The rat is not well

 He flushed the bundle down the siphon jet. Once. Twice. Thrice. The matter kept resurfacing. Finally, on the fourth attempt things were clear. The pot and his bank account looked clean. Relaxed, he plonked on the sofa and fell asleep. A dreamless sleep.

****

"Phew!! It was a hard day at work!" Mr. Ramit Shah slouched down the open drains and a wave of murkier waters carried him to the 'Muckier Ganda Party's' meeting. Having hunted few local 'Hands' involved in shitty business, he was dragging his over-sized belly into the sewage pipelines. Away from the glaring eye of mediocrity, the sewers were host to many ugly, filthy situations.

'Aapka Sauchalay Hamara Vidyalay' the air was pregnant with euphoric optimissim. Tubifex worms wriggled with sticky banners and slippery intentions. Their clamoring cries rose and fell like Benthoveen's notes. The roaches were busy serving tea to the gathered masses as that is where their present leader came from. Dressed in filthy, worn out saffron badges, they resembled balls of fine excretament. It was a 2Am call and all the party works had to be present for this dark meeting.

"What are we discussing today?" Mr. Ramit Shah inquired to an older, saggy Ratvani. Being from the same hometown, he knew his leader well, yet he created an air of deceitful ignorance. The patriarch stirred in his shit, and gave an indifferent look to his intruder. Sleep was what his droopy eyes were aching for. Had this Ramit not made an entry, he would have slept over the drain politics. But now that the tea wave had hit, Ratvani had was obliged to keep awake.

"As if you don't know what the meeting is about!" Ratvani's whiskers whisked a reply.

"Khabar che Khabar che... I was just confirming the call." Ramit consoled the aggravated patriarch's chessy brain.

Tea was done and now some yellow, gooey dhoklas were doing the rounds. The leader knew how to satiate his followers with intermittent foods for thought. A hungry man is an angry man, the dictum held strong grounds in the swooshing waters of the drain. The air was cool and creepy creatures squirmed in their shits getting impatient over the delay in the meeting. 

"Mota bhai, when is the addressal to start?" One tired Roach crawled upto Ramit's now snoozing tail.

"Aavase, aavase... Rodi bhai will come soon."

That's when an army of SPG officials in black,  business suits, dark sunglasses, two-way encrypted earpiece and concealed handguns reached the spot. Among the flurry of these rattling organisms, he drove on his Royal Enfield Classic. Inspired by roadies, staying in the drain, he called himself Rodi. The bustling stopped, and even Ratvani stood up in attention. Protocols had to be followed. 

Waving out to the crowd in his signature style, his tail settled down so that the teeth could make an appearance. Clutching the broken pipeline, his overworked mike, the performance began.

"Mere pyare chuo aur cockroacho. We have to get this drain out of this country. Remember the Panchantantra fable where the rats had eaten up a trader's iron weights stored in a safe storage? Remember, the UP government blaming us for the disappearance of seized liquor from tight security godowns? My fellow ratty men, in no ways are we going to let this drain go into the hands of people who earn out of petrol yet the poverty remains the same. The country is going to the drains. WE NEED TO SAVE OUR DRAINS!!" He pressed home a point.

A thunderous applause followed. Tails, tentacles, whatever appendages the crowd could use, they employed it to the best use. The insurgency was called upon due to an emergency in the drains. Some not so good soul had flushed 500 hundred rupee notes making the sewer pipelines clogged. The initial wave had taken the residents by surprise but what followed was a sea of remorseful dung. The currency was crippling the deliberations in the dung. 

Ramit Shah pondered over the problem. Rodi's speech was not enough to solve the problem this time as always. This situation needed some real action. It was the dawn of 9th November 2016. It was the dawn of a new era where 'Kala dhan' would be more darker than sewage waters. Soon, people would be discarding their monetary chattel like dumping human babies in bins. Money mattered over maternity. 

Flexing his brawny arm, Ramit, the rodent, took a vow to clear the currency clogging. 

Armies of rats, trained in guerilla warfare sniffed the foul 500 notes hidden under tiles, and bedding of people. The Murids soldiers bit, tore and nibbled at the currency delicacy before people could clog the toilets with this affluent waste. Rat infestation became the talk of the town and people were in a rat race to exchange their currency at the banks. Whom were they to bank on?

*****

The shrill of the ringing telephone shook Pappu from his dreamless sleep. Days after 8th November he had confined himself to some rat hole in Delhi. Apart from a mechanic who was working on the clogged drainage of his bathroom, no soul was in sight. The Home Minister was on his prowl, digging offensive Swiss accounts. 

Answering the telephone, Pappu burst into tears. "Mama, I want to come back home!"

The Italian mother herself was not sure were the home was!