here, there & elsewhere. Knock! Knock!

Ever since Bins told me about the little packet of seeds he smuggled into the US, I’ve been unable to think of anything else. Tell me again, I say to him, how could you have done this? How? To which he gives a Belmondo shrug and says, “It was easy! It was cool! And guess what? We got away with it.” I remind him there was no ‘we’. He was alone in his actions. “Of course!” he says. “If you had known, you’d be running to tell the border police, Arrest me, Arrest me! Even before we landed, you’d call them up from inside the plane, to warn those fellows in black uniforms about this big drug baron — baroness, excuse me — landing in America with a thimble of grass seeds!”

And if you’d been caught, I ask him, what would you have done? It was so irresponsible. Thoughtless. Brainless. “But I didn’t get caught, no? I thought about it in advance. I hid the packet inside that plastic bag of filter coffee you brought —.” He stops and looks guiltily in my direction. You mean, I say in a halting voice, it was in my suitcase? “Yah,” he says, attempting to look rueful. “I agree, that was not very nice. Still. Who will think you are a drug smuggler? No one. So even if the sniffer-dog sits down on your suitcase you will scream and cry so much they will believe you. Me?” He points to his scraggly moustache and thin grey plait. “Maybe not.”

But, but, but, I splutter, you used me as a drug mule! “Tcheh,” he snorts. “Did you not see me whisper to the dog? I told him not to bother you. And if Black-suit-wallah asked you to open your bag, I would tell him it’s my packet. Anyway, relax! It’s over now, the packet is safe and it’s legal to grow the weed in the US. When the weather is warm we’ll buy some flower pots and...” All the while we’ve been talking, there’s been some commotion out in the hall. Now there’s a knock on the door.

“Who’s that?” Bins wonders. Must be the police, I say. Please tell them to take you away and lock you up forever. He shrugs light-heartedly and goes to the door. I can hear him talking to someone. He takes so long that I get up to investigate. Whereupon he turns towards me and says, “Ah! Here’s my wife now. She’s the tenant.” To me he says, pokerfaced, “It’s the police.” Sure enough: at the door is a young and very pretty policewoman.

“Hi,” she says. “I’d like to ask a few questions?” Okay, I say. My heart is pounding. I’m about to confess right away just to save time when she says, “Did you know that your neighbour Peter was burgled this afternoon?” Ummm. What? She repeats the question. I answer truthfully that I had no idea. After a couple more questions, she thanks me and leaves. Bins says, “See? Nothing happened.” I am practically in coma. “Tea?” he offers. Yes, I say.

(Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist writes about her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column)

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