Science of Signs

Hello Reader,

Dantumal was more carefree than he was illiterate. His father had left behind a lot of money for him, enough to make him a lazy couch.  Though this laziness saved his life once when every member of his extra-large-typical-Indian-joint family went on an outing and he decided to stay back at home. He never missed his unbalanced diet and scheduled TV shows at any cost. 

“Don’t make too much noise”, the grumpy driver announced as they entered the steep valley area, past the sign board, “Beware of the falling Rocks”. But the children ignored the driver and sang together aloud, “Rock On!” Their bad sense of music made the mountains vibrate in anger and drop a big boulder on their bus. Nobody survived except the grumpy driver who later chuckled as the future of music industry was safe. 

Next morning, their maid’s son came running to inform about the sad demise of the family members to Dantumal and that he must go and identify the dead bodies. Dantumal, without waiting a second, after finishing the show just as the commercials began, did the formalities. Their maid was the most depressed as even after her numerous warnings, they decided to go for the trip. Her deceased dog was wailing all night, which she said was a bad sign, an omen which was screaming out loud, “Cancel the trip, there are dark shadows upon thee.”

After a few days, the dog bit the maid and she died of rabies.

Dantumal had seen enough deaths in his life. The first one was his mother’s which came in replacement with his own birth. Doctor’s had said that she could be saved if the medicines were brought on time.  His alcoholic father always wore his watch inverted. He was supposed to get the medicines by 3 o’clock but his punctuality followed his watch. The medicines couldn’t save his mother.  

Apart from wearing his watch inverted, his father’s another bad trait was being a scrooge. He knew the value of every penny he earned and would never let anything that he buys to go into drainage. So, to beat the blues of losing his wife, he decided to consume the medicine instead of buying more Rum as it tasted almost the same. “Overdose is lethal”, the bottle said. 

“The bottle is talking to me. I must be really drunk”, he thought and slept peacefully forgetting all the woes. 

He dreamt of his wife in the sleep. Next morning, he refused to come out of the dream. 

Now Dantumal was all on his own, with all the family business under his nose. Though he was an illiterate, business was in his blood. He had surplus amount of money as he never married any girl. He loved his TV so much that he had no time to share his time with anybody else. He started spending money on useless things like unlimited supply of cigarettes. He had no idea on how to spend it or save it or even to keep it hidden. Somehow, people got to know that Dantumal doesn’t have a naturally grown wisdom tooth and laughed behind his back. Now, he had a reason to spend some money. So, he bought himself a tooth made of gold and declared that money can buy everything, even wisdom. 

He was living a happy life until one day when while watching TV and crunching popcorn, his gums started to pain. He summoned the best dentist in town. The clever dentist said confidently that the golden tooth is the culprit and should instantly be removed and thrown away. 

The dentist plucked the tooth, put it in his pocket and said, “Don’t worry sir, I’ll take care of it. It shall never hurt you ever again. Here is my bill”, and left after having the lunch and collecting his fees.

The pain returned but the dentist never did. And this time the pain was even better and accompanied with blood. He called another dentist. The wise dentist asked him to quit tobacco immediately and informed him that he has gingivitis and could lead to leukaemia. 

Dantumal thought what a show off that dentist was and never took his warnings seriously. Also, he did not know how to pronounce leukaemia or gingivitis. So, he preferred to ignore and continued with his usual routine. 

He did not agree to what the dentist said until his TV explained to him the same thing in simpler, graphical way.  He could relate with the anti-tobacco ad. Tobacco causes cancer. But by then the disease had got worse, the cancer grew. The TV assured him that he was dying and he could not deny.

One fine day, he left his TV alone and died.  

And the TV kept saying, “If only, you changed my channel at the right time…”


Ashish

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This post is written for the COLGATE Total Pro-Gum Health Contest.
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