Random Musing 16: The Parable of the Rat
I recently got in touch with my violent inner beast when I encountered my nemesis: a rat.
By nature, and despite three years in Delhi, I am not a violent man. Well, there were some ill-advised fisticuffs in my youth, but you know, simply by the fact that I use the word fisticuff, that violence is not in my nature.
Of course, being in Delhi means I’ve come to appreciate what the locals call kalesh – not the Dilli way of saying clash – but only as an observer. My favourite one involved an auto driver fighting with a fellow auto driver when the latter followed the first auto all the way home. What was remarkable was the etiquette they followed during the fracas, which involved driving side by side in heavy roadside traffic, while shouting at one another.
However, I recently got in touch with my violent inner beast when I encountered my nemesis: a rat.
In popular culture, the rat is a cute and loveable animal. We’ve all grown up laughing at Tom and Jerry’s eternal struggle for superiority, marvelled at the MasterChef dreams of Remy, or even fallen in love with the company which uses a rat as its mascot while treating its employees in a manner unworthy of a rat. However, a recent struggle with a rodent in my house has made me reevaluate a lot of things: my views on tyranny, the need for violence, and my attachment to the material.
But, like all stories, let’s start from the beginning. A few days ago, I discovered to my horror – while performing a version of Inspector Clouseau’s Pink Panther prance/dance for my better half – that there had been, to borrow a word from NYT, an incursion in our house.
A rat, like a Hamas terrorist, had infiltrated our dwelling, and just like when they attacked Israelis enjoying a rave, the rat charged at me just when I was at my most vulnerable. The bloody thing was hanging on the curtain and almost jumped on me, and since then, my life’s raison d’etre has been like that of Sardar Khan, fixated on revenge – or, in this case – catching the bloody thing.
So, I declared a war to end all wars on the bloody thing, and thankfully, not a single Ivy League South Asian student wrote a protest letter in support. I placed traps all over the house to catch the bugger with buff jerky as bait, but clearly, it was vegan and wouldn’t commit that particular sin. What was truly astonishing was where it was disappearing during the day.
Had it built – like the Vietcong or Hamas – tunnels under my house that I couldn’t access? I wanted to do a George Bush and smoke it out, but it refused to be caught, till we narrowed it down to my wardrobe, but like Karan Johar, the bugger refused to come out.
However, a new trap, imported all the way from Japan, has finally caught my bane, and I disposed off it outside (I still didn’t have the heart to kill it).
During the post-mortem of the cupboard, like the biblical archaeologist making his way through the burnt remains of the victims of Hamas’ incursion, we found that the creature had left a trail of destruction in its wake, including destroying my favourite panjabi (kurta for non-Bengalis) and one of my favourite blazers.
So, what’s the moral of this particular parable? Well, there’s no moral. Morality is a herd instinct designed by higher mortals to keep lower ones from having fun. I just wanted to brag that I trapped a rat, which, by the way is one of my only physically tangible achievements in life. The other being the ability to pour beer without creating too much foam.