Unexpected Guests

“Who is there?” Chandrakant Mehta yelled from his bed. It had been raining continuously for the past few days. The Viswamitri river flooded some parts of the nearby towns. The people of Vadodara were practically under house arrest. There was a shortage of food.

It was still raining outside. But Chandrakant was sure that he heard some footsteps. He climbed out of his bed and picked up his metal walking stick. He was an old man who wore traditional clothes. He tucked the khukuri that his cousin had gifted him from Nepal, under the waist band of his dhoti. Then armed with his walking stick and his khukuri, he slowly unbolted the door of his bedroom and switched on the lights of the living room.

 The old man was frightened out of his wits at what he saw. A large crocodile was resting on the cozy sofa that  he had bought recently. “Hey Ram”, he shrieked, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. How could this be possible? He must be dreaming, he thought. Oh God, no, it was for real. The croc opened its eyes once, swished its tail as if to say hello to Chandrakant and went back to sleep. 

Hearing him scream his ten year old grandson Dhroov, fondly called Dhokla, came running downstairs. He turned into a statue as his eyes fell on the sofa. He remembered his friend Vipul telling him about crocodiles being washed up by the flooding river Viswamitri. Dhroov was a brave boy. He tried to calm down his grandfather. “Relax dada, I am here.” Saying this he went to the kitchen to get some water for his dada. One more surprise awaited him.

The door of the refrigerator was ajar and two juvenile crocs were rummaging through all the food. Of course they did not like the taste of vegetarian food. So they littered the floor with all the half eaten food. “Hey, what are you doing? Clean the mess right now” Dhroov ordered them. The two young ones looked at each other. Then like obedient children, they picked up all the food from the floor with their mouths and neatly put them in the bin that Dhroov showed them. 

As he was getting the kitchen cleaned Dhroov heard his mother screaming. He ran upstairs at once. He saw his mother was trembling, pointing her finger towards the washroom. Dhroov went inside to investigate. A crocodile was taking a bubble bath in his mother’s bathtub. It must be a female, Dhroov thought. Although it was frightening stuff, Dhroov could not control his laughter. “Mom, now she will come out wearing your dressing gown”. “Beta, let’s call the police”, his mother insisted. By that time Dhroov’s father had also woken up. But he was not in the least alarmed. Dhroov knew that his daddy was one of the coolest persons in town. He tried to calm down his wife. “Oh, Lalita, stop panicking. Didn’t you read yesterday’s Gujarat Times? These poor crocodiles have been washed up by the flooding river. They are helpless. We should not treat them poorly.” “Okay then, you treat them as your guests, I am going to my father’s house tomorrow morning.” And she stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door.

“Hello Vadodara police station? Please come and rescue us. There are crocodiles in our house”, Lalita dialled up the police station. “But madam, you should call the forest department. We do not know how to catch crocodiles. We only know how to catch criminals.” ” I don’t know, you have to come” Lalita sounded very angry. “Okay madam give me your address” the police officer said calmly. Before she had finished talking Lalita heard her son scolding someone loudly. She quickly came out of her room.

Dhroov was shouting at the two young crocodiles. “I let you play with my football but why did you bite it? Don’t you know you have such sharp teeth? Now my football is punctured. How would I play?” The two crocs hung their heads as if to apologise. Dhroov felt sorry for shouting at them. After all, they were children. 

It was almost dawn. The Vadodara police arrived in a jeep. The rain had stopped by then. They brought a big van with them. Twelve armed constables got down and surrounded the house. Meanwhile the crocodile family was sleeping peacefully in an air conditioned bedroom, under a soft fluffy blanket. The police had bought twenty kilos of meat with them. Two policemen carried a hefty bag containing the meat. They put some on the doorstep and asked Dhroov’s family to open all the doors and windows. Soon the smell of meat awakened the hungry crocodile family. Drawn by the smell, all of them came out. Seeing them, all the constables started shaking in their boots. The officer who had to show that he was brave put some meat on the road and made a trail till the prison van. All his men hid behind the van. The  hungry crocodile family followed the meat track and entered the prison van. As soon as the last one entered, they hurriedly shut the door of the van.

As the prison van carrying the crocodiles entered the police station, a huge crowd gathered to watch the spectacle. The people did not know that the crocodiles had been sedated. Many kilograms of sleeping pills were crushed and mixed with the meat. So the people who were excited to see the  struggle between the police and the crocodiles were disappointed. “But Sir where shall we keep them?” asked one of the constables. “Why? In the lock up”, the officer answered. Hurriedly the only lock up in the police station was vacated. The criminals who were inside, were asked to sit outside. Around twenty men struggled hard to lift the crocodiles from the van and carry them inside the lock up. The crowd entered the police station to witness the rare sight of crocodiles behind bars. And in the commotion the criminals slipped away. After a few hours when the forest department officers came to take the crocodiles away the police handed them a bill for twenty kilos of meat. When the forest officers refused to pay, a noisy quarrel broke out between the police and the forest department. Meanwhile at Dhroov’s house his mother was getting ready for office. Now that the crocodiles were gone, she felt relieved. She wanted to enjoy her bubble bath. She closed her eyes and relaxed. Suddenly something tickled her foot. She raised her head and saw a baby crocodile poking its head.

“Noooóoo…” A loud scream was heard outside.

Writer Of The Month June 2025 Aaranyak Ganguli

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