STORYTIME TAPESTRY

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Deepak Morris??™s Weekly Column

? East Meets West

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Sept 8, 2005

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To continue with my vision of a world tapestry of love and understanding of cultural values throughout the world, every Thursday we will be graced by the artistic vision of Mr. Deepak Morris, a wonderful playwright and friend from Prune, India.? 

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His plays have been preformed in front of audiences in Toronto, Canada

My apology to Deepak, somehow or other the story got cut short so here is the true and complete version.

carol

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Dadu Master??™s Dilemma

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By: Deepak Morris

Copyright ?© Deepak Morris, 2004

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Dadu Master squinted in the evening sunlight as he carefully stepped out of the Sarpanch??™s¹ house. The Sarpanch had agreed to his plan. Now the execution of it was left to him. Dadu Master was a worried man.

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As he limped to his hut, he thought back on the forty years of teaching he had put into his little village of Valan, ever since he??™d returned after finishing his Master??™s Degree at the Poona University. The lucky ones never returned. Several of Dadu Master??™s own students had managed to escape to the cities, whence they sent back money every now and then to the ones they??™d left behind. They always included a, ???Dadu Masterla Namaskaar Sangha???² in their little notes home. They knew that Dadu Master would probably be the one reading out the note to their parents. There was genuine respect for him though. As the most learned man in the village, Dadu was often called upon to provide creative solutions to the little problems the villagers of Valan faced, and he had always managed to ideate something that put things on an even keel again. It was the solution-giving aspect that had earned him the sobriquet, ???Master???, although the villagers had a deep respect for learning too.

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Now there was a new problem that demanded the attention of the master solution-giver. Or rather, it was an old problem that needed a new solution.

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He absently acknowledged the ???Namaskaar Dadu Master??? that the villagers directed at him as they passed his favourite perch, the little mud platform he had himself built outside his little hut. Some came up and reverently touched his feet, but sensing that his mind was far away, withdrew after silently making the Namaste sign. It was only the women who were abroad at this hour, fetching what little water they could from the village well. The men were already indoors, no doubt adding with their beedis³ to the pungent smoke from the cow dung cakes smouldering to shoo the mosquitoes away.

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Dadu fumbled for a beedi as he ruminated. His one vice was tobacco and, not having a wife to nag him, it was now a lifelong habit. As he sucked the acrid smoke from the small cigarillo, he thought of the boldness of the plan he had formulated with the Sarpanch and considered the execution again. He knew what to do, of course. That was easy. But the ???how??™ of it worried him. No less a personage than the Prime Minister of India was going to be involved.

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The sun disappeared behind the hills and lights began to twinkle in the huts around him. The fluctuation of the voltage made the whole village look like some kind of decorative string of lights, burning alternately bright and dim at irregular intervals. But Dadu Master did not move. Thinking in the dark had always been his favourite mode of planning anyway. A smile flitted across his lips as he thought of how his mother would scream at him for sitting in the dark. ???Damodaaaar,??? she??™d trill in that dragged out tone mothers reserve for recalcitrant children, ???andhaarat basoon kai karthos????⁴ She was the only one who called him by his given name, an aberration in a world where mothers were usually the first to mangle a child??™s name and saddle it with a ???Gotya??? or ???Pankoo Baba??? for life.

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Several beedis later, Dadu Master decided it was time. Joints aching from the hours of cogitation, he shuffled into the hut and lit his kerosene lamp. He never used the electric lamp, with its spasmodic bursts of brilliance interspersed with bouts of dull red, when he wanted to read or write. He opened his pencil box, still in mint condition after fifteen years of schooling and forty years of teaching, and almost reverently took out his faithful Parker. He placed several sheets of his best writing paper on the desk, dragged his chair closer and sat, a look of grim determination on his face. He bent to the paper and, in the steady yellow glow of the softly hissing kerosene lamp, began to write.

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Several drafts later, after numerous false starts and bouts of staring, unblinking, at the wall, his missive was ready. He gazed at the white sheet lying stark against the dark brown of his old desk, and he read the words he had painstakingly printed in his cursive hand:

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From

Damodar Vaman Valankar,

At Post Valan,

Maharashtra.

