The Jalsa and Jilpa Snack edition

I promise. This will be the last one.

Ali was a spoiled child. His father, the town’s blacksmith, was worried. He was not a rich man and could not leave his son any meaningful inheritance that could afford the sort of charmed life that children of nobility often led. The kid had to learn to be responsible and earn his keep. That’s it, the blacksmith thought. Ali needs a daily regimen to straighten him out. But it had to be gradual. The kid was likely to protest if the change was drastic.

He decided that the household cat would make a good, easy start. Nothing too hard. He called Ali to his forge and told him that he had a new responsibility, that of waking up early and petting Rustum, the large Persian cat that had this abominable habit of climbing onto the master’s bed early in the morning every day and waking the blacksmith up just so he could get his early morning’s quota of petting. Rustum’s needs were now Ali’s responsbility, he was told.

Ali was hesitant but the task did not seem onerous enough to protest against. He reluctantly agreed. A week passed. The blacksmith felt that it was time to add to Ali’s daily schedule. Preparing rice, he felt, would make a suitable addition to Ali’s morning routine. The boy was summoned and informed, and with some reluctance again, he accepted. He had to wash the rice and boil it every morning after he was done petting Rustom.

Soon enough, the crafty father managed to make Ali also pick tea leaves, crush them and make the morning tea manually, and also weld the apprentice’ iron vise before he started the day’s work.

The blacksmith was happy. The regimen was working. Ali to pet early, do rice, make some manual tea, weld Iron vise

It was a cold winter day in Calais. The year was 1942 and the row-men in town were seething with discontent. Their boats were lying in disuse, waiting in the harbour, reeking of stale fish and memories. Business was slow, the winter was harsh and with families to feed, desperation was rife and often manifested itself as violence on the streets.

A delegation of Druids was in town, and as was their wont, they would climb every tree in town and gather leaves and herbs to prepare concoctions for every known malady. Babies with fevers, workmen with alcoholism and old men with hearing problems would come by to drink potions and go back healed. The locals called these long bearded, white-robed men the “tree men”. Legend had it that they could “hear” the inner machinery of people and concoct specific magic potions to cure illnesses, much like expert mechanics use their ears to listen for problems with cars and other contraptions.

The row-men union decided to do something about their woes and asked the Druids for help. “Give us a potion that will attract fish to our boats”, they said. “We wont do that”, said the Druids. “We can fix your health problems, but we will not tamper with nature”. The row-men pleaded with them, but to no avail. Soon enough, tempers frayed and one of the more unstable row-men took matters into his hands and screamed - “If we cant ply our trade, we wont let you ply yours”, and shot the Druid leader with his blunderbuss and then proceeded to hack his ear with his fish knife. “Now lets see you hear our problems”, he grinned maniacally. Soon enough, gunshots rang through the Druid camp and auditory apparatuses were being hacked and harvested like ears of corn.

While the union leaders looked on in shock, the man who instigated this took centre stage.

“We will change our trade. We will now be lenders. Druids are precious, but their ears are the real crown jewels”, he announced.

Soon the word got out: French row-men gun tree men, lend mere ears