Nanouk’s Travel

Dad, I want to stay here. I don’t want to live in the city. I want to come back home.

No son, I want you to have a good life. Our world is too tough to live and survive. I want you to do well in life with some modern amenities and comforts. You and your children will have a life that you cannot even dream of in these harsh conditions where the snow never melts, the sun ever rises and you have to fight for survival every single day.

Dad, please listen to me. Our life in the open and with freedom is much better than what I saw in my visit to the big city in Toronto. I am all confused and at times amused after meeting the famous people over there. With all the toughness of life and fight for survival, I will still be happier there at home.

Tell me son about your days there.

So Dad, I landed in a park near the Lake Ontario and I was looking for some direction but the sign there got me all mixed up and lost- North Pole, Niagara Falls, Vancouver and Halifax and all I could see was the blue waters on three sides and a garden of green on another and so I headed there.

At the garden at night, I saw a man riding a beautiful horse. But it seemed strange that they were both standing still and so I walked towards the man astride in regal attire and called out, “Hello! I am Nanouk. I am new here and wanted to know if you could help me around.”

What help can I possibly give? I am King George V of England whose empire spread from one end of the globe to another and they said that the Sun never sets on the British Empire. My Jewel in the Crown was India where I visited in 1911 when the capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.  A grand durbar was held in Delhi to mark the occasion. And you know the best part about the Indian travel then was game hunting when I shot 21 tigers, 8 rhinoceros and a bear in just ten days.

You do hunting for fun but we Inuits in the northern snowy part of Canada do it for survival. We have to hunt polar bears, walrus and fish with our spears, bows and arrows. We store the frozen meat for winter months which lasts over ten months when moving out of our igloos is near impossible.

Since you as the King of the British Empire and the Emperor of India are not from this land, you stand frozen as a King in Queen’s Park while I look for someone famous from the land of the maple leaf. Your garden is green and beautiful but my ice world of white is so much better.

I was told by this King of a beautiful land just off Toronto, where water fell from great heights, that there lived a man who the locals say was the greatest inventor of the twentieth century. I took a Grey-line bus and reached Niagara where after seeing the beautiful waterfalls, I walked into an overlooking garden where the famous man stood. As I went close I saw a written in bold…Nikolai Tesla.

Hello Nikolai, how do you do Sir? I am Nanouk from another world much further north. My father wants me to come down here and study science and its benefits. Will you be my guide?

Dear Nanouk, I too came from Croatia and after studying in Germany, Hungary and Austria came to US in 1884. Here I worked with a great man called Thomas Edison whose DC based electrical works were the standard of the country. Soon I left Edison for we were completely different personalities. Whereas Edison was more focused towards marketing and financial matters I was more academically inclined.

I designed the alternating current (AC) electrical system which soon became the pre-eminent power system of the twentieth century and has remained so worldwide since then. If you take a walk down from here, you will find the remains of a hydro-electric power plant. I patented the Tesla coil which laid the foundation of wireless technologies.

It is good that you want to study science but in this land you also need to have a high level of business acumen or else you will soon get frustrated. I too had become eccentric and in the later part of my life I devoted much of my time to the care of wild pigeons in parks.

Thanks Nikolai. You’ve been very helpful. Science is good but becoming looney is not. I would rather stay sane than go insane. You stay here enjoying the greatest of all the waterfalls. I salute you for all the inventions and patents but the world of my dreams is not this. If I could make the life of my fellow Inuits better with health care and basic amenities that could make their difficult life a little easier, that’s where my science should take me. Money is important but I am quite like you…

Dad, I returned to the city once more and landed myself in a museum where I found among other things shoes worn by us. I was taken around by a man called Thomas Bata. He showed me the golden shoes of kings, sparkling ones of rock stars and simple ones for kids. We then sat down for a glass of beer when I asked him about himself.

My family were cobblers in the present day Czech Republic. In 1895 we created a shoe out of canvas instead of leather and became very popular. After World War 1, came the economic slump. Our factory in Ziln was called Bataville and our workers began to be called Batamen. Business grew rapidly and we expanded into many new countries including India. We also started Bata Price where the shoe cost ended with a nine after a decimal rather than a whole number, a tradition we have maintained till date. I died in a plane crash in 1932. In 1964 we moved our corporate headquarters to Toronto, Canada. Presently it is my daughter who is taking care of my business which is going through difficult times.

