It's a donkey's life!...Part 1

(This is the first of a series titled "Adventures of Jamkatki the Crow")

Dhondu the donkey sighed softly.

It was not as much a sigh as it was a cry of exasperation! It had been three years since he had started working at the laundryman’s home. The hours were good, the washload (= workload) was not too bad. His master had started trusting him and would allow him to get the bundle of clothes from the laundromat to home everyday all by himself…and very rarely did the master use the stick on him. He was the envy of all other middle class donkeys, who like him had come out of the training school and had joined as an apprentice to a washerman. His pay was good, he was always given the best silk and rayon clothing to handle and was the favorite pet of the washerman. In addition, he had very recently got a pay raise – an extra carrot every fortnight!

But there was still something missing…and he just couldn’t put his finger on that! He sighed again…

“It must be love!”, a voice nearby said. Dhondu let out a startled yelp, as only a startled donkey can.

“What?” asked Dhondu – looking around for the source of the voice.

“I said it must be love”, the voice repeated.

Dhondu looked upwards to the sky to where the sound came from. There, perched on the new mobile connection tower (oh yes! Development was extending her loving embrace to include Dhondu’s town too), was a crow looking down at him.

“Pardon me! But is that you who just spoke to me?” Dhondu asked the crow expectantly. His training school etiquette had prepared him to be polite enough in such situations, even if it was only a crow.

“Yep, that’s me!” replied the crow.

“I am sorry, I couldn’t quite understand what you were trying to tell me”, said Dhondu.

“Oh you T-School sorts! You need all conversations to have a situation-complexity-approach structure, don’t you?” the crow asked condescendingly. “I noticed you muttering to yourself and guessed that you must be going through mid-life crisis. I have seen that look in too many young people nowadays. It is always the feeling that there is something that is missing in their lives”

“Wait a minute, how do you seem to know so much about my sorts?...” sneered Dhondu, clearly offended by the impertinent classification by the crow, and that too by an uneducated one! (at least he looked like one). “…and what gives you the right to guess what crisis I am going through and most of all who gave you the right to give me advice!” Dhondu was clearly getting into the aggressive mode. He had been in too many group discussions in the T-School to know that he needs to make his points heard in the first 3 minutes of a group conversation for it to be heard.

“Whoa buddy! Wait up…take it easy…listen to what I have got to say” the crow did a backflip a-la Keanu Reeves in Matrix and landed on his two legs right near Dhondu. “The name is Jamkatki”, he said extending a raven colored wing towards Dhondu.

There was a pause for a couple of seconds, before Dhondu acknowledged the wing and replied, “Dhondu here, I guess I must say… nice meeting you.”

“The pleasure is all mine. By the way, mind if I hitch a ride on your back? We can talk as you walk – will be a much more productive use of our time”, Jamkatki said. Dhondu was impressed – OK! This guy is not so dumb after all. He is familiar with the concepts of time and motion studies and parallel processing. Nodding his head, Dhondu gave the clear signal to Jamkatki to jump on to his back.

“OK..now you have a free ride home. Do you mind telling me what you were talking about while up there in the tree?” Dhondu was getting impatient now.

“Relax buddy! I have been observing you for the past 2 – 3 months now. You seem to have a good job, minimum cares, yet you don’t seem to be happy.” Jamkatki replied.

To be Continued...