Piggy Grief

 Grief perhaps is sometimes born of the queerest of reasons.. Every morning at Nanette Nursery, S.Vijay, P.Vijay and me sat at the second row close to the green painted door and sang the nursery rhymes together. We loved singing them, humming them while Sr. Mary Kurian watched us with her placid eyes. She never laughed aloud or ever shouted but she smiled when she saw the three of us tap our feet, lock our arms together and sing.

 So we broke London bridge together squealing in chorus, we tumbled down with Jack and Jill, we  sold hot cross buns to all our little friends seated behind us till the day the world of nursery rhymes toppled and so did our world of perfect bliss. Sr. Mary Kurian, immaculate white in apparel and teeth was teaching us recite a new rhyme. We squealed hearing her announce the title "Piggy on the railway track", we were already with piggy and had  begun to sway and tap....

Piggy on the railway track(tra la la)
Picking up stones

Down came the engine,
and broke piggy's bone......And there we felt our taps lessen, Sr. Kurian read on not noticing we had stopped swaying.....

"Ah!" said the piggy,
"Thats not fair."
"Oh!" said the engine driver,
"I don't care!"..... That was dead end. I felt my heart break too, and I felt S.Vijay's sweaty palm hold mine to balance his grief. We looked at each other, the concept of cruel indifference toppling our otherwise perfect humpty dumpty world. We felt helpless hatred at the engine driver and I started crying first and then the 'vijays'(S&P) howled and then all of us were howling.

Sr. Kurian went red but she took me outside the class room and since she knew I inspired the howling, I stood there for the rest of that hour, watching two other pigs curl their tails too.