Asses of La La Land

Mahesh Grover

THE lion king tossed restlessly in his bed disturbed by the incessant braying of donkeys, and concerned over the unusual furore, sent emissaries to the fox, his trusted adviser.

At the crack of dawn, the fox appeared, bleary eyed, and after quickly licking herself to ensure a decent look, entered in the presence of the king.

‘Shoot straight, why this night-long braying?’ said the king, impatiently.  ‘I am all ears.’

‘Umm... Umm...’ mumbled the fox thoughtfully and recounted: ‘When I went to donkey-land, I witnessed a spectacular sight, never ever seen by me before. The donkeys were euphoric. Young ones pranced around the meadows while the older one’s trotted around, their noses to the tails of those in front; stirred to joyousness. The braying was akin to a Mexican wave, where one would commence his rendition and as it trailed off another would pick up the strains with the rest following suit to bray the discordant notes.

 All but an old donkey stood silently, forlorn and unaffected by the frolicking crowd, his head bent swishing its tail, and flapping its ears reminding me of GK Chesterton, who wrote, ‘with monstrous head and sickening cry and ears like errant wings the devils walking parody on all four-footed things’.

Mustering up courage, I approached him, deftly avoiding the hind legs, which they use to such a devastating effect as once you discovered at your peril.

The king flushed in anger at the mention of the nasty incident that cost him his reputation.

The old donkey told me that asses were extremely happy to finally have their place in the sun, as no less than a king of humandom has acknowledged their virtues and raised them to an exalted level where a national debate is raging as the humans go around electing their leaders.  Overnight they were in print and visual media, so much so, that a state has been promised to them which they propose to name ‘La La Land’, which will reverberate with a nationalist slogan — Garv se kaho, ke hum gadhe hain (Proclaim proudly that you are a donkey).  Years of ignominy is now a thing of past for them.

The lion looked at the fox: ‘What does this portend for us?’ The fox looked amused and said: ‘Oh king! Asses will remain asses. They don’t understand that rulers of humandom are merely ‘making an ass’ of their subjects. Donkeys are still being derided and not extolled as they believe. We animals have nothing to fear as we are unpretentious, but the real danger is to humandom, where if their subjects do not see through the game of their rulers, the whole humandom — like ‘La La Land’ of donkeys — will reverberate with the chorus, Garv se kaho....’