In the magical world of fairies, elves, pixies
Harvinder Khetal
Sweeping across a sweltering summer session, the scented showers from the sky changed the scene spectacularly and sent smiles to every single soul and swamped cyber space with smileys.
It was the perfect weather for a bit of indulgence in fried fare. I settled with a plateful of McCain’s sunny-faced Smiles reddened by a dip in boiling oil. All very prosaic. Till, even as I was savouring the aloo tikki, a ping signaled the landing of this smiley-loaded sentence in my phone’s message box:
“When it rains in India, it is the duty of potatoes/onions to cover themselves with gram flour (besan) and jump into boiling oil! ”
After that, it was all very poetic. Every prose turned into verse. The wrinkle simply gave way to a twinkle in the eye and a dimple in the cheek. I imagined wedges of potatoes and rings of onions excitedly wrapping themselves in seasoned gram flour and jumping into the frying pan sizzling with hot oil and offering themselves to one and all for consumption as delectable fritters (pakoras), all on their own! No, I corrected myself, letting my imagination take further wings! They wouldn’t have been able to do it on their own, I decided, as my imagination went haywire.
The vegetables would surely need help from the creatures of the mythical world to jump in and out of the pan. Fairies! Yes, the delicate, diminutive fairy godmother dressed in gossamer white with prominent wings and armed with a magical wand first came to my mind. Excellent! A wave of her wand would be enough to make the onions, potatoes and a lot other vegetables dance to her tune.
A fairy is a small imaginary being of human form that has magical powers, especially a female one. Fairies appear in many shapes and in almost all cultures. Our moms and grandmoms often regale us with folklore featuring beautiful malice-free and well-intentioned paris and apsaras.
Across time and space, these creatures have occupied a delightful place in literature and oral tradition. Aladdin and his jinni from Arabic mythology, the nymphs of Greeks brought to life by Homer, the gandharvas (semi-divine celestial musicians) from the Sanskrit lore, Cinderella’s fairy and the Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs are some of the legendary magical beings criss-crossing with the lives of human beings.
Once transported to the enchanting world of my childhood fantasies, there was an unleashing of so many more supernatural creatures and tales featuring them. I was tickled pink (delighted) as images of exquisite gnomes, goblins, elves, elfins, imps, brownies and pixies vied for space and qualification to assist in matters magical. And, why not? Getting a potato to fry itself into a fritter should be child’s play for each of these wee folk.
But who are these small elusive beings? The generic term covering these fellows is sprite. The sprites that usually come with pointed ears are elves. Considered to be immortal, elves are usually depicted as little attractive men living in forests, caves and underground places. JRR Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" is populated by such elves.
The gnome (pronounced nome) is that little bugger that hides in the garden. This benevolent bearded man donning a colourful pointy hat loves nature, earth and wildlife. Figurines of gnomes are often found decorating the front lawns of European homes. These figurines originated in the 19th century in Germany, where they are known as Gartenzwerge (garden dwarfs).
A troll, in these days of social media explosion needs no introduction. This fearsome creature from Norse mythology appears as a fiendish giant – similar to the ogres of England. A folk of the wilderness, it is found underground in a mound or cave. Hiding under bridges is its favourite pastime.
Another evil and annoyingly mischievous creature is the grotesquely disfigured goblin. So is the more popular dragon. Dragons appear to be created from parts of various creatures. They might have eagle's feet and wings, lion's front paws, head of a snake, scales like a fish, giant horns and an alligator’s body and tail.
All these mischief makers are amusingly credited with small little upheavals in our lives and help smoothen out the wrinkles into twinkles. For example, when last week due to a technical glitch, I found myself sharing credit to “Take My Word” with the boss in cyber space for a while, a colleague with as active an imagination as me in matters magical, wittingly attributed the faux pas to “Naughty elves at work!” I am more than happy with her observation.
The tiny imps took the form of Oompa-Loompas in Roald Dahl’s classic “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” as I read it again recently with my eight-year-old niece. The cheerful story of the adventures of 11-year-old boy Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric Willy Wonka took me back to my childhood and, surprisingly, I enjoyed reading it with her at this age as much as I did when I first read it as a child so many years ago. Oompa-Loompas are a race of small people who help Wonka operate the factory.
And then, the other story replaying with my niece after a generation is that of the tooth fairy. Yes, the little girl expects and gets a chocolate every time she loses a tooth even though she is skeptical about the existence of such a fairy. As they say: The kids these days are too smart.
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