HANUMAN AND THE MONKEY BRIGADE

Goonetilleke Ekanayake

The missile hurtled through the air and smashed onto its target before exploding into smithereens. Tamil Chelvam instantly sprang into action. With his back turned towards his master he hurriedly swept fragments of the pulverized undu wadai off the carpet and emptied them into a bin kept especially for the purpose. Chelvam then wiped the smears off the six - foot TV screen before beating a retreat to his favourite recliner.

As of late Hanuman the SUN GOD'S temper tantrums have taken a turn for the worse. Never a day passes by without the mighty simian ruler taking several potshots of undu wadai at his TV screen. Just the other day one of the missiles veered off course and crashed into Chelvam's right eye requiring urgent medical attention. Since then, at tense moments such as these the chatter monkey deliberately avoided looking directly at his master.

Chelvam was a worried monkey. His master's throwing hand, which had been responsible for the demise of many a Tamil intellectual and innocent Tamil civilian was now faltering. "He ought to go back to practicing with live grenades like in the past" pondered Chelvam. "If this woeful situation continues, SUN GOD will be no match for monitoring boys in their regular darts competitions ".

By sheer coincidence this was exactly what Hanuman himself was thinking of at this very moment in time. His last missile merely grazed the edge of the TV screen even though the aim was for the dead center. Of course, the reasons were quite obvious. In the past he delighted himself repeatedly watching video footages of the Tigers attacking the security forces or marauding gatherings of Sinhala Buddhists (Anuradhapura massacre happened to be his favourite). Sadly nowadays he was compelled to watch enemy Kafir jets pummeling his training camps which had taken him years to build and the boat yards so generously gifted by his benefactors from Norway. Sun god was a very nervous simian indeed. His life long dream, the Eelam he had envisaged and crafted with hard labour and almost religious devotion for over 30 years, his brainchild which would have made him the undisputed monarch of the jungles of Wanni appeared to be crumbling all around him.

The lions were gnawing off his tail bit by bit reducing it to a miserable stump, a sad fate indeed to a once illustrious appendage, which competed (in all forms of destruction), with the celebrated tail of his mythical ancestor of yore. Adding insult to injury, bristles that still remained on it had toughened with age and were constantly pricking his rear orifice causing him excruciating pain. That particular ring of flesh had acquired the colour of a ripe chilli. Hanuman avoided sitting on the stump and instead spent most of his time prostrating on a recliner.

"I shall never abandon my dream" Hanuman grit his teeth. Afterall, hadn't he bounced back from similar set backs many a time in the past? So long as he had the unstinted support of the monkey diaspora there would be no cause for worries. Hanuman gazed fondly at the blown up photographs of patriotic expatriate monkey siblings marching smartly behind the Eelam banner on Mahavir day. His heart sank with deep emotion as he watched the pictures of fallen comrades being garlanded by parents of the siblings. Hanuman managed to contain his feeling in the secure knowledge that in the near future, all these tiny tots will grow up, qualify themselves in Western education and return to Eelam to be loyal subjects of the kingdom of Eelam.

Hanuman remembered his loving wife and children. He craved to be with them right now. His life long struggle was purely for their benefit and he was determined to see his ambition fulfilled. Ends of his lips curved upwards in a faint smile of satisfaction at the thought of the heir apparent who was being groomed at Dublin, in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Brother and sister were both rubbing shoulders with future leaders of the world. It is imperative that a future king should be educated and well versed in western etiquette and ought to acquire friends among siblings of the worlds wealthy and the mighty.

Of course, he was aware of the adverse publicity mounted by Karuna Amman and his cohorts about his son's western education. They give credit only to Mahinda's son for enlisting in the lion navy. Little do they realise that his dear boy too is being trained in all aspects of guerilla warfare right in the heart of Dublin. The prince has expertly mastered the techniques with the help of the Nintendo play station gifted to him on a previous birthday. He also spends long hours practicing rifle shooting at various games parlours in Dublin. As a matter of fact, going by the information coming over the grapevine, the young prince is a master at close quarter manoeuvres with both male and female opponents.

Hanuman cast a dismal glance at the chatter monkey who was also prostrating (for entirely different reasons of course). Chelvam as usual, was engrossed in his favourite pastime, dreaming of the fabulous flesh spots of Bangkok and of the soft velvetysmooth skins of their inmates. Fond memories of past amorous trysts in those pleasure heavens evoked sweet rapturous sensations that permeated every single musclefibre, sinew and bone of his body. Desperate longing for more, instantly triggered the release of a massive dose of testosterone, which surged like a tsunami through his entire circulatory system.

Chelvam's under belly was thrown into wave after wave of violent muscular spasms. His buttocks hardened into lumps of steel while the thighs jammed together gripping the part of his anatomy that lay in between like the jaws of a vice. Chelvam grabbed his pillows tightly. The sound of his rapid breathing escalated to a crescendo mimicking the noise of a speeding steam locomotive. Suddenly, Hanuman cleared his throat causing Chelvam's dream world to collapse all around him, thus averting an imminent disaster.

