The UnderWorld

The problem I am going to discuss with you today, is far reaching than the misery of inflation, a problem that has captured the imagination of every house-hold in the world, a problem that consumes us more than the rising oil prices and a problem that could easily change the very face of earth and humanity all together. And this very grave problem that we all have encountered atleast once in a lifetime of worthlessness is – ‘A Cockroach’.

It’s been years since ‘The Great War of Roaches’ was fought in my house and it was during those perilous times that I learnt many valuable lessons about cockroaches which I am going to share with you today, free of cost and labor. During the early periods of Great War, I was given the responsibility of murdering those very unfriendly looking, hideous creatures while my mother tried to intoxicate them with some poisonous spray.

Recent studies and my deep analysis on this topic reveals that a cockroach could have been really cute had it not decided to part ways with its distant cousin – ‘The Mighty Crocodile’ who is rather very charming in his own special way as many of my friends (who later ended up in it’s not very friendly stomach) told me.

Cockroaches can now be found in every slimy corner of a house in all proportions of ugliness. But, though ugly, a cockroach is a very smart creature. Millions of years of perils have taught them the espionage techniques against the human race. Very minutely, I noticed that a cockroach has the unusual habit to turn upside down as soon as you try to kill it. It will always try and seduce you with it’s 8-pack oozy stomach and fine-polished tentacles. The virtue of patience was also learnt during those times. Cockroaches, which are very much into modern arts of yoga and meditation can pretend to be dead for hours. When finally you throw them out, they would simply turn over, show you a middle finger and find a way back into your closet.

The Great War was lost but a recent James Bond flick inspired me to launch my own offensive. I decided to spy on the formidable enemy myself. I used my charm to befriend a very sweet and good-looking female roach – Tim-Tim who, as it turned out was also former ‘Miss Roachistaan’. Over an exotic dinner of stale bread and rotten tomatoes she told me an ancient secret well kept by their ancestors for over a million of years which, though under oath from Tim-Tim, I am going to share with you now.

The forbidden secret is that of a daily (read deadly if your specific parts don’t work in right order) fest known as the ‘The Great Carnival of Fornification’. This great Carnival is the ‘milan’ of underground civilizations where giant societies of cockroaches, rats and various pests assemble for a common cause – ‘Family Planning’. “Hum Do Hamare Emm… Who Cares” seems to be the spiritual motto as it is during these times of joy and drunkenness that male and female roaches ‘socialize’ to do something which can be closely related to an activity we don’t tell our children when they ask us how they were born. They even got the name for this sacred sport – ‘The Holympic Marathon of Reproduction’ where scores of rats and roaches compete everyday to find who has actually ‘got it’.

A cockroach, among its various other ‘virtues’, also has a very sweet voice. Together with frogs they have this habit of giving background music during very romantic conversations happening in beautiful gardens, as a very pretty girl once told me during such a conversation. Indeed, I meditated, a roach has the capability of producing sounds stranger than Himesh Reshamiya and if you listened very closely you could even hear extracts of Anu Malik in it.

Though many above the surface are not aware, cockroaches played a bigger role in our freedom movement than we choose to remember today. When hordes and hordes of European cockroaches were marching inland, our own breed of ‘Gandhi-following-roaches’ launched a country-wide Satyagraha against them. These moderate peace-loving roaches would often march in thousands towards British houses and would often scare the hell out of oh-so-sophisticated British house-maids and later happily sacrificed their own life. More on the extremists side roaches fought with the elite British roaches. It is rumored that some roaches even participated in the round table conference in London. Detailed proofs of Panditji himself honoring these brave cockroaches could be found at the ‘Rust-Library’ of ‘Roachistaan’.

I have come to love and respect Cockroaches and when lonely, I often wished Tim-Tim was unmarried and though polyandry is not an issue for them, I was in no mood to upset General Jham Jham. I also considered the fact that inter-species romance could sometimes be, well, very hybrid.

My report on cockroaches was well received by both my family and the roaches and the long awaited peace treaty was signed with the General (with Tim-Tim very glad in the background). I was even offered the Kut-Kut-Nobel peace prize which I very humbly accepted. A huge extravaganza was held in my honor in the city of ‘Roachistaan’. My mother, on her part accepted not to use the environment unfriendly and cockroachically hazardous spray and in turn the roaches agreed to be found in the kitchen whenever ‘unwanted relatives’ decided to show up for dinner.

Sara came to my house today. We were there, sitting in my bedroom when she suddenly shrieked, held my hand and jumped all over me. She kept hugging me and shrieking, hugging and shrieking. But then, who cared for the latter. From the corner of the room Tim-Tim winked at me and I gave her a thumbs-up. It was our own little agreement. Life is very good sometimes.