Raj's Believe It or Not

The brothers' outfits and plump profiles brings to mind Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee from Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland. They sit back in their chairs with legs extended in totality at ninty degrees. Their Jack Sprat of a dad verbally spars with the embassy offical one station over from me, while their fleshy mother loiters to his flank. Son #1 looks idly about the office and away from his brother who sings with intensity to no one in particular. I make eye contact with the singing brother and acknowledge his efforts with an upraised hand to show appreciation in a humerous fashion. He makes a quarter turn away from me and continues his melody without pause. His mother looks over and smiles at me and I take the opportunity to ask her what song her son is singing.

"I don't know," she confesses, "I can't understand the words."

"It's not in Hindi?" I ask, confused.

"No. No one knows what language he is using or what he sings. He started doing this when he was three and does it for a number of hours each day," she explains, "We cannot stop him once he starts." I listen more closely. His vocalization sounds less like singing and more like chanting. The diction is far too clear to be the idle babble of a bored bacche. I quickly convince myself that the child is living proof of reincarnation--a once dedicated priest unconsciously engaging in a previous lifetime's daily rites.

The father looks back at his child and shakes his head with the resignation of one who has told the child to stop his chatter right this minute one thousand times before to no avail. That his child's pecularity has elicited my attention seems to rankle him. I am tempted to ask for the family's address to procure an audio tape of the boy for investigation, but the father's chagrin gives me pause.

Someday the CIA or CSI will abduct the child and keep him locked in a wire-mesh cage in a military labratory basement. His head will be shaved and crowned with wires like angel hair spaghetti running to oscilloscopes and various recording instruments. Over time the boy will befriend the ape in the neighboring cage and charm the animal with his daily chanting. The ape, the priest's corrupt accountant in his last incarnation, will free the boy via the timely deposit of sedatives in the lab technician's coffee and some deft sleight of hand (paw?) involving the latter's fat loop of keys. At some point during their escape the ape will be shot dead by agents attempting to regain possesion of the child. In the process the boy's sordid treatment will be brought to the attention of the press and in a protracted, high-profile court case he will finally be restored to his parent's custody. Bollywood will buy the rights to the story and infuse the drama with innumerable dance sequences shot in the Alps.

For now, his parents are none the wiser to what the future holds, and Dad wishes his boy attracted less attention as a curiousity. For me the scene is simply my daily dose of the weird and wonderful panarama that makes India, India.