The Adventures of Duggal Sahab

The Mr. Duggal or ‘Duggal Sahab’ of the ‘Kshatriya’ colony is the oldest person alive in the neighborhood. He used to work in the local post office in his youth. The children of the neighboring SDM colony were fascinated by his stories. He would tell them all sorts of extravagant stories about a headless ghost, scary pirates, lazy soldier, and a one-eyed dog. The children would come to sit on his porch every evening and on Sundays to listen to his stories. They believed them to be true. Duggal Sahab has a natural flair for telling stories and creating a scene. Children would be so engrossed in his stories that sometimes they would lose track of time and would only go home when their mothers would come searching for them. Duggal Sahab was a magician of words, a master story-teller, a craftsman of tales but more than that he was ‘Moody’. Nobody, in the three colonies, knew the reason for his behavior but they all knew that he was moody. Duggal Sahab would be religious one day; the other day he would be a communist and yet another day he would be a nationalist. His moods and ideology changed with the moon, was the guess of an infamous astrologer of the town. Once, Duggal Sahab became a literary critic and I am quite sure that if Premchand, RK Narayan, or Rabindranath had been alive and heard Duggal Sahab criticizing their works they would, surely, have chosen a different line of work. 

It was evening and the sun was setting down. Duggal Sahab was sitting on a chair on his porch. A band of enthusiastic children came and sat on the stairs near him. As usual, the children expected to hear some interesting stories from their favorite story-teller. 

‘Tell us the story about the one-eyed dog.’ said Mangal Sr. in excitement.

‘No. Don’t tell us Ghost stories. They scare me.’ said little Aditi in fear. ‘Tell me a jungle story.’

‘ I know a story from The Jungle Book.’ shouted Shubham in excitement. ‘ I know its author too. It’s by Ruyard Kilping.’

‘Ruyard Kilping?’ frowned Duggal Sahab. ‘You mean Rudyard Kipling. You mean that fraud- Rudyard Kipling.’ Duggal Sahab's face was red in anger.

‘But I like Mowgli and Bagheera.’ said Myna timidly. She was small but she could sense that Duggal Sahab would not like what she has to say.

‘I like Sher Khan. The mighty Sher Khan.’ announced Mangal and he roared towards little Aditi and scared her. He then laughed at his mischief.

‘Duggal Uncle.’ cried little Aditi in complaint.

‘ If you don’t sit down right now, I will beat the Sher Khan out of you.’ said Duggal Sahab angrily. ‘ I don’t understand these kids and their liking for Mowgli. Rudyard Kipling is a fraud; I am telling you he is.’

‘ Why?’ asked Mangal authoritatively. He wanted to know why Duggal Sahab was so critical of The Jungle Book. It was, after all, his favorite book.

Why? you ask me. Everything is wrong in that Godforsaken book. You tell me, what tiger’s name is Sher Khan? And he named a panther- Bagheera. Baagh is a tiger; Sher means lion. Even kids know that. He must have been high when he was naming his characters. He was firangi, you see, and that’s why he did this. All firangis are fools.’ blasted Duggal Sahab in almost one breath. He paused for a while to catch his breath.

‘But our teacher told us that he was born in India.’ said Myna innocently. She wanted to make sense of what Mr. Duggal was saying but she couldn’t. 

Absolutely nonsense.’ cried Duggal Sahab. ‘For me, he is a firangi.’ he added. Duggal Sahab had a peculiar habit of twisting facts to his advantage. When he would run out of words or arguments he would simply announce For me…it is what I am saying and then there would be no point left in the debate further. You can give a thousand arguments but they wouldn’t really matter because for Duggal Sahab the truth is only what he believes in. Nobody dared raise his voice against Duggal Sahab because of his old age. The other person would simply sigh in despair and leave and Duggal Sahab would announce himself ‘The Winner’.  Myna wasn’t looking for a debate but Duggal Sahab felt that he was being questioned and he used his famous ‘For me’ argument.

‘Okay.’ said Myna. She didn’t want to offend Duggal Sahab.

Duggal Sahab continued, ‘ Rudyard Kipling must have been a communal man because this book is the most communal book I’ve ever come across. A firangi and a communal. God save the kids. The Government should ban this book immediately. I mean, can somebody explain to me why the villain is Sher Khan and not Sher Sharma or Sher Singh or even a Sher D’Souza. And why is a tiger, A Sher? This is an insult to the whole animal kingdom. Imagine how must have people felt reading this book in pre-Independence times. I think this man was the brains behind the infamous ‘Divide and Rule’ policy of the British. Nobody really thinks as to why this is one of the most famous books in the world and why so many movies are made about it, continuously, again and again. I know the reason. Because firangi people don’t want peace in India and that’s why they have popularized this book. This is all a conspiracy.’ Duggal Sahab adjusted his glasses on the nose and wrinkled his forehead. This was his gesture to indicate that he was going to tell something profound.

The kids were awestruck at the seriousness displayed by Duggal Sahab. Obviously, they didn’t understand a word of what he said but they all heard him attentively because they must have thought it was something important. Little Aditi wondered what’s is a firangi and a communal. Mangal knew the meaning of firangi but he was having a hard time remembering the word communal.  Myna didn’t even bother to think about these words. She was thinking about how bad this Rudyard Kipling is what injustice he did with the poor Sher Khan. 

Duggal Sahab said’ Men like Rudyard Kipling are the reason for India’s communal problem. The Jungle Book should be banned and the name of Rudyard Kipling should perish from the memories of the people.’ Duggal Sahab felt like a philosopher. His status had elevated from being a literary critic to a philosopher in his head. And why wouldn’t it, after all, he successfully explained what scholars from generations had struggled to explain. He even provided a solution to the problem. It was obvious that Duggal Sahab wouldn’t face any opposition from these little kids. On the other hand, the children were convinced that Rudyard Kipling must have been a really bad person. 

‘ I would crush his head if I find him.’ said Mangal angrily.

‘ He is dead.’ said Myna in a sad tone. She had every reason to be sad as his hero was, after all, a villain the whole time. She felt cheated.

‘ Good, otherwise I would have killed him myself.’ announced Mangal as he pumped his fist in the air. 

Some other children were quiet the whole time. They, too, were pumped now. One of them suggested that they should hurl slogans against the wicked man. The idea became popular instantly. All of them stood and started shouting,’ Rudyard Kipling murdabad’ (Damnation to Rudyard Kipling)  with Mangal leading the procession. Liitle Aditi was just behind Mangal and Myna was the third in this human train. Other children were behind them.  They all headed towards home shouting the slogan. Mangal thought that the lone slogan is not that effective so he combined it with Duggal Uncle zindabad. Now the slogan was ‘ Duggal Uncle zindabad, Rudyard Kipling murdabad’( Long live Duggal Uncle, Go down Rudyard Kipling). The sun was was almost set and the birds had returned to their nests. The silence of the night was being pierced by the slogans of these little children. Some came out of their house, others peeked out of their windows to see this grand procession.Some of them became nostalgic about their own childhood seeing them. The people of the colony were happy to see their children having such a good time. The children were elated in their own sense. The silent night suddenly burst into activity. The slogans died down eventually. The children returned to their homes. 

Two college students were observing the whole scene from the street. 

‘Who is Duggal Uncle, Is he someone important?’ one asked the other.

The other replied,’ Nah, not important. He is just the oldest person alive in the neighborhood.’