Living in a brand new Bungalow in Mundali

Even I am confused right now.......I do not know why I am writing this today.It has been nearly one year,since I wrote my last blog on 18th September,2011 . That day,an earthquake had stuck Sikkim.So, I am a little bit apprehensive.What if , it occurred again. More than 100 earthquakes of varying intensity have stuck India since January 2012.

But, human reasoning prevailed. I decided to rely upon Jai Jagannath and Eurasian tectonic plates to spare our country. But , one question is baffling me that why we are unable to predict  earthquakes.If fishes can do it, why not we homo sapiens. So, you must be confused now and  you can understand why I used "EVEN" in my first sentence. 

Nevertheless,Twitter was the immediate provocation for writing something today.One of my Bihari friend, Sudhir ignited the strings on smaller part of my brain to write a blog on anything. Once I decided to press the buttons on my keypad, next big question was to decide the topic.

How do you decide to write on any  topic. This is a very tricky question, my studious mind is ready to write on a topic when it is directed by Question Paper in an examination hall. I am very thankful to those essay question paper during my school days where I was supposed to vomit my predetermined thoughts on answer sheet." Cow is a four-legged animal.It has one mouth and two horns.It gives milk which we drink." These words were embedded in my heart and writing essay on any animal was a cakewalk for me.Just change the utility factor and describe animal anatomy.Forget my childhood essays which I wrote 20 years back, even in my IPSLCE essay  paper conducted by UPSC , few months back I just rephrased those sentiments and still did well. So, like script of Hindi movies where there are only two themes..either romance or crime..essays are always written on four-legged script.

But coming to choosing the topic,first I decided that unlike my earlier blogs I will write short stories.Ideally, the story must be completed in one blog. But again ,I am not sure whether I can stick to this principle because, You have read few hundred words but still do not know the contents barring the title. 

I decided to write on simple facts of life unlike great story-tellers who focus upon philosophy or greater things. I decided to avoid writing a travelogue because nowadays every Tom,Dick and Harry travels widely and some of them write also. 

I decided to choose a simple, in fact simplest topic,my present home in Mundali , where I spend nearly 16 hours a day. I am living in my single-storied bungalow since nearly 90 days. It means, I have spent nearly 1440 hrs., I do not wish to confuse you regarding  minutes and seconds.If you are eager, use calculator on your desktop and count it.

So, my home in Mundali is the chosen one for this session.

If you type Mundali in Google, you many not get many responses. Just 02 or 03 links for Mundali, Odisha. This place is also not related to hindi word "Mundi" which means the head skull. Three years, back when I was posted to this place, I was  mesmerized by the word  and then Google Baba also didn't knew about this place. Neither any maps showed it. But I can assure you emphatically that this place exists near heartland of Odisha, the beautiful city of Bhubaneshwar.

Earlier, I used to stay in a private house in Cuttack town, but 03 months back CPWD transferred the government quarters to us, 04 years after the construction work was completed. 

No irony in this fact, because the delay happened due to inefficiency of an idiot clerk sitting 2000 Kms. away from this place. He had no idea, whether Mundali existed in India or not. How dare CPWD constructed 300 quarters in a place , he had never heard of. This is the disadvantage of residing in a large country, official sitting in  New Delhi can not imagine that Sun sets at 1600 hrs in Arunachal Pradesh. This is the primary reason , why mainstream India does not understand the aspirations of masses in remote corners of the country.

So, when I was allotted an independent Bungalow for the first time in my life. I was visibly excited and decided to occupy the building even before all civil work was completed. My home is located in the foothills of a hillock, just at the plateau like structure in between hills and plains.

 Large swaths of barren land and Mahandi provides the ideal background for my kitchen garden. Yes, within a short span of time I have developed it. Ladies finger and papaya as well as pumpkin  is grown here. I believe in organic farming , so no fertilizers for me. I am waiting eagerly for fruits of my labour as only Ladies finger plant is producing vegetables right now , papaya and pumpkins are incubating themselves for bigger results.

The area of my campus is nearly 100 acres  and we are trying to greenify it by planting trees of various fruits,flowers and decorative plants. Neem is the the most dominant plant here , even though this particular area is starved of water except in rainy months. Wild Neems are found in abundance. My neighbours here include some monkeys, Gorilla-sized apes ,snakes of lighter colours,frogs of various sizes(some of them are also certified high jumpers), insects of various denomination,dogs,cows,few foxes,etc. besides human beings. 

I normally  believe in co-existence of all species found on earth. But one fine morning, I was amazed to find 04 small frogs saying good morning to me in the exactly middle part of my house. I was perplexed that how they invaded my house and how on the earth they entered the fortified environs of my house without permission. My doors and concrete walls  are sturdy and they can withstand the attacks by an army of frogs. 

So, I asked the fattest among them about the reasons for  breaching the security of my house. The fat fellow didn't answered and directed his 03 staff members to create nuisance for me by jumping here and there. This silly action enraged me. 

Why these buggers are not listening to my command and jumping like naughty children. So, I decided to throw them out. But, how to select which one to evict first, when 04 of them were jumping in 04 directions and giving me threatening glances after every 02 or 03 jumps. I took out a broom and decided to evict the nearest one. But, suddenly I remembered the wise words told by my grand mother."Do not kill a frog or else you will get severe pain in your ear."  I do not know the reason behind this saying,but I am sure it must be based upon something scientific in nature.So, the question of killing them was not an option but it was very awkward and disgusting to see frogs sitting cozily in my Adidas shoe. The naughtiest one among the frogs exactly did that and was thrown out first. One by one all of them were thrown towards my kitchen garden and they disappeared in the woods. This whole eviction drive nearly took  20 minutes because these smart frogs knew the art of hide and seek. They found difficult corners of my house like in the back side of my Refrigerator, under my dining table,etc. and teased me constantly.

So, after evicting them I felt a rush of blood going directly to my head. It was the winning moment. Happily, I  sat on my  large sofa  and enjoyed a cup of  freshly-prepared hot and spicy tea.

But, my joy of evicting frogs that morning didn't last for long. Those 04 frogs were actually spies who studied the contours of my house and reported it to their elders in other corners of hillock. So, now it has become a regular feature, they enter my house in their leisure time, spend some quality time on my shining floors , enjoy the aroma of delicious dishes  being prepared in my kitchen and then go away in woods. Sometimes, I tell them to go or sometimes they move away on their own after watching TV with me in my living room.

Now, it does not bother me, because I have realized that basically frogs are the native people of Mundali. I have encroached upon their territory and so they frequently visit their area of dominance to make me realize that I am the outsider.Whenever , it rains they sing a chorus song and entertain me. Whenever I am walking in my front lawn , they observe my movement minutely. May be, their scientists are studying us humans like we do to Chimpanzee and other animals of earth.Last Monday while I was watching Men's Final of US Open around midnight, I noticed one flying frog near my TV.  That fellow was also an avid Tennis fan.He understood the serve and volley game of Andy Murray. He seemed very happy as if Andy Murray was his dear friend . I was sad to see Novak Djokovic losing and this frog fellow was smiling. I simply ignored him and concentrated on the match.

Earlier, I was adamant to complete this blog here only but now I am thinking about extending the narrative. If frogs are so good then why discriminate snakes and other larger species.So, I will try to complete the story in next episode.As it is getting  late  and I am afraid that frogs may decide to read my blog, so  I will post it on the net.

Let's see how the story pans out  next week or may be sooner. It all depends on you my reader. 

Till the time I decide to write again........Wishing you a happy weekend ahead

Happy reading...............