The defanging of my poisonous uncle
Tales from the Last Century: Part 1
My teenage daughter lives in a world of comfort and convenience that none of the previous generations could even dream of. Even with Covid creating havoc, she still has the luxury of being able to continue her education via online classes.
It’s not just knowledge that we have at our fingertips. We can experience almost everything virtually from the safety of our couches. I’m a sports freak, and just watched Thiem win the US Open, and the Nuggets send home the Clippers, not to mention the many gripping movies, TV series, and nature shows. Thrills, spills, tears, horror, comedy, tragedy, love, friendships… it’s all there at your fingertips, to connect with or play and replay.
It’s like I’m where it’s all happening, except that I have the option to quit that virtual world anytime.
A world with no ‘escape’ button
The difference with my childhood is I was actually where it was happening. But there was no button to quit, pause, or undo. And that’s a huge thing.
I grew up on a farm where things we take for granted today, were simply beyond our imagination. Forget the internet, we barely had electricity (low voltage and flickering bulbs was a thing in those days). We didn’t even have a phone though we had ‘booked’ one. This was something you did in those days when inefficient public sector enterprises ruled India and it took years for them to deliver a ‘booked’ telephone line.
We may not have had many of today’s essentials but what we did have was a life. Running, playing, falling, breaking bones, climbing trees to pluck fruits, eating those fruits, swimming in ponds instead of pools, playing with pets, life, death… I can’t say it was a better life as that’s subjective. What I can say is that life was real and raw, and as the old saying goes, ‘Life is the best teacher.’
Despite all the changes, I wouldn’t exchange my childhood with the lifestyle of today’s kids. We were the lucky generation because we got to experience life in both, the real pre-internet era and the virtual internet era.
Biting the hand that feeds you
Coming back to my story, our farm was around three acres. It sat on top of a little hill and had a steep winding driveway that led up from the farm gate at the bottom of the hill. Every inch of the farm was covered by lush tropical trees and plants. Three acres is not big, but my definition of big was being able to throw a ball as hard as I could and still have it land in our land. Our farm fit that definition, and I was thrilled out of my silly head.
In reality, life was not so rosy. The biggest issue was our relatives, which is usually the case in India. My Dad was working abroad, while my mother took care of us and our farm. We had a cow and calf, some chickens, and a bewildering variety of crops on the farm. Coconuts, jackfruit, mangoes, guavas, custard apples, papayas, cherries, rose apples, cocoa, cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon, black pepper, tapioca, sweet potatoes, drumstick, betel nut… we even had a mangosteen tree (which never ever produced a fruit).
Anyway, my mother had initially accompanied my father abroad. She let her brother stay on our farm in return for taking care of it. My uncle had made some bad business decisions, got into debt, lost his home, and would have jumped at the opportunity, saving on rent, and enjoying the fruits of the farm.
The issue started when my mother returned to India. Her brother refused to hand back the farm and claimed it as his own. She asked my grandfather to talk to him, but he wouldn’t intervene as he probably felt my mother was wealthy enough to afford to give away that farm to his son.
My mother knew that my father had slogged to buy that farm. She wasn’t going to give it up, nor was she the type to scare easy. She packed off my two brothers and me, to a boarding school. She then set up camp on the farm, putting up a one-room, thatched hut right next to the huge farmhouse which my Uncle had usurped.
I got to see my new home during school holidays, and recall a thatched roof leaking buckets in India’s heavy monsoon rains, a smoky wood-powered stove, cow dung smeared mud floors (an Indian tradition), and my uncle occasionally walking past with his nose in the air, pretending not to see us.
Battles of Attrition
Meanwhile, my mother had also initiated legal action against her brother. She knew no Indian law court would look kindly on a man who had forced his younger sister and her three little kids out of her own house. In India, brothers are supposed to take care of their sisters, get them married off, and generally be there for them. My uncle would have found it hard to hold his head up in society, once what was going on became public knowledge.
After a year-long legal battle, my uncle was evicted by the law. He didn’t take it well. He would sneak back onto the farm at night, and try to scare her away by breaking things around the place, uprooting plants, and generally being a nasty pest. Like I said, this was long before the arrival of CCTV cameras.
