Jaldi''s Friends , livre ebook

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd - Kalpana Swaminathan

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

111 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

A pup with ESP, a benign elephant, a kidnap and a Secret Service led by the famous Rani of Bandalbaaz!This swift and racy tale of the adventures of Jaldi, a railway puppy with special powers, is set against the backdrop of Bombay''s notorious underworld.Recruited for the Secret Service by the elegant and ferocious Rani, Jaldi must use her powers to find JP and BB, the evil duo who want to destroy the historic friendship between the proud Bombay Strays and the humans who share their city.Can Jaldi outwit the killers and the crafty TickTock? With her Uncle Musafir, King Ilango the Elephant, and other assorted friends, Jaldi plunges headlong into mayhem and adventure!

Informations

Publié par	Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
Date de parution	26 septembre 2003
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184758955
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

KALPANA SWAMINATHAN
Jaldi s Friends
Illustration by Anita Sen
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
I Qualify for an Expensive Education
My Uncle Musafir
Old Colonel Irani
An Accident and a New Friend
Meeting the Mahatma
Berry and King Ilango
A Midnight Adventure
The Rani of Bandalbaaz
We Organize a Hijack!
The Rani s Run
Homecoming
Yogi
An Evening of Genteel Company
Jailed
4th October
Preparing for Battle
The Battle of Sher-e-Punjab
Walking Through the Dawn
Author s Note
Glossary of Names
Copyright Page
PUFFIN BOOKS
JALDI S FRIENDS
Kalpana Swaminathan is a surgeon and writer. Her books for children are The True Adventures of Prince Teentang, Dattatray s Dinosaur, Ordinary Mr Pai, The Weekday Sisters, Gavial Avial and a collection of detective stories, Cryptic Death . She shares the pseudonym Kalpish Ratna with Ishrat Syed, and their writings on science, the arts and literature appear in several publications. Their first book together is Dr Wrasse of Crystal Rock .
Kalpana lives in Bombay.
For Gopi
This book could never have been written without Gopi (1970-81), boon companion in capers, revels, mad adventures, four-legged philosopher whose brief lifetime of wisdom continues to nourish mine.
I Qualify for an Expensive Education
I first learnt that I was meant to be different one day early in September, when Mother woke us even before we had finished our early morning dreams. Jaldi! Masti! she whispered, urgently prodding our stomachs with her intelligent nose, which was her usual way of waking us. I was awake at once, but Masti still slept, twitching his black button of a nose, sniffing his dream.
I pulled his tail gently. I d almost caught it, he grumbled as he opened his eyes. It ll get away now! Don t you know you can never catch a dream a second time?
It s Mother, I whispered, she s calling us.
Masti bounded up. The others still slept, curled in the sack beneath the bench: Slow in a tight ball, as usual, and Yogi with his head between his paws. It would be no use trying to wake Slow. Yogi came readily enough, though I was worried about his not being rested enough. Father says Yogi needs more sleep than the rest of us because of his brains, and he had been so strange all week, I was sure his brain was all worn out.
All of us, except Slow, had stopped breakfasting on Mother a week ago, and the brisk morning air made our teeth keen to gnaw on something hard. Now, children, be quick over your breakfast, Mother warned. We are expecting an Important Visitor.
Visitors are rare with us, and not since just after our birthday in July had we any company. I wonder who it is, Masti said, crunching up his rusk in a hurry, perhaps it s Grandfather.
Yogi snuffled over his rusk, thoughtfully turning it over and over between his paws. Grandfather s unlikely to walk this far. His legs are terrible, I heard him telling Mother last week. They always take us to see him, to save the wear and tear on his legs.
Eat up, Yogi, I said, worrying his ear to encourage him.
Perhaps he isn t hungry, Masti suggested hopefully. You know how Mother hates waste

But I pulled Masti away, and we had a grand tussle, leaving Yogi in peace with his rusk. There s nothing quite like a glorious tumble early in the morning. We jumped and leapt at each other, growling fiercely, and enjoying it all most tremendously. Masti butted me like a goat, and I rolled down the piled sacks faster and faster, till I landed in the soft nest of husk beneath.
How the dust from the husks flew up my nose and tickled me! I shuddered from nose to tail-tip as I shook with one tremendous sneeze.
When I opened my eyes, I looked straight into the eyes of our Important Visitor!
Father was there too, though it was so early. He gave me an encouraging look. Mother s always telling us to mind our manners, and I felt sad at having disgraced her, tumbling like that before our Important Visitor. There was no help for it, however, and I made my best bow, hoping the husks were not too noticeable on my brown coat.
To my surprise, Mother only smiled. This is the one I told you about, she explained to our Visitor.
Hmm. Let me see, the Visitor pointed her long aristocratic nose in the air above my head, and cocked one ear.
Masti came sliding down the sacks just then, and like me, was put out to find himself in company. Our Visitor nodded graciously at him and asked my mother if there were any more of us.

