The Big Bang

His first memory was of a deafening vibration followed by a leap through empty space. The little crazy-shaped splinter of wood found himself in a peculiar predicament. His life till then consisted of one loud explosion, one short albeit glorious spell of soaring through some emptiness and finally an abrupt thud.

*

0301A56 was an ordinary ant. Like most of the colony, a common worker, a female sterile ant. She often wondered why she had to do all the work and the Queen had nothing to do but hatch eggs, and flirt with the fertile male drones. Ah the drones, she was often drawn to their spectacular mandibles and sexy long antennae. Alas, being sterile was a horribly wrong move on her part.

But the last few days 0301A56 had been a worried ant too. She had been given the responsibility of rebuilding the north-east wing of the colony. The Queen narrowly escaped the last collapse and 0300A09, the previous engineer of the said segment was torn into roughly eight or nine pieces by the vicious soldier-ants in the aftermath of the disaster.

*

He had been a watchman for as far as Kishore’s memory would take him in the past. But as time went by it was apparent that old Kishore had stopped guarding the house, instead 23, SL Lane began to look after the old man.

No one had lived at the address for almost two decades now, and the loneliness had taken its toll. The spiders had spread their empire without a single battle being fought, the sun shamelessly peeped in through the walls, pointing a million fanatical fingers at all the ruin, and the garden having had enough of sitting out in the sun all by itself decided a few years ago to saunter into the house, to where all the action was.

*

In the meantime our wooden friend lay all by himself, his confusion growing exponentially. Where was he? What was his purpose in life? What strange invisible force came in silent weightless waves and sent him spinning through space every now and again? What was that space? Was he alone? Was he threatened? Should he be afraid? What was that unidentified black object that rudely interrupted his thoughts the other day, and, without seeking permission, took him around one quick as hell circle before leaving him exactly where he was? What was the sticky slimy alien thing that evil being had left him coated in? Was the truth really out there?

The poor thing pulled himself together and travelled back to his very first memory, the explosion. He decided to call it the ‘Big Bang.’ For a while he gloated over the creativity of the name and convinced himself that nothing existed or could have existed before the Big Bang. But then giving such undue importance to himself and the stupid blast didn’t really answer any of his questions. Plus he had ethical concerns regarding this arrogant line of thought, also if he was that important surely he should have been bigger and better looking. By and by good sense came to him and he realised that only he didn’t exist before the big bang. And then really straining his wooden brain, he tried to go back to a time before that darn explosion.


A Chair. Loud Noise. Two separate loud noises. One sweeter than the other. Both equally angry. FIGHTING!! Throwing around of random objects. CRASH!! Chair being lifted. Threats. Horrendously Abusive Language. Window. Chair outside Window. Chair falls, meets with disaster. Loud Bang. End of Chair. Birth of our tiny friend.

*

0301A56 had run out of ideas. For a week now she would leave her chamber at the crack of dawn. She would walk in a different direction everyday and draw ever growing concentric circles in search of premium construction material till the day ended. It wasn’t as if 0301A56 was arrogant or had no friends to request for help; our dear friend was simply what you’d call an individual. She hated working in a team. Many were surprised when the Queen sent for her for the reconstruction work, and now many were looking forward to 0301A56 being torn into eight or nine bits.

The soldier ants had been keeping a close watch over our poor friend; with their muscular trap jaws they would guffaw every time they saw her, then they’d whisper amongst themselves and outline quick menacing circles.

In her sleep 0301A56 would see eight or nine soldier ants walking towards her, their malicious mandibles looking particularly big and in the background sexy male drones were dancing romantically around the Queen in tiny intimate circles. And suddenly the sturdiest building material appeared from nowhere and formed a giant halo behind 0301A56 node like head. And the male drones ditched the foolish gluttonous Queen for 0301A56.

The Queen was going to inspect her work that morning and because the reconstruction had been remarkable in its similarity to the previous structure, 0301A56 knew that the day was going to be the last one of her life.

*

You could say that it was difficult to tell one day of Kishore’s life from another. But if you looked closely, the cot he spent his entire time on had a mind of its own. In the summers during the day it retreated to the porch to shelter Kishore from the violent heat and stayed there till the sun drowned somewhere beyond the horizon. At night the old man was transported out under the starry sky and amidst the cool evening breeze. In the winters, the day was spent with the cot adjusting its perspective to catch the sun’s attention and by early evening both Kishore and his crib were huddled up in the warmest corner of 23, SL Lane.

Kishore himself led a life so bereft of responsibilities and purpose that every little event was a momentous episode in his head. And he lived for those trivialities.

So you could see him hop enthusiastically to the gate to celebrate every new postman that was appointed to SL Lane. Kishore would, as per his own tradition take the rookie through the lane and following established protocol sketch out an exhaustive history of each house and make all the necessary introductions. Of course after a few visits the postman would become better friends with the younger guards and drivers and ignore poor Kishore.

In the evenings he looked forward to the chance arrival of a stray cricket ball into his garden. And before the first kid ran in he would quickly hide the ball in the folds of his dhoti. Then pointing his frail arm casually he would mislead the kid till he was forced to call all his friends. The kids would search in vain, but before long the exploration would turn into a game of hide-n-seek that would, for a little while, bring back life to the lonely house and a wrinkled smile on Kishore’s old face. Later he would slip the ball three feet from his cot. Of course these days, more often than not, the kids played with spare balls or didn’t play at all.

