A day in Guwahati Zoo

TG was once a cameraman. But now, since he had more lenses than cameras, he preferred to be called as ‘Lensman’. Like Shaktiman’s logo on Mukesh Khanna’s forested chest, his proboscis supported the great burden of his logo.  After the KG controversy, and his knack for getting the right angles of the right bangles, he had also earned the sobriquet ‘Haseeno ka Devta’. But we digress. This post is about a day in the Guwahati Zoo, that Shangri La for the animals.

The 6 characters, Shruti, Manisha, TG, Khujliwal, Romila and Yours Ugly (YU) were as excited as Putin charging into Crimea. Interaction with Aam Janwar was high on Khujliwal’s agenda. And the zoo charged INR 50 for that. A king’s ransom was paid for TG’s lenses too. The first interaction session happened with a group of AAP volunteers shrieking langurs and roaming wild monkeys. From a distance, it looked like a simian samiti meeting demanding free power, water and food in simian cages and recognition of unauthorized colonies in treetops established by the wild monkeys. ‘They are working on the right governance model’ remarked Khujli. Excited, Khujliwal moved on and came across a pair of Baboons seemingly unaffected by the new political wave. Khujliwal wanted to sell his agenda but Mr. and Mrs. Baboon literally did a bottoms-up revealing their true colors. Blinded by the red-rage, Khujliwal went right towards the feline quarters. There were felines from Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP and other parts of the country.

Shruti, however, had established some connection with Mrs. Baboon. He had only two grouses in life: He had studied/worked/lived in an all-boys school/college/company/colony & the existence of the world looked logically inconsistent to him. He was yet to find an idea/ideology/ideologue who was not logically flawed/inconsistent/inaccurate. Shruti had succinctly collected all his wisdom in one single quote, which was preached far and wide. The maha-vakya, which could put entire philosophical texts/traditions/theories on a backfoot and send philosophers/thinkers/intellectuals scurrying for cover was ‘Yeh sab Chutiyap hai re!!’

Mrs. Baboon looked anything but chutiyap at this point. She was the most exciting thing Shruti has seen since morning. Mr. Baboon’s threatening antics were hard to decipher for Shruti and he continued pinging her on FB, Watsapp, Gmail…

YU was meanwhile alarmed by the apparent absence of an illustrious member. He had 5 fingers for 5 members. This helped in keeping track. The middle one was for Romila. YU backtracked and came across and excited bunch of Biharis. They had found something of interest in the Giraffe enclosures. Seeing that the lone Giraffe was standing indifferently in another enclosure, YU figured the Biharis have discovered something truly marvelous. YU asked one aunty/uncle and was told ‘I heb seen many big joos in the world. Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Patna and Raja Bhaiya’s joo. Guwahati joo is bhery bhoring. Bhut this animal is exciting.’ YU looked inside and was not surprised to find giraffes taking selfies with Romila. The giraffe kids also wanted some and Romila had to bend his neck down. When this did not work, he kneeled. But kids were disappointed again. Romila finally kowtowed. This worked. The giraffe family took a series of selfies with Romila and uploaded them on FB. These pics were soon trending globally amongst all giraffes, along with the despicable news from a Danish Joo Zoo. The lone Giraffe in the other enclosure was as indifferent as before. YU left Romila behind to satisfy Bihari curiosities.

Manisha had confused a sign. He thought he might find some good theme music inside the enclosure marked ‘OST-Rich’. He got inside the enclosure and was granted an immediate audience with something else. People still differ in their opinion about what came first, his song or the ostrich’s kick. But they were treated to Discovery/NGC/IndiaTV like footage of Ostrich chasing a man. ‘Haan, ab jaake paisa wasool hua na’ remarked another Bihari.

Khujliwal had meanwhile reached the Hippo enclosure. He was happy to see someone of his size and stature. When the first eye contact was made with the first hippo, Khujliwal instinctively ran his fingers down the majestic pendulous dewlap of himself. The hippo shook itself a little in order to show his. Then, they both concurred that Khujliwal has a better one. The sad hippo went back to its pool and Khujliwal triumphantly strutted towards the next hippo. It was busy eating a warm mixture of grass, bamboo shoots, sugarcane and its own dung. It ate with a furious hunger using its own warm dung to combine big bundles of grass and cane into nice round laddoos. Hippo’s happiness and delighting meal made Khujliwal let out a sigh. His last meal was at the elephant enclosure, where he had successfully flicked tiffin from a Bong family.

As hippo ate, it made sounds… chewing, champing, munching, relishing, gulping and swallowing the dung. Finally Khujliwal could stand it no longer and threw a RTI stone towards hippo. The hippo looked towards him and realized that Khujliwal might threaten and steal his meal. It quickly turned around to model his mighty rear for Khujliwal. It then demonstrated dung production and mixed some more to the meal. All this had an unintended effect on Khujliwal. Culinary cravings made way for the carnal desires. He started climbing the enclosure wall. A fact, which did not escape the notice of the hippo and drowsy zookeepers. The hippo ran to the safety of the pool and zookeepers brought Khujliwal back.

Shruti appeared out of nowhere suddenly, or something that looked like Shruti. We enquired and it was confirmed by something that it was indeed Shruti. He said that he should have paid more attention in Business Communication classes. He failed to understand the non-verbal signs and body language of Mr. Baboon. This resulted in a gratuitous display of affection by Mr. Baboon on his face. It looked like a post-apocalyptic battlefield. One could easily observe numerous ground zeros and sites of armored clashes. TG remarked that it had always been so.

YU decided to cheer them up.

‘If Pramod’s mother-in-law is upset with Pramod, what does she instruct her daughter?’  The lambs were silent. Romila also joined in. A rhino also awaited the revelation. The settling sun and the closing zoo froze for a moment. Was this the answer to life, universe and everything?

‘Shruti, Pramod Ko Maar’