In Trance-it: RIP Anand pt 2.

One thing I couldn’t believe was my cousin’s form. A vigorous active skinny lad, here he was doing the elephant thingy. Of course, I learned later that he used to take on that form in estate festivals and on Thaipusam events. Disbelief aside, I need to do fast thinking on what to do. The “Kali” was taunting Puruso, making snappy wordless sounds either asking Puruso to shut up and calm down, or ordering Big Mac with fries to go. I don’t know.

Bug Jeggan the Kali kept on making those sounds and there are signs of Puruso calming down, not before rising again, and calming down, and rising again and calming down, it was like watching a 8mm reel in loop. Only live. Only way creepier. In the meantime, Anand the elephant man was stomping his skinny knees around the flat, not giving too hoots that a supernatural drama was going on. He was oblivious to the whole thing, happily in his elephant kingdom.

…and yet, guess who chose the time time to make a dramatic entrance Yes, the last seen aiming badly Shanker, and like many bad sequels, he came back with vengeance. Well, technically that will not be his job, since this time he came with a burly friend, with, I suspect, intention to pummel Puruso to extinction. Oh yeah, great timing guys.

Naturally, when they saw what was happening, both of them looked as if they caught a panda making out with a snake. I had to explain them simply in Tamizh that roughly translates, “One got god in him, one got devil on him, and another might request for sugar cane”. The burly one, helpfully, suggested something they didn’t think of when they planned the beat the crap out of Puruso, “Call the cops,” he said, himself looking like he had wet himself.

Good idea, I left them in charge and the other housemates, and took the lift down. I know where police station for that block was. You see, sometimes back, Anand, the trio (Puruso, Murugia, Jegan) and I was waiting at the ground floor for another friend to arrive, to go somewhere (movie I think) when a police van dropped by. One of the cops asked us to get into the van. He was very polite. hey, maybe he needed our help to shift furniture or something. So, we got in, and they drove us to the station which was very near actually, got us out, and asked us to sit at the reception area. Nice and comfy looking reception. We sat down and treated it like a hotel lobby, legs crossed and me, forever a reader, looking for magazines to read.

Shortly after, another cop entered bringing a Malaysian Indian dude with a bandaged arm in slingshot, and various bandages on his face and body. The cop asked us to get up and stand in line. Bloody hell! We were part of identification parade. Luckily the culprit was not among us. The cop then asked us to go back and Anand asked, “How about transport?” Needless to say I had to drag my protesting cousin out.

Aside: Anand must have been serious about public transportation. During a movie at a full crowd screening, there was an emotional scene, where the entire village vowed that they want to go to the city and catch a culprit, Anand shouted, “Dey, who will play all your busfares?” End of aside.

Anyway, having been already acquainted with the police station, I got in but was tongue tied. I didn’t know how to explain, and my vocabulary power had already evicted my brain no thanks to the incident. Combination of gestures and words like “god, inside him”, the cop understood and asked, “Are they in trance?” Yesss! That’s the word. He said he will send someone immediately and asked me to go back. Oh crap, do I have to. Well, for one I have a cousin who thinks he has trunk and tusks, and I better attend to him.

Rushing back, I was shocked to see something. Well, it was nothing actually. Jegan was relaxing on one corner. Anand was massaging his knees and gave me a sheepish grin. Or was that an elephant-ish smile? But he looked okay, apart from sore knee. And Puruso? Well, he was okay too. Sort of.

He was stretched out on the floor, half of his belly facing down, and he was attempting to bite the corner of a Wardrobe. It’s one of those plastic cheap ones and his molars were scrapping the plastic sheet. Otherwise, he was not making any sound or giving the Bruce Banner-to-Hulk look. Maybe it’s a kind of a hangover.

I asked Murugaiah what had happened. He said they have solved problems among themselves. Yeah, it’s not like they had table talk or something right? Murugaiah said as Puruso calmed down finally (if you call that “calm”), Jegan returned to his form and he was not sure when Anand calmed down himself. I asked Anand, who was not sure himself.

It was about that time when the cops came. One was a Singaporean Indian, and the other Malay. Ah, help has arrived…or so I thought, because it is not the cop who will resolve the situations. The cause behind the incident is something nobody thought of, and we will find out, not here, not within the vicinity of the flat, but in the middle of a frickin’ jungle…

To be continued….