The Fantabulous Fens

by Gautam Sen

  “Kidnapper!” someone shouted.

  “Baby-lifter!”

  “Don’t let him escape!” a third remarked excitedly.

  Bhoku had disappeared magically, mysteriously. He was there one moment, and the next moment he wasn’t, though no one had seen him go! There was no such luck for Daku — his arm was locked in Mumbo’s grip!

  “Who are you?” asked Mumbo. “Why did you snatch at my brother?”

  For the first time that anyone there had ever seen, Daku’s eyes were not the blanks they usually were. They were full of fear and panic and pain, and from his running sweat a pool of water was forming around his feet. It even seemed that he was shrivelling up and becoming smaller in size. He opened his mouth to speak — actually he wanted to repeat “How chweet your brother is!” — but his throat was so dry that the words refused to out. All he could do was make funny faces.

  Mumbo’s anger turned to laughter. For a moment he quite forgot that Panchu was on his shoulder. He raised his head, opened his mouth, and let out such a merry roar that it set Daku’s body trembling and his teeth rattling. Everyone there who knew Daku knew him as a toughie who had big, bad connections and was therefore all the more dangerous. Though he was a very irritating fellow, people tried not to get into a scrap with him, and if they did, they backed out sooner or later. But this unexpected encounter with Mumbo changed all that. People who had been scared of Daku found themselves laughing at him, even to his face! At the back of their minds they knew that, after being worsted in front of others by no more than a child — though an extraordinary child, a super child, if one may call him that — Daku would never be the same Daku ever again.

  Father Fen and Mother Fen had rushed to Mumbo’s side to ask him what had happened. It was exactly at this point that Mumbo, who had not noticed them, burst out into laughter, and Panchu, so as to be able to withstand the vibrations, quickly clung on for dear life to Mumbo’s ear, so that the Fen parents could not put the question to him either. However, though they did not know exactly what had happened, it was not difficult to figure out that, if there had been any danger, it had blown over.

  “Your children?” asked a bystander who knew quite well that it was their children, but sometimes we have to say these things just to begin a conversation.

  “Yes,” Mother Fen and Father Fen answered together.

  “But what exactly happened?”

  “He tried to kidnap the little one!” an angry voice yelled.

  “Not so easy!” Panchu commented, looking very safe and secure on Mumbo’s shoulder. Koala nodded in approval from his seat at the back of Father Fen.

  “You’re lucky to have such children!” exclaimed a young woman, her face breaking into a smile of admiration.

  Daku was still in Mumbo’s grasp. He was moaning, and his moans were getting louder and louder.

  “Aunty, forgive me,” he pleaded, addressing Mother Fen in between his moans. “Please ask your son to leave my hand — I give you my word I’ll surrender to the police.”

  “His word!” someone chuckled.

  “Mumbo, let go,” Mother Fen said gently. “There are so many people around he can’t possibly run away.”

  Mumbo, who was a very obedient child, released his hold on Daku, who fell on his knees holding his right elbow and blubbering. Tears streamed out of his eyes.

  Suddenly he threw a piteous look at Mother Fen and Father Fen and spluttered, “Imagine being taught a lesson by small children like these! Shame on me! Let them whip me! Let them put me in jail!”

  He struck his forehead with his left hand, hard enough to hurt, and every Fen started feeling sorry for him; but there were those in the crowd who thought he was merely shamming and shedding crocodile tears to get himself out of the tight corner he found himself in.

  “Let him go, and once he’s out of sight, he’ll be up to all his old tricks again,” was how a man, who was on his way back home from office and had stopped to watch, put it.

  “Yes, let the police deal with him,” a dumpy, bald man advised.

  “Aunty! Uncle!” Daku sobbed, “If I had brothers like these (here he looked at Mumbo and Panchu) my life would have been different. I’d have been a good man instead of being a scoundrel. I’m feeling very sorry for what I’ve done. It’s true that the hurt in my hand is very bad, but the hurt in my mind is much worse. Please pray for me that I can change and become a good man!”