Ok Mr. Bata so you too are not from Canada. Then who is?

Thomas laughed aloud and asked me to follow a road that would take me to another Hall where he told me to finally meet a pure bred Canadian. I thanked him for a pair of shoes, which he said was his company’s bestseller, called Hush Puppies and moved on.

I landed at the Hockey Hall of Fame and at the gate was greeted by a smiling gentleman who introduced himself as Wayne Gretzky.

Hello Wayne, I am Nanouk from Nanungat up north in the countryside. Mr. Bata said you are ‘The Great One’ so I bow to thee.

Wayne smiled and asked me to follow him as he took me around the Hockey Hall of Fame. He showed me the pictures of hockey greats, the clothes worn by champions and even showed me how to play. It is pretty easy Dad. You have a long staff curved at the end and you have to strike the small round thing called puck into the net.  He showed me some movie clips where the players do not take it easy and end up fighting each other. He then took me to a room where the famous trophies are kept and told me about the Stanley Cup which is awarded to the National Hockey League Champions. He even took a picture of me standing with the cup. It felt so good Dad.

Wayne presented me with a shirt with 99 printed on the back. I read at the museum that Gretzky is regarded as the ‘greatest hockey player ever’ and was the leading scorer and provided the maximum assists than any player in the history of NHL. Gretzky was honoured by the Canadian government with many awards and the shirt number 99 was retired for NHL as a mark of respect for the great player. Now Wayne lives away from Toronto where he has a vineyard. He even let me taste sweet ice-wine. Ice-wine is made from grapes that are plucked at night in cold winters as that is the time when the fruit is the sweetest.

Finally, I found a real Canadian and I liked the sport he played. This is good life Dad but for this all you need is some good ice and we have plentiful of it back home. For that I need not spend the rest of my life here. So as sun sets on the beautiful Lake Ontario, I am flying back Dad and will stay with you, my friends…be myself and be with nature.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is a society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar;

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Lord Byron

SS

Dog's Life

It had been quite a while since I read a comic book, therefore, could not resist asking a colleague for Amar Chitra Katha’s triple volume of Mahabharata. Around the same time on a visit to an insurance broker’s office, found an almirah full of books, and as luck would have it, picked up Devdutt Pattanaik’s Jaya, which is the original name of the epic Mahabharata.  While people keep the Ramayana at home and is read by family members together, it is said that it is inauspicious to keep the Mahabharata at home as its presence leads to disputes in the family. And here we were with not one but two copies of the same dreaded book at the same time- the comic version was meant for me and the book version was for D. Maybe after thirty years of marriage, we’ve overcome many a Mahabharata of our own.

So then, both of us started reading the wonderful saga together, sitting on two different sides of the bed. After the initial enthusiasm, I could not go beyond the first volume of the comic book. The text in it seemed quite childish, even though the stories were being narrated in a simple manner. It somehow was not being able to hold my attention for long and I had to make an extra put-on effort to read it, just to show my wife that my decision to read the comic version was better than hers! It often happens that what seemed wonderful in childhood does not appear so great when revisiting later in life. It is better to leave those happy memories in our hearts and no attempt should be made to relive those moments again. D, on the other hand, took a huge liking to the longer version and was all praises for it. The author had done a good job of not only keeping it brief but tried maintaining honesty to the original version and added small, interesting anecdotes and folk tales sourced from various texts and different parts of the country to make it interesting. She even started drawing up in a diary, the family trees of various kings, hermits and gods to understand how each of the families were linked and how destinies of all were to again meet in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Everyday, when I returned from work, I would be treated to some new character or story from the mythology that she had read that day. She kept on pestering me to start reading Jaya. And then finally I decided to accept her advice and started reading the book and soon got hooked to it.

You must be wondering why I have chosen the strange heading for the blog. Am I leading you to Dogs of War situation and trying to retell the stories of valour and betrayal, sacrifice and greed, vice and integrity of those who came face to face in the greatest war ever fought? No, that day is not today. Today I am sharing with you two stories from Mahabharata where dogs played an important role.

