063 "My son"

"Did you go hunting when we were not here?" Dad asked mom.

"..." Mom didn't have any reply.  She glared at me. In my defence, there was nothing we could do. There was no way we could hide it. So I did what I had to save my ass.

"Ahhh... daughter... how could you do this? You have injured Jacky. He hasn't eaten anything since then. What am I going to do if anything happens to him?" He started wailing.

Seriously? I didn't know what to say. Because the calf was happily eating the balsam flowers in chacha's garden. He was a picky eater. He ate only the flowers and ignored the leaves.

"Did you name the cow 'Jacky'?" I asked.

"It's a bull. Not a cow." He replied. Even then, Jacky was definitely not a name for a bull.

"I... I will pay for the calf." Mom decided to take responsibility for the calf.

"Pay for him? how can you say that? He is my son." The old man was offended.

"Which son? The eldest?" Chachan asked instantly. I gave him a thumbs-up in my mind.

"You..." The old man was speechless for a moment.

"He is like a son to me." He corrected his words.

"Mani uncle, what Riya was trying to say was..." Dad tried to ease the situation

"Who are you calling uncle? I'm not that old. Stand back, kid." He scolded dad before he could complete his argument.

Dad made a helpless expression and said nothing. Handling these old people was no easy task. To make things worse, these guys were from the generation of dad's parents. So we simply couldn't offend them.

"Who is his mother?" I asked.

"Cough..." The old man coughed and looked at me.

"Whose is this one?" He asked.

"He's mine," Appa answered.

"Hmm... He does look like you." He nodded in approval.

I liked it.

"Elder brother... I thought it was a boar and shot it. It is only a small injury. We can take him to the hospital and he will be fine in no time." Mom tried to handle the situation. Even though the old man was older than her parents, she called him elder brother.

"Then what about the pain he had to go through? Do you know how close he was to me? After my wife passed away, he was my all." the old man started crying.

"What the hell are you talking about? Your wife died thirty years ago. Also, you had no shortage of women after that." Chachan replied annoyingly.

"Iyamma, what does 'no shortage of women' mean?" I asked mom with an innocent face. This is a fun game I play sometimes. Whenever adults say something with hidden meaning, I would ask them for an explanation and watch them struggle to come up with explanations.

"That means he had many friends." Mom answered instantly. She didn't forget to glare at chachan before that. Chachan had an apologetic look.

"Ohh... I also no shortage of girls." I announced.

"Achu, don't say like that." Mom tried to stop me.

"Why? I have Aani, Meera and ..." Mom covered my mouth before I could finish.

Most of the elders were trying to control their laughter.

"Hey... I am still here." Mani uncle reminded us that we were forgetting the main issue at hand.

"Stop throwing a tantrum. I will let you play with the gun." Chachan sighed and said.

"Couldn't you say that earlier? you wasted my time." Mani uncle's attitude did a one-eighty.

We were left speechless. It turned out that all the tantrum the old man threw was just to force chachan to let him play with the gun.

"What about your son?" I asked pointing at the calf which had promoted itself from eating flowers to eating Doodu. Doodu was trying to escape from the senseless calf. But the calf continued chasing Doodu and trying to eat his hair.

"Ohh... If he dies, please burry him near my wife's grave." Mani uncle said emotionally as he patted my shoulder.

I was left speechless again. His wife was cremated and she didn't have a grave. This old man's words had no value. Fortunately, chachan knew how to handle this shameless guy.

In the end, chachan took him for hunting. They also took the torch as it was getting late.

But the issue was far from over.

"You two went shooting without me?" Anuchi interrogated us. Priya and Pichu were standing on either side of her. Pichu had no idea of what was happening. He was blindly supporting his eldest sister. Piya knew that she missed some fun events. She was stomping her foot to show that she was furious.

They were cute.

"You went to meet your friend without us and we were bored." Mom replied.

Anuchi wasn't satisfied.

"Appa, you have to punish them." Anuchi appealed.

"Punish?" Mom was confused for a moment.

"Yes. Amma went for shooting without permission and hurt uncle Mani's son. She should be punished." Anuchi explained.

"Get lost girl." Mom ignored Anuchi.

"No no no..." Piya protested.

"Yes. You need punishment." Dad agreed with Anuchi.

"For what? I don't need anyone's permission to do anything." Mom snapped.

"No. It's punishment for going to hunt with a kid. Also, the gun is not yours. You took the gun without permission. So you need double punishment" Dad replied calmly.

"..." Mom glared at him

"You cannot get out of this. You will be setting a bad example for the kids." I added.

"'Kids'? You are one of them." Mom replied.

"But his argument is valid. You have to follow the rules." Appa wasn't ready to give up.

"Then he should also be punished. He was the one who convinced me to go hunting." Mom pointed at me.

'Crap.' I didn't think that she would drag me down with her.

"Doodu was also there." Since I was going down, I decided to add Doodu too.

"Wooowoo..." Doodu protested.

In the end, the three of us got punished. We had to sit at three separate corners for half an hour.

"Just wait you little rat. I am going to teach you a lesson once this is over." Mom was still angry at me.

"No talking in the corner." Anuchi declared.

"No talkiing" Piya supported.

They were enjoying it. Mom was furious. Her face was red from anger and embarrassment.

Do you know how awkward and embarrassing it is when you get punished in front of everyone during a family gathering? Usually, it's me who faces that embarrassment in my family. This time, mom was also with us. Our cousins looked at us pitifully.

"Little aunty, shall we talk to uncle?" Joe asked mom. They call mom 'little aunty' mom loves it.

But this time, it was embarrassing. I don't know whether he was doing it intentionally or he didn't know.

"Go outside and play with Jacky." Mom sent the kids to play with the calf.

After some time, chachan and Mani uncle returned with two chickens. They seemed pretty happy.

Jijo uncle and appa took the calf to a veterinary doctor. They returned soon as the injury was minor.

The kids including Doodu and I loved playing with the calf. So chachan bought the calf and decided to leave him on the farm. He also decided to increase the size of the farm and reduce the number of chickens.

Mani uncle also joined us for dinner.

It was even more crowded. We kids sat in a circle on the floor.  Doodu was also with us. The adults sat at the dining table.

____________

Dear readers,

Thanks a lot for suggesting the book to your friends. I got many new readers and comments. So I decided to add another chapter.

Last week, on the way to Thrissur, I bought one lottery from a man. I don't have the habit of buying lottery. But I bought it because I felt bad for the seller.

I won 5000 rupees ($65).

It's not big. But it's enough for me to buy about 30 Biriyani. So I'm happy.

Today, one more arranged marriage proposal ended. I and the girl talked on the phone multiple times. But we couldn't get a 'connection'. She was a smart and fun girl.

[Just now, I got a call from my mom. We are starting another proposal.]

Anyway, please vote, comment and share the story with your friends.

Thanks a lot.