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To,

The Honourable Prime Ministerji,

PMO,

New Delhi.? 

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Dear Prime Ministerji,

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Pranaam⁵

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I am the village teacher of Valan village, in Maharashtra. I am writing this on behalf of our Village Headman. He said that since India is shining, a letter written in English is bound to get immediate attention. He apologises for not writing himself since he does not know English.

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Honourable Prime Ministerji, the people of Valan are looking to me, and I look to you, to save us from a dire situation. We are simple people with simple problems, and so far, I have been able to help the village. I remember when Baburao Dorhe??™s wife came to me in a panic because there was no food in the house. Many of the other women were worried because their food was running out too. I was able to suggest a simple solution, which solved, not one, but two problems. Now, no one in the village goes without food, and the parrot population is under control at the same time.

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But this time, Honourable Prime Ministerji, we have a far greater problem. We do not have talcum powder.

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You see Sir-ji, every year, from January to June, our village has no water to irrigate the fields. So we cannot do any farming in that period. Since the men in the village were idle, the population began to grow at an alarming rate. I was able to find a solution to that. I taught the men to play carom and since then, every year from January to June, we play carom all day long. Some of our men are very good at it and I am sure they are of international quality in carom.

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But now we do not have talcum powder for the carom boards. We do not use Boric Acid powder, because children steal the powder to put on their faces. You see, Prime Ministerji, they want to look fair, like the fashion models they see on the television your party donated to our village. So talcum powder is safer.

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This year, during the election campaign, some supporters of the candidates took our talcum powder, used it liberally, emptied the cans and left. Now all we can do is use the empty cans to repair our huts.

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We are simple but proud people, Honourable Prime Ministerji, and we have always solved our problems ourselves, never troubling the rulers of the country with our little grievances. However, this time we do not have money to buy more talcum powder. I am sure you will agree that this is a major problem. Therefore, I humbly request you to send us talcum powder, otherwise the population of the village will start rising again.

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Please save our little village, Prime Ministerji.

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Satyameva Jayate⁶.

Jai Hind⁷,

Damodar Vaman Valankar

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Fifteen days later, a minor bureaucrat in Delhi read the letter, laughed and filed it away. In the village of Valan, 1300 kilometres away, Dadu Master sat on his little mud platform outside the hut, waiting for the Prime Minister of India to save his beloved village.

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END

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Explanatory Notes for Indian terms / phrases

1.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  Sarpanch: Marathi, Hindi: Village Head

2.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  Dadu Masterla Namaskaar Sangha: Marathi: Our regards to Dadu Master

3.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  Beedi: Indian cigarillo, tobacco wrapped in a tendu leaf

4.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  andhaarat basoon kai karthos?: Marathi: What are you doing in the dark?

5.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  Pranaam: Several Indian languages: Salutations

6.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  Satyameva Jayate: Sanskrit: The truth shall prevail

Jai Hind: Hindi,

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By: Deepak Morris

Copyright ?© Deepak Morris, 2004

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Deepak Morris

rhapword@yahoo.com

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Founder of Rhapsody Theatre, author, playwright,
actor and director Deepak Morris has been
associated with Theatre and Communication all
his life. A Master of Commerce from Pune
University, Master's Diploma holder in
Management from The Institute of Management
Development and Research (IMDR), Pune, and
Diploma holder in Computer Studies from the
National Computing Centre, UK, Deepak
combines a passion for theatre with professional management techniques
to deliver consistently well staged theatrical
performances. An accomplished actor himself,
Deepak has won numerous awards for acting and
debating, including the "Best Actor" award at
the International Year of the Youth Drama
Festival in Pune and the "Best Male Newcomer
Award" in 1997 in Dubai, U.A.E. Having acted
in numerous productions in India and Dubai,
Deepak began writing and directing his own
plays on a regular basis in March 2001. To
date, he has written several one-act plays
and skits and his group, Rhapsody Theatre,
has staged no less than 13 plays in three
years, a record of sorts.

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