Sometimes, Kishore would just decide to play dead. By the afternoon someone would notice and in a few hours a crowd would collect. At which point the old man would get up slowly, cough a few sentences before turning around to sleep again. However the last few times he did this nobody took notice, but Kishore was convinced it was only because he had gotten up once or twice to drink water and someone must have surely caught all the movement.

*

“It was a good deal”, said the broker from the front seat without looking back.

The young couple smiled at each other and held hands once again.

Their father said of the priest sitting beside the broker, “Swami Ji, aaj Bhoomi Poojan ke liye short notice pe ready ho gaye. It’s a good omen, son!”

Swami Ji didn’t seem to care.

The couple winked at each other and continued to hold hands even though their palms were now sweaty.

“What about the old chowkidaar? What do we do with him?”

The broker turned back and with a wry smile, “You could keep him or fire him, it’s your house now!”

The father continued, “I guess we will do away with him, it’s a large house, and we will need private security.”

The couple nodded.

The car slowed down as it entered SL Lane and after making a few enquiries appeared before House No. 23. The couple, their father and the broker all jumped out to look at the building.

“It’s Beautiful!” “Two months and as good as new, Sir!!” “Congratulations children!”

Swami Ji had already started the prayers from inside the car and after disinfecting himself with some holy water he stepped out.

“Aaaaah!”

The priest let out a violent cry; something had bit or cut his bare feet. The others rushed to him, but by then Swami Ji was pouring holy water over his feet and singing violent mantras to dispel the evil spirit that had caused this bad omen.

“It’s a definite message, you are lucky you haven’t paid the money. I have had a vision, this house is haunted. Never return.”

The couple looked at each other and then hugged. The father, a bit embarrassed of their American ways huddled them into the car and all of them left immediately.

“Don’t worry, Sir, many good houses! Here you would have to stay in hotel for two full months, maybe more. Rest you can move immediately in.”

*

Our wooden friend had barely solved the puzzle of the big bang when the unidentified black object returned. This time he was not taken for a full circle, instead he was left to dangle precariously in mid air, supported by nothing more than the stickiness of the smelly coat he was covered in. But before the tiny splinter could collect himself he fell and landed on his feet before his violent adversary. He was just beginning to clear his throat to make a speech about peace when Swami Ji’s feet landed on him. Of course our crazy-shaped friend didn’t know this; a moment later he was pulled out, this time covered in some warm liquid, and hurled into space. And in this way our splintered friend made the second glorious journey of his life.

*

0310A56 thought it would be a good idea to see the outside world one last time before her death. So she climbed out of the main entrance of her subterranean colony. The plan was to take one final walk to the top of the ant hill where 0310A56 would reflect upon her short life. But even as her antennae dangled in freedom for one last time, she caught the attention of a handful of soldier-ants. She wanted to tell them that escape was not on her mind, but then she thought being torn into eight or nine pieces would be equally horrible now or fifteen minutes later. So she just stood at the foot of the ant hill as the soldier-ants marched towards her. A row of deadly mandibles, just like from her dream except for the halo or the sexy drones.


But then suddenly from nowhere, a giant scrap of wood crashed onto the evil row of ants. So splendid was 0310A56’s luck that the bit of wood fractured the backs and broke the jaws of all those soldier ants simultaneously. And as if this was not enough the scrap of wood was perfect construction material for the north-east wing. 0310A56 shouted out to the other worker ants.

*

After his second journey too came to an abrupt end, our wooden friend decided he had had enough action for a day. But like his entire life, things were not going according to plan. Suddenly he found that he was being nibbled upon by hundreds of tiny teeth. Within seconds our friend was shining like a flag post. Then before he knew it, he was hauled up like a king and was taken on a ride sitting on a cosy bed that moved like a tiny wave. For the first time in his life the poor guy was having fun and was not being torn apart by existential questions. Very soon he disappeared into the hole at the bottom of the anthill.

Inside he couldn’t say for sure but he was being treated with a lot of respect and some very important but fat sort of thing came up to him as if to inspect his body. Then our wooden friend was taken deeper into the colony and laid to rest in an upright position between two floors. Of course he was not aware of his structural contribution to the ant nest but our friend having traced his ancestry back to a piece of furniture found that he was now, finally, at peace with himself and his life.

*

After supporting the north-east wing with the wood, 0310A56 was welcomed to loud cheers and warm applause by the colony. Then the Queen dragged her fat bum and felicitated 0310A56, presenting her a certificate. 0310A56 wondered why this was not done atop the anthill so that everyone could see; but then her eyes caught the jealous antennae of the soldier ants and she just thanked the gods for having saved her life. After the ceremony the Queen left, ant 0310A56’s friends returned to her, and a lot of hugging and dangling of antennae followed. Amidst all this 0310A56 even got to flirt with a few of the drones, who she realised were the classic and tragic combination of beauty with no brains. Plus the poor things lived only a few weeks. Suddenly their antennae seemed a lot less long and sexy.

*

From the corner of his eye Kishore had seen the car come to a halt before the house. At first he thought they were just looking for parking space, but when he saw three people look at 23, SL Lane Kishore couldn’t contain his excitement. He rearranged his dhoti and cursed himself for not having shaved since last week. Then stick in one hand he began to hop towards the gate, his smile getting wider with each half step.

When the car turned around to leave, Kishore had just about reached the gate. And even before he could say anything the car sped away leaving behind a cloud of dust. Kishore looked sadly on; he wondered why the people had come. Then he turned around, it was a summer evening and the cot needed to be pulled out into the open.