Notes from the Stable: My Pegasus
To spur with it:
? It has got four legs
? It is strong and sturdy
? It is called ‘kuthira’ in Malayalam
? But it has got nothing to do with its equestrian namesake
What is it?
This is no riddle, neither is it wrapped in mystery, nor is it inside an enigma!
It is a table or a cousin of a mini-scaffolding that can be shuffled around! The only mystery surrounding this kuthira is that nobody recollects the exact date of its arrival from the Wild West! Nobody has to; nobody cares; it was brought in unceremoniously as the construction of our house was progressing; it crept in like one of those drums that is used to store water; or like one of those Bengali Bhais who, by force of economics reached Kerala. I could say, it simply popped up and soon became ubiquitous and in high demand; it was to be seen everywhere as if it had hooves and shuddering muscles.
To describe it, it looked war-weary!
Some kind of thrust was packed into its architecture, its anatomy, so much, so that when somebody stood on it, it shook like it were negotiating a mild earthquake, not Japanese, but Chinese which would have seen dragon spitting a ball from its mouth indicating a tremor nearby. It was heavy, made of a combination of insignificant, asymmetric wooden pieces that accidentally came together at the arm’s length of an amateurish carpenter which were very much selected not even by looking at them, but more like a love-failed widow opting for an unqualified groom: a marriage of convenience, a random glance and affirmative tap! So it was irregular in shape and appearance: much like a chaotic music reality show than like a symphony. But without it, the painting of the house would not have progressed smoothly.
Yes, it had the skin of a leopard, by which I mean white spots scattered all over its being as if a zebra had been made in leopard’s mould in the most careless way imaginable: some spots here and there, sometimes more of it here than there and vice versa and sometimes the other way around. It was more like drops of sweat…those droplets that drizzle down every time the painter dunks his brush into the bucket full of paint and tickles the white-washed wall, that randomness with which galaxies were once born and star systems were created all in proximity but separated by light years. Simply, it was awash in cosmos…
And once the construction was over, it was ignored and stored in oblivion, in a cave of abandonment; a stable for retired horses right on the rooftop. And these words are penned or keyed in from that stable with the laptop straddled and strapped on to the very kuthira.
I was searching for a place to sit down and read. Something decent of a request to ask on a Sunday morning. I sat down in my room, which also doubled up as my workplace: the very reason I could not sit down and read closeted there. Then I moved outdoors. It was sweltering and I bathed in sweat in no time. Finally, I decided to move to the terrace, where we have a single room; the one I now call Stable. Of course, the kuthira was there; it badly needed a bath and I gave it that; it neighed and whinnied in happiness.
It’s my Pegasus now!
[Story image courtesy of: Pegasus, as the horse of Muses, was put on the roof of Poznań Opera House (Max Littmann, 1910)]