A Phone Call (Part IV)

The monkey moved on further. He saw a man trying to play a large drum. The monkey told him to stick the dosas on either side and then play it. The man said that he did not have dosas. The monkey gave his. When he played the drum with the dosas, the dosas fell down in tatters. The monkey got angry and told him, “Give me full dosas or the drum.” The man and the monkey  indulged in a big argument and finally the man had to part with the drum.

The monkey took the large drum and went to the terrace of a big house. He, then, began to play the drum singing a song – “Tail got cut off and I got a knife. Dum dum dum dum. The knife broke and I got a mango. Dum dum dum dum. The mango was eaten by a girl and I got the girl. Dum dum dum dum. The girl broke her limbs and I got oil. Dum dum dum dum. I lost the oil and got dosas. Dum dum dum dum. The dosas got torn and I got a drum. Dum dum dum dum.”

He kept beating the drum – Dum dumak dum dumak. The force on the drum went on increasing. One side of the drum broke and the monkey got pulled inside. The drum rolled off the house to the ground with the monkey. The drum went on rolling. One baby elephant saw it. It tried to step on it. But, the drum kept on rolling. It rolled into the nearby jungle till it reached the feet of the mother elephant. When the mother elephant tried to step on the drum, the monkey screeched and ran off to climb a tree.

Since it was a jungle there were a lot of trees growing close together. The monkey kept jumping from one tree to the other. He reached a mountainous area. There were 2 temples at that place – one was dedicated to Lord Shiva and the other to Lord Vishnu. Adivasis (tribal people) lived there. All of them would visit both the temples and were very happy and united. The monkey liked it so much that he stayed there for his entire life.

After Mom finished this story, she added the moral that my grandfather would give – In the upper classes and the middle classes, people do not bother where others go or what they do. In the lowest class also, they do not bother about others. It is the people who live in the lower middle class society that they have to gossip to digest their food and create a mess out of others’ lives.