Devils

Fiction

“Jet Airways acknowledges the valuable support we received from passengers like you for over 25 years. We regret to inform you that this is our last flight as we are suspending our services from tomorrow…”

Tony looked at the passenger next to him to make sure whether he had a sense of humour. The passenger’s belly that sat heavily on his lap led him to the assumption that he must have a sense of humour. So he said turning to him, “Hope they won’t suspend the service mid-air; may God save us.”

“What?” The passenger woke up from some reverie. “Did they say ‘May God save us’? Means there’s no hope?” And he laughed.

“Oh, no!” Tony hoped that the airlines was secular. At least the hemlines of the skirts of the airhostesses were secular, he had noticed. “They just said that their achhe din are coming to an end.”

“Hahaha,” the passenger laughed and his belly danced in his lap. “Achhe din came to an end for everybody in India some five years back, din’t they?” He laughed again. “By the way, I’m very reverend father Ambrose Mendelus. Basically from Goa, but serving in Mumbai and now flying to Delhi on duty.”

“I’m Tony Joseph from Cochin.” Tony extended his open palm for a friendly shake hand but the passenger took no notice. Tony was glad, however, that the woman passenger next to him had got down in Mumbai and a male passenger came in her place on the Kochi-Delhi flight, the last flight of Jet Airways. A historic journey, he thought. But the woman was a typical Malayali with the feminist version of the Malayali snobbery. “Just leave me alone,” she ordered the air-hostess at the first opportunity, “and wake me up as we’re landing in Mumbai.”

Very reverend father Ambrose Mendelus pushed his belly with his palm as he squeezed himself into the middle seat which had been warmed by the Malayali feminist snobbery.

“It’s achhe din for cows,” Tony ventured. He would be dodging the stray cows on the roads in Delhi from tomorrow onwards while driving to his office and back.

“Oh cows, poor devils,” Very reverend father Ambrose Mendelus said, “I miss beef steak with garlic.”

“Cows are like our gods, not devils,” said Tony. “We use them for so many purposes.”

“Hahaha, devils stand in need of greater versatility, you mean? Isn’t that why God created us human beings?”

The plane shuddered paroxysmally. “Is there god in an air pocket too?” asked Tony.

“God must be there in the veins of the chicken whose neck you slit for your chicken tikka masala.” He didn’t laugh.

“And in the cabbage you chop up…”

“And in the radish you chew down…”

“In the bread we eat…”

“In the wine we drink…”

“We are the devils…”

“Consumers of gods.”

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