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Drumbeats.!
By Robert Clements. Dated: 5/30/2016 11:19:33 AM
The drums were loud down below, "Big event!" I said as I went to shut the windows. "Big drums!" said the wife, and I looked out. There was no event. It was a small hut that had a single bulb and from it the sound of drums. I walked down and went in, the drummers were beating the taut skins with a zeal and gusto I'd never seen.
"What's the occasion?" I asked.
"Nothing!" said a bystander as we looked at the small hut with a single bulb lighting its interiors.
"Then what's the reason for such noise?" I asked impatiently.
"To fool all of us that something big is happening!" said the bystander, grinning at me. "Something like what we saw last week!"
"Was there a drum recital last week?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear big drums beating in all the newspapers and TV shows?" asked the bystander. "A party wins a small state in the north-east, doesn't get a single seat in Tamilnadu, not a single one in Puducherry, gets a lone seat in Kerala, but drums up a beat that made the whole nation think something spectacular had happened!"
"They've got good drummers!" I admitted.
"Worse!" said the bystander, "We have big fools! Aren't you one of them?"
I looked at the bystander, and swear I nearly felt like raising my fists, "How am I being fooled?" I asked angrily.
"Didn't you come down thinking there was a big event just now?"
"Yes," I said sheepishly.
"Well there you are! Last week you did the same when the drumbeats beat up a crescendo! You thought something sensational had happened, that the party had won over the country, you are like the rest, fooled by drumbeats!"
I put my head down and climbed back to my home. The drumbeats were getting louder and I closed the window. "Did you see the drummers?" asked the wife grinning.
"Yes!" I said, "Two sweaty guys with beards, muscles rippling, who have no idea how to a hold tune or beat but can hit the skin and make the loudest noise!"
We both looked out at the small hut with a single bulb: The light was low, it hardly spread farther than the hut walls, beyond which were shadows I knew hid all the garbage accumulated for the past many decades. Nobody had ever cleaned it, everyone was busy hitting the drums, fooling everyone else including me with the sound..!
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