The Rat Hunt

 Last night I had a dream, I always had one, but not that sweet always. Although much of it swept away the instant I got up, and what I remembered now - is my brother and I chasing a black-fatty Rat to death. I laughed a lot thinking about it, my brother thought I got screwed up for sure, but I wasn’t. This remember me of that mighty rat which we had encountered back when we were child.

That was the evening of the chilly January month of the coldest day of the season, according to weather report. We had what they called the winter holidays. It was around 8 in the evening and we all - my father, my brother and my uncle, were watching an action movie starring “Amitabh Bachchan”, on the TV while eating “Gaajar ka Halwa”, back then it was only during the Saturdays and Sundays that we had the opportunity of watching a movie and we await those days with utmost interest- those Doordarshan days, I still miss them.  

All of a sudden, a rat – fat, black, and long tailed, appeared right in front of the TV, he was sneaking into the cups and plates for food. That made my father and uncle mad with anger, which, I think was the effect of the Amitabh Bacchan’s movie. My uncle jumped on the rat but he managed to escape under the bed. After that we made an assassination plan, to kill that fatty rat. Everybody was commissioned at a specific place to guard, I was commissioned near the gate where there was enough space to aim and kill the Rat. Then, we closed every door and windows and every possible loop and hole of his escape in almost no time. Then, we chose our weapons, mine was my father’s hard-leather military shoes which I had inherited recently then. That camouflage color – I loved that.

Rat was still hiding under the bed. So, the plan was to force the Rat to come out in open and then we would kill it with our mighty weapons. My brother who was only 7 or 8 then bought a long -sturdy stick to jab in every corners of the bed. In fact, he was crazy about collecting the sticks, if you want one just ask him and he would bought you exactly the one you wanted.

There was a problem in the plan, the door of the inside room had jammed and it was ajar, so my uncle decided to guard it, in case Rat would run there he would butcher him in a single blow. My father and brother started searching the Rat under the bed, with that stick they were jabbing each corners and in doing so they had moved a lot of things which was somehow got under it. There is enough gap between the wall and the bed, so things like pen, knife hand fan pencil used to slip through that gap to under the bed, no one cared to make them out until something damn necessary would happen to drop like a knife. Suddenly, a book appeared in the process.

“This is my G.K. book,” I shouted in surprise. “I had been searching for it since last week.”

I forget to mention that, most often, the most important things like T.V. remote, my book and Mummy’s ring which were long disappeared mysteriously once, was always be found under the bed.

So, my father and brother both were working on making the rat out but they said they can’t see him under bed.  All of a sudden, the Rat appeared from the right side of the bed, he was sprinting towards me. I clenched the shoes hard in my hands and through at the Rat with the strongest I could - one by one. The Rat was running real fast, in spite of his large bulky body he was sprinting faster than a small rat and that with great accuracy. I missed both of my attacks, and that with great distance, although I had succeed in intimidating him; so he retreated, he started running towards my uncle who was already waiting for him to come. My uncle made multiple moves with shoes, chappals and with his foot as well, a couple of times he hit the Rat very hard, but that was not enough to take the Rat down. The Rat undoubtedly had a real hard body. Everybody was surprised, because any other mouse would be butchered to death even in a single hit, but that Rat ran away almost unhurt.

The game was not over yet. The Rat was under the dressing table, so we huddled around it, like an intruder used to surround a fort to capture it. This time I was tasked with the stick, my father replaced me to the attacking field. My brother was helping me with the torch and I was jabbing the stick in each corner. My father asked, did I saw the Rat. I denied. He was nowhere under it, so we think that he might had run under the bed which was beside the dressing table. The moment I moved to the bed, the Rat jumped from nowhere under the dressing table – Fatty-Clever Bastard! He run towards my uncle, he smashed him with the shoes that overturned him, but he recovered instantly and continued to run towards the door. The door was closed so he ran to the other side where the door of inside room was ajar. Before, he did so, he was attacked fiercely by us, such that he left with no choice but to turn around and hid him under the bed again. That was a fun thing for me – A rat hit many times that hardly and he was still alive as if he was made of steel.  My father said he hit him twice, my uncle claimed a dozen hit, I too claim one, although I had missed every of my attack, that make everybody laugh.

After that we searched the Rat under the bed and to other parts of the room for hours but we find no clue of him. He continued to trouble us for almost a month after that incident but one day all those troubles stopped, and then we found him dead on the shelve inside a bucket dead. He died either because of aging or starvation, my mother said. That ends the story of that courageous black-fatty rat. I have never seen that strong and fearless rat after that, except in my dreams.