Chelvam woke up with a start. "How can I bear this agony any more?" he thought after pulling himself together.For the next round of peace talks the venue has got to be Bangkok. He was adamant."Without this singular precondition being accepted by the Sinhalayas, the talks would be a nonstarter" he decided then and there.

"Those demigoddesses have most certainly rewritten Kama Sutra " his thoughts reverted back to Bangkok. A feeling of disdain passed through his mind as he thought of his own fighters, the battlehardened female cadres with their unappetising leathery hides. Of course, on occasions brute biological urge had taken the upper hand. Hanuman was well aware of the situation but chose to ignore it. Afterall, even the 'majors', 'colonels' and lesser officers of his monkey brigades have got to have some sort of amusement. That was one of the reasons why some of them still hung on instead of defecting to the cleared areas.

Suddenly the siren blared an ear splitting warning note and the red emergency light blazed. Hanuman stood frozen on his feet. Chelvam galvanised into action. His right hand stiffened against the forehead in a salute awaiting orders while the bowl of his left palm grabbed his unruly undercarriage. This last item of military drill had to be introduced recently as a reminder to all cadres on the choice of proper equipment in case of an emergency. Since of late cadres were using the unconventional weapons more often than the conventional ones. The situation was to be expected however, as more and more teenage females were being forcibly conscripted in order to augment the diminishing ranks of fighters who were constantly defecting to the lions.

A couple of tense moments passed before the siren ceased wailing and the lighting reversed to normal. The intercom crackled.

"It was a mistake my Lord" the voice originated from the surface. "Veeran here pressed the wrong button", the voice of Chelliah the trusted lieutenant of the innermost simian security brigade pleaded. The two leaders glared at each other in utter disbelief.

" Ennada, paiththiyan?" growled Hanuman in rage.

" What will it be this time master", inquired Chelvam of his chief.

" The right hand" replied SUN GOD.

" So it will be", agreed Chelvam

In less time than it would take to utter the words ' masala wadai', Veeran's right hand was gone. No cadre will be permitted to belittle the SUN GOD. Even minor mistakes could be fatal in the simian kingdom. Veeran was lucky. After all hadn't individuals with lesser offences such as casting their ballot faced the same sort of punishment?

The lift ground to a halt in front of SUN GOD and from it emerged Pottu Amman, the plotter monkey, followed by Ellen the ice woman and Penny Amma."Vannakam master Vanakkam sinna thambi" uttered both Pottu Amman and Penny, greeting Hanuman and the chatter monkey. The ice woman knelt down before greeting both of them and later, handed a document to Chelvam.

Eventually they all sat around Hanuman's recliner and chatted while munching katta kelengu and palmyra juggery along with broken undu wadai dipped in kochchi sambal. Penny hurried away to make tea. Chelvam fetched a tattered English-Tamil dictionary and began thumbing its pages with a forefinger lubricated with saliva. He was searching for the two most indispensable words in the monitor's vocabulary, ' both parties ' and ' third party ' but was disappointed by their absence in the document.

"What statement have you prepared about the Farah iii episode? Questioned Hanuman.
"Are we bringing 'the third party' story once again? Queried Pottu Amman speaking ahead of Ellen.
" That story won't fit because the sailors were in the custody of our own fighters, responded Ellen.
"How about ' both parties ' then?" suggested Chelvam.
"That too would not fit in because the Sinhala navy had none of the captured sailors with them".
" What is your suggestion then?" demanded SUN GOD.
"The monitors have come up with a good idea. If you make a statement to the effect that the rice was seized to feed the starving masses of Jaffna peninsula, we plan to support you with our own statement confirming the deaths of large numbers of civilians due to starvation".
" But using the word 'seize' implies piracy, doesn't it? Questioned Pottu Amman.
"In that case we could state that the consignment was ' salvaged ' to prevent it from perishing with the ship."
"But they entered into our territorial waters. Didn't they. How can it be considered an act of piracy?" Questioned Hanuman.
" The Americans will not buy that story. They keep on saying that we do not posses any rights to the territorial waters of ' Sri Lanka ' reminded Ellen.
"Will the international community believe your salvage story?"
"We could get Their Holiness Parippu Joseph, Sundara Nayagam and Chick Hora to corroborate our statement. They will immediately transmit the statement to their net work of spiritual monkeys around the globe. The splendid spiritual network has succeeded in fooling the international community into believing even more ludicrous fabrications in the past".

" Don't forget to transmit advance copies to Tamilnet, Hindu Satan Times, the Colombo peace brigade and the monkey diaspora' reminded Chelvam. Ellen replied in the affirmative as her heartbeat raced with the knowledge that the gift of a mansion similar to that of Solheim's was fast becoming a reality. Once a general consensus was reached on the text of the monitor's proposed statement the visitors departed, taking the chatter monkey with them.
Penny Amma stayed behind to ' clean up '.