  He spoke through his wailing, shedding a lot of tears, and at the end of it all he threw his body forward and lay face downwards on the ground before Mother Fen and Father Fen.

  “Nice acting!” said someone.

  “He should be nominated for the Best Actor prize. He has already started his tricks.”

  “Don’t take chances,” a bespectacled gentleman advised the Fen parents. “Inform the police right now.”

  But Father Fen and Mother Fen were not sure they wanted to do that. Because their children were very different from other children, they had always found it necessary to protect them from the outside world, and to expose them to it only selectively. On some such occasions, as Mother Fen and Father Fen discovered to their pleasant surprise, their children had won people over with their sweetness and charm and innocence and the magic of their personalities. It was as if they had the special ability to bring out the best in others. Father Fen and Mother Fen had heard of saints before whom even the worst criminals felt the sacredness of life. Of course their children were not saints, but maybe they had with them the blessings of a saint. There was certainly something unique about them that wasn’t limited to their looks. They could make people more joyful and loving and caring and wanting to be and do good. And so they thought it was perfectly possible that Daku — though they still did not know his name — had actually had a change of heart and wanted to lead a good life from then on.

  When he threw himself before them, they didn’t exactly bless him, but they said, “It will be good for everyone if you lead a good life — it will be good for you, and it will be good for others. Try it and see — you’ll feel much happier.”

  But whether Daku was pretending or not, one thing that was obvious was that Daku needed medical attention; so Father Fen took out his mobile phone from his pocket and made a call — not to the nearest police station, but to a doctor in the area whom he had once met.

  “No need for that, Mister,” the bespectacled gentleman butt in as soon as he realized who Father Fen was ringing up, “the police will take care of that — it’s the police station you should be contacting.”

  A voice commented, “You are really too simple for your own good.”

  “Ma Fen — doctor or police?” asked Father Fen.

  “Doctor,” Mother Fen replied at once.

  “Mumbo — doctor or police?” Father Fen asked again.

  “Doctor,” said Mumbo without hesitation.

  “Panchu?”

  “Doctor,” Panchu voted, adding, “He wanted a brother like me.”

  “Pinchu?”

  “A doctor, and that too, fast, Papa,” was Pinchu’s verdict, “or he’ll faint any minute.”

  “Koala? Baby Panda?” Father Fen found both of them staring at an ice-cream cart that a vendor had wheeled right up to the edge of the crowd. Perhaps he had come out of curiosity, perhaps he smelled good business, or perhaps it was a bit of both.

  “Koala will take strawberry and I’ll take chocolate,” Baby Panda responded. Mother Fen had to explain what the real question was.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Baby Panda, and then Koala and he together said, “Doctor.”

  “That settles it, then,” Father Fen decided.

  “Hey! You’re a funny man,” the bespectacled gentleman told Father Fen. “This isn’t a matter for little children to give their opinion on.”

  Father Fen shrugged. “Let’s say it’s different in our family.”

  He took out his mobile and pressed the doctor’s number.

  “You’re encouraging a criminal!�
�� protested the bespectacled gentleman.

  In the gap between the ringing of the phone and the doctor picking it up, Father Fen had just about time to explain their position. “We hope he really means to change,” he said, “and we’d like to give him a chance.”

  The doctor was called. He was not a man who spoke very much, and his name was Dr. Little Talk. On picking up the phone all he said was “Where?” and then “Okay,” but he was coming.

  “Ouch! Uff! My God!” Daku was moaning, holding his hurt hand and swinging backwards and forwards. There was an elderly tow-headed man in the crowd with hair poking out of his nostrils. He was holding a couple of magazines in his hand.

  “Sir,” Mother Fen addressed him out of deference to his age, “I don’t know if his elbow is fractured, but just in case … if you’d be so kind as to give me one of those magazines, I could apply a splint to his elbow...”

  The man backed away. “I had to buy then,” he objected.

