Eagam Khaling
On a full moon night, a drunken poet visited a nearby lake. He managed to get a traditional boat to row around the lake. His thin dog was desperately barking at him from the land. Hearing the dog barking that way, he shouted at the dog from the boat, “Why howl? Damn’ it! I’m not going to die this early!”
After rowing a little ahead, he remembered from the word ‘die’ that once a poet had died trying to catch the moon on a lake’s water. He got a little angry thinking about that poet. But after a while, he also found the moon mesmerically smiling and teasing him on the lake’s water. The moon ghostly enchanted him. He, with all of his heart, longed to touch the moon, even if only for once. He tried but could not control himself. He suddenly jumped down on the moon and effortlessly came out swimming. Then, with a sarcastic gesture and a glance toward the lake, he said with an attitude, “Bro! You had to swim. Had you been, you wouldn’t have perished without a great deal.” But the dog barked at him a lot after seeing him in such a wet condition.
The next day, the tipsy poet brought a dog for his dog and kept them free in a room for hours. However, they did nothing except smell each other. The poet was so stunned that his mind began to suspect. Thus, he checked the dog’s private parts. But that was also a dog. He immediately walked away to search for a bitch for his dog.
(Eagam Khaling is a poet and story writer based in Darjeeling.)
