ARTHAT THE MONGOOSE
NEXT day we hear a great commotion outside where the bearers are running around with lathi sticks. Pop our bearer explains that the monsoon floods have driven the snakes from their burrows, and RAF Poona's mongoose-wallah has been sent for.
I'm captivated when Arthat the mongoose arrives, he's the 747 version of the meerkat, he's three feet long like myself and we take to one another at once as the owner drapes him round my shoulders. Staggering under his weight, I take him in to meet Mummy but she turns pale and shouts 'Get that damn thing out of here, put it back where you found it!'
Apologising to the mongoose for Mummy's bad manners, we sit down on the verandah steps while Pop makes chai for the owner. As I stroke my new friend he closes his beady eyes in pleasure while I consider ways to smuggle him into my bedroom. Inspecting his wicked fangs, I tell him he musn't eat my other friend Lithard, the green and orange lizard who lives in the thatch above my bed.
But Arthat has work to do, and his owner lifts him gently away and sends him under the spaces beneath our bungalows. He drives out a snake which is battered by the bearers, to the dismay of Pop who as a Hindu will not harm any living creature. They also pull out a dead snake, and I'm impressed to see that Arthat has bitten through its neck.
Job done, the owner gives Arthat back to me while Pop brews another pot of chai. The mongoose follows me around like a dog and delights in being stroked, but all too soon it's time to go. I don't want to part from my new friend and yell the place down as the owner takes Arthat away in a bag over his shoulder. But I have a plan to get him back.
Next instalment: Geriaviator (aged 5) has the closest escape he will ever have in his life.