There runs a certain story in my family for generations of a certain Mr Mohan who happened to be my great grandfather’s uncle’s cousin’s brother-in-law. He was gifted with a golden voice to blow off the ear drums of people with a mere whisper. His snoring was the cause of untimely migration of birds in a nearby sanctuary. His booming voice stirred a social problem in the neighborhood.
Providence fortunately spared his parents of any trouble… they were deaf by birth.
It is said that Mohan was a late talker. Until the age of seven he never opened his mouth for anything except food. His parents were convinced he was dumb. They made attempts to help him talk by giving him a lot of sweets. Later, when he began to speak garrulously, it made a jarring vibration on their ears and sometimes they bled in the ears. They prayed to God to spare them of this hell.
Very soon they began giving him a lot of goodies just to keep his mouth shut.
Unfortunately, he began seriously took to singing. Family members say that he once sang in the backyard and all the hens beat their wings to death. Mohan though was puzzled by their suicide.
At school, he was very naughty. He would collect boys, make them sit in a row and eat sand. If they refuse he’d whisper mildly in their ears and make them sick or deaf in one ear. Sometimes he’d deprive classmates of lunch by threatening to damage their ears if they did not hand over their lunch boxes. Once a teacher made the mistake of spanking him for not answering loud enough. Mohan bellowed the answer so loudly that the principal thought there’s was a bomb dropped somewhere in the neighborhood and hurriedly declared a holiday. And the teacher walked home deaf.
It is said that even the deaf could hear him speak.
Another story runs in the family. He was interested in listening to stories. Once his grandfather taking advantage of the boy’s interest woke him up from sleep to narrate a story. The boy flew in rage and screamed into his grandfather’s ears resulting in successive generations being deaf in the right ear. My own insensitive right ear confirms the story.
Once Mohan screamed in the middle of the night when his wife stepped on his toes as she woke up to answer nature’s call. Mohan’s father was convinced of the burglar’s entry into the house and fired three rounds killing a night guard and two people walking on the road. When the next day’s newspapers reported that a brave night guard had killed two dreaded convicts who had escaped from jail, Mohan’s father beat his chest to death.
Mohan was a terror in the neighborhood and even the dogs were envious of his loud voice. Scared of turning deaf, they wagged their tails constantly whenever he was around.
Children were silenced by his very name and adults wetted in their pants when he threatened to try a new song. He belched like a giant and not many animals were found in the nearby jungle. In fact, jokes were told out of his earshot lest he laugh and kill the villagers.
He joined the army at 20 and caused a stir in his camp. One night a guard heard a rustling noise in the nearby mangrove and shouted “who’s there”. The officer in-charge thought that the alarm bells had gone off, fired cannon shots in the air disturbing the tranquility of the night. The officer, in this pell mell, found Mohan sleeping on his back and enjoying a book. He was dismissed with a kick on his back resulting in a coconut-sized swelling on his butt that stayed until his death.
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