Making peace, not war

HUMOUR

Here was this popular programme — ‘thought for the day’  —on All India Radio and the speaker made a passionate and persuasive case for improving the perenially strained relations between landlords and their tenants in the interests of amity and brotherhood.

I took stock of the situation. “Strained” was hardly the word to describe the extant state of relations between myself and my landlord. In the immediate past, I had called him on his face — “two-timing, double-crossing shyster”, “blood-sucking Shylock”, “megalomaniac tyrant” and “Hitler” — and he had paid me back in the same coin and scaled similar lofty heights of literary allusion by calling me, in full public view, “Socialist rabble rouser and trouble-maker”, “shifty-eyed hellhound” and “rent controller’s stooge.”

I decided that my relations with my landlord could do with a fair dollop of Entente Cordiale. The next morning, I spied the old buster — I beg your pardon. I mean the saintly landlord in his front garden spraying whale oil on rose slugs.

“Good morning, sir” I said civilly, albeit with a forced cheer. “I want to mend fences with you!”

He looked up and scowled viciously as though I was a rose slug that had escaped his murderous attention. “Oh, it’s you,” he snarled visciously out of the corner of his mouth. “Speaking of fences, when are you going to mend my garden fence your pesky children have damaged playing cricket? I’ve got a good mind to proceed legally and take out a writ of mandamus under Section 294 of the Criminal Procedure Code and returnable at the Small Causes Court in Mayo Hall!” he hollered.

I was taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, but I continued to extend the olive branch. “What I mean, sir” I said, “let’s turn over a new leaf!” 

“Talking of leaves,” said the landlord, “how many times have I told your wife not to sneak leaves from my garden for her ill-ikebana? I’ll call in the bailiffs from the Munsiff Court and some rowdy sheeted recovery agents and have you both evicted!”

I was close to tears, but I persisted with my peace overtures. “What I mean, sir” I said, “let’s kiss and make up!” The landlord looked at me as though I had offended his finest moral sensibilities and that any more double entendre dialogue along similar lines and he would have me reported to the Censor Board and have me arrested under the anti-obscenity act.

I took one last desperate plunge. “What I mean, sir” I said, “I want a new accommodation with you!”

“I’d want a monthly rental of Rs 20,000 and 10 months advance rent as deposit for any new accommodation,” said the landlord with crushing finality. So ended in fiasco my maiden essay into Entente Cordiale.