Yogi! Slow! Come over, you rascals! Father called gruffly and soon Yogi shuffled in, his rusk in his mouth. He placed the rusk politely within reach of the Visitor s paws. Slow s asleep, he announced, shattering the alibi I had been frantically preparing for Slow.
Then we must let him sleep, our Visitor said. Now children-listen! And she cocked her ear alertly, her sensitive nose quivering in the air. Tell me what you can hear, what you can smell.
Mother had often played this game with us, but she was never so tense about it. The Visitor seemed to think it was important to answer right. I suspected it might be Education. Shut your eyes, it helps, our Visitor said kindly. Mother watched expectantly. Father had gone outside the shed, where he was pacing about impatiently.
I can hear the Frontier Mail, Masti said. It s about ten miles away. I can hear the alarm go at the crossing as the gates shut. I can hear a man with a bad leg crossing the road near the Bakery-
It isn t a bad leg, it s an artificial one, Yogi corrected him. One of the new ones, not the old wooden sort like the Milkman s father has. I can smell hair oil on the Newspaper Boy. He s two crossings away-and late! The bright green iced cakes in the Bakery are going stale. He never should have used that colour-
That s very clever of you, children, our Visitor said. And what does Jaldi have to say?
Tumbling in the husks was nothing to the way I was about to disgrace Mother now. I looked at her imploringly, but she wouldn t meet my eye. The truth was that I couldn t smell or hear as well as Masti and Yogi. The things I smelt or heard were usually quite different.
Just tell us what you think, Mother said, as she always does, a dozen times a day.
There was no help for it, so I said, I smell fear. I think it s a small girl who s frightened. The signals were flooding in urgently. She s getting more scared every second, I yelped. Oh Mother, shouldn t we do something to help?
Well, let s find out for ourselves what the trouble is, our Visitor said and trotted gracefully out of the shed. Mother ambled after her and the three of us followed as fast as our short legs would carry us.
You had better take us there, Jaldi, Father suggested as we turned the corner. I think you ll find that you know the way.
So I led the procession, and very proudly indeed, as the Important Visitor stepped aside for me. I knew there was a long way to go, but luckily, the wind was helpful and led me across the busy road, through the market, and down one of the twisting lanes that leads to the highway. There we found her at last, a little girl crouching behind a garbage bin, and crying as though she hadn t a friend in all the world.
For some reason, our Important Visitor turned to Mother with a triumphant look. You see? she demanded proudly.
Mother did not congratulate her; in fact, she hardly took notice of the remark. Instead, she edged protectively towards the child. Her mother s probably picking rags somewhere close by, she told us. Yogi, Masti, see if you can keep her amused while Jaldi helps us find her mother.
This was difficult, with the distracting smell of garbage driving every other signal out of my head. Father was very patient with me. Twice he had to gently draw me away from enticing scents. Our Important Visitor was no help at all. She simply followed us, stopping now and then to look back at how Yogi and Masti were managing.
We found the child s mother at last, stuffing a large sack with bits of plastic and paper she had salvaged from the dump.
It wasn t easy at all, making her understand that her child was frightened and miserable at being left alone with nobody to mind her. Father says we mustn t be impatient with beings of low intelligence, but you can t always be patient, can you? That s the trouble with people: they always expect dogs to understand what they have to say, but it never ever strikes them that dogs like to be heard too. They have words enough to describe the sounds we make: bark, whine, growl, yelp-but they simply lack the intelligence to find out what we mean. This woman was no different. Father was very persuasive, not minding even when she threw a stone at him.
Don t be angry, Father warned me over his shoulder. You won t be able to dodge cleverly if you lose your temper. I caught the end of the woman s sari and tugged it gently, and with Father barking and backing away from her all the time, we managed to get her to follow us. She broke into a run when she caught sight of her baby, and snatched her up hastily, angrily shooing off Yogi and Masti.
Come away, children, the job s over, Mother called.
The woman shouted at us, waving a stick threateningly-believe it to not, she actually thought we had been about to harm her child! Father laughed sadly as he led us away.
Yogi sat down there, right in the middle of the road, listening with great interest to what the woman had to say. Come on, Yogi, I said anxiously. Mind the traffic!
But Yogi sat there immovable, and had to be finally dragged away by Father, just in time to escape a rickshaw s wheels.
He explained later when we were back home that he had been trying to understand her mind.
You re crazy, Masti told him flatly. Why do you have to understand her mind? She isn t even family! You re crazy.
So Yogi stood on his head (well, almost) and crossed his eyes and lolled his tongue out just as he always does when Masti calls him crazy, which is roughly about a d