My Cousin Mukund

Whenever I think of my maternal cousin Mukund, my memory races back to some four decades. His bony frame with large, intelligent eyes, a tuft of hair in the nape of his neck and sacred ash with vermilion dot in the middle on his broad forehead, still amuses me. He always wore knickers and half sleeved shirts He was about ten then. He was attending a religious school where Hindu scriptures were taught.  I was two years older than he was.

When I visited my uncle’s place during summer vacations, I always made fun of him. His tuft of hair made me laugh at him pulling at it. I imitated his Vedic incantation and it made him peevish. `I will see your end.’ he used to swear at me and ran to my uncle to complain about. `Father’, he complained, ‘Narsu (my pet name) is insulting my Sanskrit lessons. When I am reciting slokas (hymns) to get by heart, Narsu is standing behind me and mimicking.’ My uncle knew that I was the black-sheep who deserved a bang on the head, though with least force. But I had been gifted with appealing looks and as soon as I cast one such look, my uncle’s heart, which was a generous one melted. `Narsu is dark. Isnit he?’ said my uncle. And it was a grand hint for Mukund. He called me by the names of the animals and birds which were black. As I was leaving my uncle’s room casting a scornful look at Mukund, he dismissed me with a warning that if I mimicked scriptures I would be transported to hell and   would be boiled in a cauldron. It had its effect on me and compelled me to make friends with Mukund immediately. I complimented that he looked like a great scholar of Hindu scriptures with his tuft tied into a beautiful knot. Poor Mukund believed me and offered to assist me in climbing the mango tree in the backyard of the palatial house.

Mukund was an expert rider of the bicycle though he was rather short to mount it. Whenever my uncle sent us on an errand, he jumped onto the bicycle with great gusto like a warrior mounts a horse. After peddling  the bike for a few feet, he beckoned at me.  I ran after the bike and sat on the steel carrier behind the seat. As he biked along the lanes and bylanes making way through other bikes, lorries, buses and bullock-carts, I was really afraid that I would be run over and sent to hell only to be boiled in oil by the soldiers of the god of death.

On return, he tilted the bike a little and put his leg on the pyol of the house and got down like an Indian Maharaja would dismount a caparisoned elephant. Then it was my duty to push the bike into the huge hall and put on stand at a corner.

Despite his religious bearing, Mukund was a prankster who was always out to do something mischievous.

 It was my brother’s wedding. The venue was packed with guests and I was standing at the place where the ceremony was going on. Suddenly I felt a cold, wet sensation on my feet. Since it was chill and raining outside, I thought that a few raindrops fell on my feet. But I was wrong. It was Mukund who rubbed turmeric on my feet. It was the custom in the southern part of India to apply turmeric to the feet of women on auspicious occasions, as it was believed to bring prosperity. Mukund’s prank was already noticed by the women there and soon giggles followed. Mukund wanted to convey to me that I was like a women through his prank. I became angry. I mashed a banana and applied the pulp to his tuft of hair and caught hold of it. But as the banana pulp was slippery, his tuft of hair slid out of my hand and he ran away crying aloud that a womanish boy was attending the function. I had launched a man-hunt for Mukund in the wedding hall. Now I had a saree and turmeric in my hand. I wanted to drape Mukund in the saree and rub the turmeric on his face. Also I wanted to give him a good punch on his back. But Mukund instinctively knew what I would be doing to him if he were caught. So till evening he was out of my sight. By the time, the dinner was ready, my anger had cooled completely. During dinner, surprisingly we found each other side by side. He offered me a sweet and I gave him another. Thus we made peace.

As Mukund grew, a gradual transformation had set in on him. This metamorphosis was from a student of Hindu religious scriptures to that of an English-educated boy. He learnt English, Science and Maths with equal ease, and climbed the ladder of success in an admirable way.

As I read in news papers that he became president of an American multinational, I sent him a congratulatory message, with the drawing of a ten year old boy with a tuft of hair at the nape of the neck. Though he held the reigns of a big company his urge for pranks was still irresistible. He acknowledged my greetings with a colourful line drawing - a twelve year old boy (that is me) sitting among women with his feet bright yellow with turmeric!