  “I understand; could I buy one from you then?”

  “I’m not a magazine-seller!” he kind of snarled, and turned around and hastened away.

  “If he tries to kidnap someone again, you’ll have to take some of the blame!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

  It was quite clear he was addressing Father Fen and Mother Fen. There were many supportive shouts of “Yeah!” and “Exactly!” and “You’ve hit the nail on the head!” and “You’re dead right!” from all around … and then, all of a sudden, a short, angry-looking man with a hooked nose broke through the crowd, came to the little clearing where Daku was moaning, and made a go at his chin with his right leg. It was good for Daku that the man’s aim was not perfect — the man’s foot merely grazed his chin, but since Daku was injured to begin with, it was enough to knock him backwards with a howl of pain and panic, so that he was stretched out flat on the ground with his face upwards.

  “The police won’t be necessary — we can do the job ourselves!” a very excited voice proposed.

  They did not know how it happened, but before they knew it the Fens had surrounded Daku and formed a shield around him. Father Fen, Mother Fen, Mumbo, and Baby Panda took up positions in front, behind, and by the side of Daku. Pinchu, Panchu, and Koala, who had been put on the sling-seats on the back of their brothers or parents, discussed the matter among themselves.

  “It’s one man against so many,” said Pinchu.

  “He wanted a brother like me,” said Panchu. “We’ve got to help.”

  “There’s a tablet for pain,” remembered Koala. “Ma took it when she had a tooth-ache.”

  People aimed a few more kicks at Daku through the slender gaps between the four surrounding Fens. Some of them hurt the Fens as well, and there was some jostling and shoving, but the attacks and the confusion gradually petered out.

  “Argh! What kind of parents are you! It’s unbelievable — protecting the kidnapper of your own children!” snapped the bespectacled man.

  What with all the excitement and the physical activity, Father Fen was breathing a little heavily by now, but he took a deep breath and explained, “Listen, I think it works like this: we hand him over to the police; he’s put in jail, he spends a few months or a few years there, and he comes out a worse man — his mind is full of bitterness and revenge. If we give him a chance, who knows? Perhaps he’ll change for the better.”

  “All that philosophy works only on paper, Mister,” an unknown voice argued; but the voice trailed off, and no one followed it up.

  People began to leave singly or in small groups, and when the doctor arrived in his car, the street wore an almost-normal look. Daku had kept moaning and groaning all this time, but he was so spent by now that his moans and groans sounded weaker.

  “Thank you,” he whispered with difficulty. “They would have killed me — you saved my life.”

  Dr. Little Talk had come there unnoticed, in a little car with a sticker which said, 'Talk less; work more.' He examined Daku, declared that his injury was not a fracture but a bruise, prescribed pain-killers (wasn’t Koala right?) and the application of cold cloths or ice, took his fee from Father Fen (Daku looked very uncomfortable and gasped out that he didn’t have the money with him, but would pay it back later), asked where Daku stayed, and offered to drive him home. The Fens accompanied him there, and when Daku had settled down on a sofa, he stroked his healthy hand one by one on all the Fen children and made a promise to their parents: once he got well, he would go far, far away somewhere, where no one knew him, and turn over a new leaf. And as he said that, the tears welled up in his eyes.

  Yes, he did offer to pay Father Fen the doctor’s fees, but Father Fen just wouldn’t take it. The wonderful thing was that Daku kept his promise. Within a month he was heard of no more. And neither was Bhoku. No one knew whether they were still together or had gone their separate ways.

  10 - How The Fens Became Famous

  It was on Miracle Evening that the TV crew had first got interested in the Fen children. Things that day had not quite worked out their way, but they had made enquiries. What they heard was very encouraging, and ever since they had been keeping an eye open for a special programme on those special children because they had very, very, very much liked what they had seen of them. They were quite sure that if finally they did manage to do the programme, they could make it a huge success. They were confident that they could get a world-wide audience for a programme on the Fen children. The problem was, would the Fen parents consent? Would the children themselves agree? The Fens did not seem much interested in publicity. But the TV crew had discovered that the Fens sometimes came out for a walk on the streets, and that the children gave out autographs. They felt this was a positive sign.

