Never a dull moment!

A couple of evenings ago, Sonati and I were out gardening, when Sonati heard some noise in the bushes. She thought it was Frisky and looked up to find an enormous pig snuffling around.

My immediate thought was for the newly planted bananas; so I shooed it vigorously and chucked a couple of stones. It ran off up the hillside.

Thinking it was bound to be Terthagiri's (my immediate neighbour) pig, escaped and running about, I shouted out for him and his sons, and went up to see who was around. I found that the pig was MGR's pig, escaped from Valagapattu, and that it was being pursued by a party of one man (Govindraj) and three small boys.

Badri, Varun and I then went westwards with the pursuers to see where the pig might have gone.We sighted it far down in the valley near the Thekambattu temple. Govindraj and his troupe ran after it, Badri and Varun watched, and I returned home, thinking that was the end of it.

Then I heard Frisky barking from down the slope, and came to the Front verandah, to see the pig running full tilt down the road, pursued by the gang. Badri and Varun were down the slope, and I yelled to them to get off the path, and sure enough, even as I was yelling, the pig turned and charged up our slope. I had no time to worry about the boys, for in what seemed to be next to no time at all, the pig was grunting at me from the front steps!

I later learnt that the boys had climbed the Story Rock in the nick of time.

I grunted and yelled at the pig, and luckily it moved away. Govindraj came up, huffing and puffing and warned me to be careful because the pig may bite. The pig was now cornered; but Govindraj instead of catching it, started pelting it with stones, saying that his brief was not to catch it, but to chase it back to Valagapattu and its owner.

Well, the pig gave a grunt of rage, bared its teeth and ran off towards the nesting grounds and points further east. It was quite dark by this time and the last we heard were sounds of pursuit in the distance.

We all came in, and the boys enacted Varun's rather close shave starring Varun as himself, a wooden stool as Story Rock and Badri moving at an amazing speed on all fours as the pig.

Never a dull moment!