VAT 69

Centuries ago, strange events occured in abundance simply because there was no one to report them. They laid the foundations for many anomalies we observe today.

So when a wise sage informed Rameshwar and Revati that extraordinary things would happen in their family once they give birth to a pair of twins, Revati believed him and resolved to name them Karan -Arjun. She had fed on Mahabharata stories since she was five and was a big fan of these two sons of Kunti. However, the twins were born under very ordinary placement of planets in their horoscope, which foretold no special qualities in them. A disappointed Revati named them Nakul and Sahadev.

But the wise sage wasn’t wrong about the extraordinary part. Immediately after the twins were born, dreams of twenty-first century started haunting Rameshwar in his sleep every Saturday night. In his dreams, he would always be in Betty’s room invisible to the inmates of her room. Betty was a regular American girl and a cheerleader. Rameshwar would watch her TV when no one was around, else he would simply be the invisible voyeur until his dream broke to the cries of their pet cock.

Rameshwar kept his dreams to himself but he did claim of having visions of the future. He figured out that in times to come, Indians would be ruled by foreign invaders since they would be busy dividing themselves into castes and regions. He taught the English Language to Nakul and Sahadev, hoping that his descendants would be in a strong position to get clerical jobs when times come. To his dissatisfaction, Sahadev was growing up into a cynical sadist while Nakul was becoming a romantic wannabe.

I shall burden you with just one more character: he, who must not be named so soon in the story. He lived near Rameshwar’s house and was a compulsive peeping-tom. Although a thoroughly straight guy, he enjoyed watching Rameshwar bathe every Sunday morning. Rameshwar had guarded his secret well, but like all other mortals, he needed an outlet. In his nearly open bathroom, he would practice the way Betty’s boyfriends would impress her, he repeated their dialogues. And even though Rameshwar had a good grasp of Sa-Re-Ga-Ma and the ragas and a great deal of respect for the Shastriya Sangeet, he couldn’t help humming PussyCat Dolls numbers when alone, presumably of course, in his bathroom. The peeping-tom memorized most of the acts, even though he couldn’t understand the words.

Years later, Rameshwar confided in the wise sage and on his advice went on a pilgrimage to Himalayas. Nature has its way of balancing.Immediately after he left the village, Betty evaporated from her cheerleading act for her college football team (which led to a minor injuries to the girl she was going to catch) and got transmitted in Rameshwar’s village, centuries behind.

Understandably, she was quite confused in the beginning but figured out that she is in India. What she failed to notice was that she had also time-traveled since everything around looked exactly the same the way they show India to be on TV: poor people living in huts, excreting in open fields and no signs of development, scientific or otherwise. She tried communicating with some but couldn’t overcome the language barrier. No one understood the signs of a telephone or a plane; but they all agreed amongst themselves that she looked stunning in the tiny red skirt.
Wandering along in such sorry state, she saw the twins, Nakul and Sahadev coming her way. All Indians looked the same to her, but these two were simply indistinguishable. They too were checking out this beautiful white creature.

“Piss off, you jerks”, Betty stil hadn't got used to being stared at.

“EXCUSE ME…” Sahadev talked in English for the first time outside his family.The twins were pleasantly surprised to know that their Dad wasn’t fooling around with them for all these years. English really was a language spoken by humans. Betty figured that these two must be working in one of those call-centers and was relieved to no end.

“Hey Guys,where can I get a phone and a bus or anything to get to the airport. I am stuck here since days” Betty got to the point without much fuss.

“I am sorry ma’am. Never heard about these things. Why don’t you come and stay with us?” Nakul cooed. He saw this whole episode as providence’s way of gifting him this lovely bird.

“Are you nuts? Stay here in this shit? No phones!! No electricity!!Haven’t you guys ever done anything worth speaking of?”

“We Indians invented Zero.” Nakul came back.

“I am sure you did. How could you not? Just take a look around”, Betty said. Beneath the red top, she had a heart capable of sarcasm. Nakul let his eyes wander and noticed that there indeed was quite a bit of whole lot of nothing around them. He got her point.

“We invented Yoga too” Nakul wasn’t going to give up so easily.

“Oh! Would you please teach me that before I leave? I need to get in shape” Betty moved her hands around the fatty parts of her body.

“Yoga is supposed to awaken the Kundalini. Is that how Yoga is sold in your part of the world: A butt shrinking exercise?” Sahadev was not too keen about her. Betty let her hands hang on her sides.

“Is there no way I can go back home?” Betty showed first sign of sadness.

“Throw a penguin in the desert” Sahadev replied with conviction.

“How is that going to help?” Betty regretted asking that, that very moment.

“In the same way that the sacrifice of two buffaloes last year finally led to good rainfall” Nakul tried to explain. Betty had a blank look on her face.

“You see, the logic is simple. God is kind and powerful, but he remains busy as hell while trying to serve billions of prayers. So he prioritizes based on the severity of the requests. When the villagers prayed for water, they still had wells to drink from and food to eat, although not in abundance. God had more important things to do meanwhile. What does a child do if mother doesn't listen ? He cries. The villagers cries however wasn't audible to God because they were not heart wrenching enough.

So the villagers cut the head of the two buffaloes and in their dying moments the buffaloes yelled out to God in an agony only dying ones can. God left creating new species which could survive on mud and rushed to the buffaloes which by that time were dead.

'Who on earth did this?' was the next logical thought in his mind and the answer was we, the villagers. Having captured his attention, we were already standing there with hands folded and being the good-natured almighty, he gave us the rain and took the buffaloes to heaven. Some said the rain smelled of Buffaloes’ pee but you got to take it anyway.” Sahadev finished his theory with a convoluted nose.

“Can’t she simply sacrifice a goat instead of finding a Penguin and the desert?” Nakul wanted an easy life for Betty.

“In case there are many Gods, the God in charge of displaced beings would be the first to rush for the Penguin and there our Betty’s plea will directly get serviced without much bureaucracy” Sahadev always had solid reasons to back his words.

Betty wasn’t even listening by this time. Someone doing a hip-hop dance caught her attention. It was he, who shall be named shortly. She walked towards him ignoring the twins.

‘I got real big brains, but yaa lookin at maa...” sang he with a pelvic thrust. Years of peeping at Rameshwar was finally paying off as Betty started grooving with him. He followed that with a few more moves that Betty’s boyfriends used to impress her. She was bowled over by his charm and chose to stay with him forever.

There was never much verbal communication between them. Their bodies talked to each other passionately. She taught him different ways of making love. The sexual positions he learnt from her were too many in variety and number than what he had observed while peeping around in the village. He finally decided to write a book on those artistic positions. She used to call him Vat; it was difficult for her to pronounce his full name, Vatsyayana.