It never rains...
Siddhartha Mathai George
[Unfortunately, I need to begin this story with a disclaimer. But since the disclaimer has spoilers, I’ve moved it to the Odds and Ends section at the bottom. So if you’re easily offended or automatically assume the worst of people, click here. Don’t worry, we’ll wait. If you’re pure of heart like me, go ahead and dive in.]
Once upon a time, there lived a shepherd in the hills of Andalucia. He was a good shepherd, not in the biblical sense, but in the sense that he took good care of his sheep. Now shepherding is not rocket science. Sheep are relatively uncomplicated creatures and any sudden upward motion probably means that you are doing something very wrong. All this is not to suggest that the shepherd did no wrong when it came to his sheep. He made mistakes, like everyone does. Sometimes his sheep got sick and ever so rarely, one even died. But this happens to all sheep, and to all shepherds.
Now it is important to know that our shepherd did not own the sheep he looked after. The people of his village did, and they gave them to the shepherd to look after through the day, while they went about their own business. And at the end of each day he would return them to their pens in the village to sleep. And then take them out again the next morning to the same pasture he always used. He wasn’t the most adventurous of the shepherds in the village. He didn’t take his sheep up to the highest meadows where they said the most succulent grass grew. The result of course was that he wasn’t the best paid shepherd in the village- not by a long shot. And yet he was happy with his lot. He had good stout boots and a thick coat that kept him warm in the cold and kept out the rain, on the rare occasions when it did rain.
Every year, the elders of the village would speak to each of the shepherds in the village. The village was known for its sheep and the wool they generated and the elders did everything they could to ensure that that reputation was maintained. Every year they would tell the shepherd they were happy with him, that his sheep were always well looked after and that the only problem any of the owners of the sheep had with him is that he would occasionally bring them back very late at night. Sheep, being creatures of habit, didn’t like this very much but given that he took good care of his sheep otherwise, the elders did not take this further than a mild rebuke.
The shepherd’s most prized possession was a wooden flute that he had bought at a fair in the neighbouring town. In the middle of the day while he sat in his meadow under a tree to escape the heat of the sun, he would sometimes play a tune on his flute. Again, the shepherd wasn’t a musical virtuoso. He played his tunes because he liked to. And the sheep didn’t seem to mind too much either.
There was a Jew who lived in the village. He was a big, jolly man with a big, jolly laugh and a big, jolly belly that would jiggle in time with his booming laugh. He was a showman, a teller of stories, a singer of songs, a beater on his drum, a juggler of coloured balls, a waver of magic wands, an eater of fire. His was a strange profession to practice in a village which knew only sheep, but he had lived there all his life, and the people of the village were as proud of his jolly belly and his jolly laugh as they rightly were of their sheep.
The Jew travelled on the roads around the village, and his travels would frequently bring him past the meadow in which the shepherd tended his sheep. It was on one of these trips that the Jew first heard the shepherd playing his flute. He was immediately enthused. Come with me! he said. We will travel all over Andalucia! You can play your flute while I play my drum and sing. You know how the people of Andalucia love to dance. Yet there are only so many beats I can play on my drum. You can play them so many more lovely tunes. Come! Come!
The shepherd was in two minds. The past few years had been good for the village and the number of sheep had multiplied manifold. That meant of course that for the previous few years, the shepherd was simply too tied up tending bigger and bigger quantities of sheep to even play his flute very much, leave alone travel away from the village. But the last six months or so had been bad for the village. A strange disease had swept through the hills of Andalucia and by the time it left, the sheep population of the village had been decimated. While this meant that times were hard for most of the village, the shepherd was secretly happy because he had a lot more time to himself. There were days when nobody brought sheep to him at all. There were days when he had nothing to do but sit in the field under his tree and watch the clouds sail by. And best of all, he now had all the time in the world to play his flute.
And so the shepherd agreed to go along with the Jew’s proposal. Whenever the shepherd had a day when no sheep were brought to him in the morning, he would listen out for the Jew’s booming laugh and together they would travel the back roads of Andalucia, entertaining people. And other days, the shepherd would take the few sheep that were brought to him out to the fields. Every so often, when he was in a particularly good mood, the Jew would promise to give the shepherd some of the money that people paid to hear and watch them. But the shepherd didn’t ever hold the Jew to his promise. He knew that this was hardly rich country, and the Jew made just enough money out of his travels to support himself. And anyway, he did it because he enjoyed it. Because it gave him an opportunity to play his flute.
But there was something that the shepherd had failed to consider. People will only listen to the same tunes for so long, before they get bored. And it takes time to compose a new tune. The shepherd couldn’t travel with the Jew unless he had new tunes to play. It got to the stage that if he had not come up with a new tune, the shepherd would tell people in the village that he was taking sheep out to the high pastures and then hide from the Jew in his usual field. Sometimes, the Jew would come out to the field looking for the shepherd, and the shepherd would have to hide up in the branches of his tree, and wait until the Jew gave up and went away.
And then when he had come up with a few new tunes, he would come out of hiding once again and he and the Jew would wander again through the hills of Andalucia, pretending nothing had happened.
It doesn’t often rain in the hills of Andalucia. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, after all. But sometimes, it pours.
And sometimes, when it pours, an Andalucian shepherd has to wait, in the pouring rain, until all his sheep are safe and warm and asleep before he can go home himself and play a little tune on his flute. And maybe somewhere, someone is listening.
Odds and Ends
So. The Jew of this story is intended to be a puntastic reference to Aju of Rainmaker. Geddit? A Jew? Aju? I have no dislike of the Jewish religion or indeed any particular liking for any other religion (except Kratos, because he rocks). No offence whatsoever is intended. If you’re still offended, you should really go get your sense of humour checked. Really.
Go back to the top here.
The Jew is not Sikh Transit. Neither is Aju. I won’t tell so stop asking.
In case you, like me, were wondering what exactly Pringles were, now you know.
Some other randominteresting, if morbid stuff.
When you’re plagiarising, try to remove the author bio at the end.