  The head of the TV crew was a man they called Bull the Cool. He looked stout and stocky like a bull, and he was also a Taurean — that is, his Zodiac sign was Taurus, whose symbol is a bull. Like all good Taureans, once he made up his mind on something, he never gave up, no matter what obstacles came his way. He never lost his hope and he never lost his patience, which is why he also hardly ever lost his temper. No wonder people called him Bull the Cool. He liked to be called by that name. He even called himself by that name.

  One day, a few weeks after Miracle Evening, he thought he would try his luck again with the Fens, so he started with a phone call. It was Mother Fen who answered the call.

  “I’m Bull the Cool from Flash TV,” the journalist explained. “We’ve heard a lot about your children, we’ve seen them once too, and we’d love to do a programme on them.”

  Somehow Mother Fen did not quite take to the idea, but she would not dream of taking a one-sided decision: Father Fen would have to be consulted, and the children as well. For all she knew, most of them would think the same way as she did, but she could not be sure, and she did not like to take anything for granted.

  “I’d like to discuss the matter with their father and with them,” Mother Fen responded. “Could you ring up again around this time tomorrow, please?”

  “Okay Ma’am, as you please. I’ll look forward to a positive answer. Your children will take the world by storm — and as parents, you’re going to enjoy every bit of it, let me assure you!”

  “I’m glad you think that way,” Mother Fen said, “but let’s see.” And she hung up. She put the matter up to Father Fen.

  “I don’t at all mind our children becoming more and more famous,” Father Fen declared. “Maybe they are treasures we should share with the whole world, but what I’m worried about is the children losing all their privacy and living always in the public glare. That won’t be good for them … and then there’s the media — who knows what they’ll say about them when?”

  “Don’t we tell the children?”

  “Yes, of course we do, and we also tell them why we don’t want a programme on them.”

  A new thought occurred to Mother Fen: “What if they want it? What if any of them want it — say, Panchu? We can’t let them take all the
ir own decisions, can we? After all, they are little children... are you sure it’s a good idea to tell them about the offer?”

  “See, Ma Fen, if we don’t tell them and they come to know about it from elsewhere, it can be tricky. Isn’t it better that they hear it from us?”

  “I know what you mean, Pa Fen, and yet …If I know Panchu, he’ll love the publicity he’ll get. And he just might kick up a ruckus if we say no”.

  Father Fen gave it a thought. Then he said, “That’s a challenge we’ve got to meet — we can’t get away from challenges in life.”

  That cleared the air and they both smiled together freely and easily.

  A meeting was called with the children for five o’clock in the evening. It was to be held in the drawing room. Assisted by her new part-time helper Meena, a young woman of twenty, Mother Fen prepared samosas and cocoa for the children, and samosas and coffee for themselves.

  “Ma, let’s have more meetings,” Baby Panda requested, smiling at the food laid out on a coffee table beside him.

  “A meeting is a serious thing, and I’m not going to laugh,” Mumbo decided. “Whatever BP or anyone else might say, I’m not going to laugh,” he repeated to himself, as if strengthening his resolve.

  “I’m glad you realize we’re here for a serious purpose,” Mother Fen began, and then spelt out what had happened — who Bull the Cool was, what he had told her, and how she and Father Fen felt about it.

  Surprisingly it was not Panchu but Pinchu who raised the first question. “It will be so nice to tell everyone about my experiments — won’t it, Ma? Won’t it, Papa?”

  There was so much feeling in his voice that Mother Fen and Father Fen looked at each other as if to say, “Why, we hadn’t thought of that before!” It suddenly struck them that though they had considered the matter from many different angles, they had forgotten something very basic: if you have a great interest, a passion, a talent, you will naturally want to share it with others; and the more you can share it with others, the happier you feel.