menace at nights when his wife was working in the kitchen. She tried to
trace its path and came up with unique ways everyday to chase the bat away, but
her attempts always went down the drain.
One morning his wife came running
to the bedroom where her husband was sleeping and woke him up. Her face was
brighter than the sun, whose rays lit up the room. She said, still panting, ‘you
should come…outside…there is…just come! She held his wrist and almost dragged her husband who was still yawning
and went to the backyard and excitedly pointed at the electric line on the
other side of the road. There was a dead Bat that was hanging on it. His wife
said, ‘it’s that troublesome Bat.’ He was surprised, ‘but how do you know it’s
the same Bat that troubled you? It can be any of the other bats around here.’
His wife disagreed, ‘I’m sure that this is the same Bat. Look at his wicked
face.’ but he couldn’t find any wickedness on its face. He walked back leaving
behind his wife who was still staring at the dead creature.
After a week he realized
that his wife was right about the Bat because it had never troubled them
thereafter. A month later, one fine evening his wife came running to him
screaming, ‘THE BAT IS BACK!!!!’
[Article from the annual magazine, Kalpa 2013, of IISER Pune]
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