The first one appears at the end of the epic and is one which is known to most but is still worth a revisit.

After establishing a strong kingdom post the Kurukshetra with Parikshit on the throne, the Pandavas felt it was time to leave behind the royal life and they walked together towards the snow clad virtuous peak of Mandara which touched Swarga or heaven. Even Draupadi followed the five brothers as they planned to enter the realm of Gods. As they walked the treacherous path, Draupadi fell off the mountain first and then in some time it was Sahadev and then Nakula. The remaining three brothers walked ahead without looking back. Then it was the turn of Arjuna and Bhima to fall down and then it was just Yudhishtira who walked ahead alone. It seemed, all except Yudhishtira, had flaws that prevented them from reaching the Gates of Heaven.

“Come inside”, said the Devas as they welcomed the lone Pandava to the Garden of Amravati, “But keep the dog out”, they added. “Which dog?” asked a surprised Yudhishtira as he turned around to find a dog wagging his tail standing behind, whom he identified as having seen in the city of Hastinapur. The dog had survived the cold and had followed Yudhishtira all the way to the peak. The dog looked at Yudhishtira and licked his hands in adoration. While the devas contended that the dogs are inauspicious  and dirty and cannot be admitted into heaven, Yudhishtira argued in vain that the dog should be allowed entry for it had earned the right after having undertaken the journey and survived.

Matters came to head when Yudhishtira said, ”Either I come in along with the dog or I do not come in Heaven.” “You refuse paradise for the sake of a dog!” exclaimed the Devas. They then smiled and said, we are pleased at your integrity and the dog following you is none other than Dharma or the God of Righteous Conduct.” Yudhishtira was then welcomed with great fanfare into the Gates of Heaven.

I personally have serious doubts about the right of Yudhishtira to enter heaven for it was almost his single folly in that dice game with Shakuni which culminated in the bloody war and his deceiving Dronacharya about the death of Ashwathama. The epic throws up a new facet about this entry into Heaven of which I was not aware of till I had read the book this time. When Yudhishtira entered Heaven, he found all the Kauravas there but none of his brothers. He asked angrily, “How did these warmongers reach Amravati?” To which the Devas replied that all of the Kauravas were killed in battle in the holy land of Kurukshetra and thus had purified themselves to enter the Gates of Heaven.

One of the morals of the story is that you should not treat dogs badly, who knows they may be the Devas following you and testing you hard sometimes with a rabid bite as well. Secondly you will be often surprised at the heavenly justice and find strange people in heaven when you go there…possibly they too would have died in battlefield…Heil Hitler!

The second story is based on a folk tale from Punjab and is completely a new twist to a thing we have all seen in life, but gives you a plausible explanation to the ‘act’.

Draupadi was known as Panchali or the wife of five men.  So, mythology says, the characters then planned it out to manage such a situation where five men had one woman to themselves. Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas had declared that each of the five brothers would be with Draupadi for one year at a time. There was another rule that no brother could enter the bed chamber of Draupadi when she was there with the brother whose turn it was at that moment. Things were going on fine and to ensure that no one even by mistake breached this rule of not entering the bed chamber, it was decided that the footwear of the man who was with Draupadi would be kept outside the room, signaling to the other four brothers that they shouldn’t enter the chamber at that moment.

It so happened that one day Draupadi was with Yudhishtira whose footwear was kept outside the chamber. A stray dog entered the palace and took away the footwear. Arjuna came looking for his bow and not finding a footwear outside, he assumed Draupadi was alone, he entered the room. Seeing him, Draupadi was embarrassed and cursed the dog that since his actions caused her intimate moments to be known to another, all dogs in future would copulate in public in full view of all, stripped of all shame.

Please do not ask me how authentic this folk tale is, just read it, shut it and forget it…surely you will not forget this easily, will you? After all men will be men! Do not ask me for the moral of this immoral story. The only thing that comes to mind is Amar Chitra Katha is Sanskari and children should be encouraged to read it and no more lest they be polluted with such F-tales… Folk tales.

SS