A Toad in the Aircraft! | Flash Post 377

Are you and Dost having a good time in Singapore?

Oh yes, Button. We’ve been eating local Singaporean food, walking huge distances to work it all off, waking up late, sleeping on the softest mattresses that make it extremely difficult for us to wake up in the mornings and, basically living the good life.

That’s wonderful.

But I must tell you about this incident that made me roll over in laughter after hearing a man snore in the aircraft.

But snoring is a very common thing with obese people. All obese people snore! Was he obese?

But this snoring was unique.

What was different?

During our growing up years, my mother often recited a few lines to us in a manner that made us fall over each other in laughter. It went like this:

Barsato ko dino mein
Garha gurhee mein
Bengseni turtoi turtoi karte jayche

Can you translate that for me please? Is it in Hindi?

It is a localised form of Hindi but it translates into something like this:

The rains are here
and in the holes and craters in the fields,
a gang of toads are singing their song

How are you linking the two?

Well, as he slept a deep sleep, his nostrils would make a strange shrilly noise upon inhaling air and letting it out with a thud. In with a shrill and out with a thud. This went on and on and on deafening the passengers till one of the air hostesses went and gave him a gentle nudge. That sound resembled the sound toads make in the rains.

So this sound took you back to your growing up years when your mother would recite the lines to you? Have you heard frogs croaking in the rains?

Both my sister and I have while visiting our maternal grandparents home in Putimari. A gang of toads would start to sing in that same monotonous manner, putting us to sleep, night after night just like a lullaby.