As usual, my mother improvised. She would string up cans around the farm. The strings would be invisible in the dark. If someone walked into them, the attached empty cans would clang with an awful racket and warn us that my uncle and his cronies had snuck onto our farm. She would go out and flash a torch around, and try to chase him off. But it was in vain as he’d stay out of sight. I remember that racket because it sounded much louder than it really was because nights in those pre-TV, low voltage days used to be quiet except for the sound of crickets, frogs, and other creatures of the night.
My mother complained to the cops, but they were not able to do much as there was no proof. My uncle would just stay away for a few days before resuming his nocturnal activities. After a time, he began to escalate his harassment and even poisoned the water in one of our wells.
Dog Days
My mother wouldn’t back down. Though she disliked pets, she had her people get her a young dog that she planned to turn into a watchdog.
We named him Tiger. He was a mixed-breed mongrel, and he must have had a bad time as a puppy because he wasn’t really a friendly sort. A couple of days after his arrival, I tried to strike up a conversation with him and got bitten on my big toe for my pains. Though the bite drew blood, I wasn’t given the anti-rabies injections probably because it wasn’t such a big thing back then.
I’m glad they didn’t, as one of my friends had the shots, and claimed it was a really painful series of ten injections around his navel. Of course, it was a lot less painful than rabies which would make you go stark raving mad and panic at the sight of water and reportedly even bark and bite like a dog though I can’t confirm that last. In hindsight, maybe I should have had the shots.
Anyway, my mother didn’t take kindly to Tiger’s inability to discriminate between friend and foe. However, she wasn’t ready to give up on her watchdog experiment. So she had Tiger shipped out to I know-not-where, and asked her sister to lend us her watchdog. His name was Joey and he had a reputation of being a fearsome animal, with a bite worse than his bark.
My brothers and I were delighted and welcomed our new dog. Joey promptly adopted us as his new family, and unlike the banished Tiger, he would happily allow us to pet and cuddle him. Joey even knew how to shake hands if you asked him politely, though that was the only trick he knew.
But like I said, Joey was a fierce watchdog with strong territorial instincts. He took serious umbrage to any creature, human or non-human venturing onto his farm. What made Joey scary was that unlike other dogs, he rarely barked and instead preferred to creep up on the unfortunate intruder, and then launch an ambush in an overwhelming burst of silent fury.
Joey looked the part too, with his jet black coloring, wolfish face, upright ears, and orange eyes that glowed in the dark. He wasn’t big but he was a stocky bundle of rippling muscles, swift, and absolutely fearless.
Joey’s initial target was the dogs from the neighboring farms. He had marked out his territory by peeing along the boundaries of our farm. Curious, the local dogs would drop by to check out the newcomer. The visits usually ended abruptly in a sudden cacophony of snarls, barks, and anguished yelps as Joey unexpectedly sprang out of the bushes and tore into them. It didn’t matter if the opposition outnumbered Joey as the sight of that ball of black rage exploding out of nowhere was enough to scatter the troops and send them scampering for safety. Joey would then triumphantly cock a leg on one of the bushes in the now deserted battleground to emphasize his rights, and then trot back to us, looking extremely pleased with himself. Once the word got around among the local dog population, they figured out new ways to go on their travels without trespassing on Joey’s farm. Peace returned to earth.
Joey’s attitude to trespassers applied to human intruders as well. So my mother would only release him from his kennel at night. But we kids loved playing with Joey and would usually let him out in the evening when it wasn’t too hot to be outdoors.
One last shot
My uncle knew of Joey’s reputation. He didn’t fancy having that black devil sneaking up behind him in the dark of the night, and taking a bite out of his backside. This being Joey’s favored tactic of dealing with uninvited humans who dared trespass into his territory, especially at night.
My uncle made one last attempt to retrieve his lost ground. He came by one night and rattled the gates of the farm. When Joey went down to check it out, he tossed some poisoned meat over the gate. Joey was too canny to fall for it, and left the meat untouched (we did find a dead rat who probably wasn’t as discriminating). Recognizing he was beaten, my uncle finally gave up trying to scare my mother off the farm, and we saw him no more.
Epilogue
A dozen or so years later when I was in my late teens, my brother went down with some illness. I think it was typhoid. He was admitted to the local hospital, and put in a private ward. One day while I was keeping him company, there was a knock on the door. I recognized who it was the moment I opened the door even though he didn’t seem so big anymore. He smiled ingratiatingly at me, asked how my brother was doing, and gestured that he wanted to come in.
Without saying a word, I slowly shut the door in his face.
