Crockery Conversations – 3. The Finale.

If anyone were to look at the proceedings of the Manor, they’d assume that everything was fine. The lazy, slow ways of life were going on in circular fashion, and the humans were acting their redundant selves. Only, outsiders can’t hear the very alive crockery.
The crockery of the house was in numb shock. They lived each day in doubt, waiting for news. The possibility that perhaps only in this Manor did the crockery talk, and all their kind elsewhere was blatantly and helplessly mute, was something they could not digest.
That is when Alexander, an old english bowl, broke. He had gone fragile as the years passed by. As his body lay there in shards till a human would come see it, he let out a peculiar purple liquid. The rest of the crockery had not noticed anyone’s dying so keenly. Besides, the crockery were very carefully added, and anything hardly ever broke.
It seemed like a safe time to go investigate, with no humans around. Couple of the young, mystery fan jars got down carefully and prodded the pieces around, and tried to find out something about the liquid, that was soon disappearing.
They wondered whether the Manor and its inmates were enchanted, or it was simply old Alexander’s last body fluid‘s that they were handling.
The wise ones decided that the only way to get to the bottom of this was by method of elimination. They concluded that there were two possibilities – either only they could talk, or that other crockery all around the world did talk but maybe in a different language.
They lived in a state of anxiety, wanting to confirm either of the possibilities, when at last, the yearly cleaning days came. All the crockery and other stuff in each room of the manor would be bought down, and cleaned. This was an opportunity to ask the old ones in the far off rooms, if they had any idea of what was the source of their linguistic abilities.
Among the stuff in the attic they found a carved scripture, which was also a show piece. Since it was not part of the crockery, none ever interacted with it. They didn’t even know if it spoke like they did. But now they were desperate and needed information. They prodded the circular, plate-like object. It seemed to be in a deep sleep.
When it was finally roused, he spoke in a deep, wheezing voice, and coughed every few minutes.
He said that he had been made by one of the oldest crockery makers, and that everything was enchanted earlier, not because the makers wanted it to be, but because the pureness of their hearts flowed in to their crafts through their hands. These days, there was mass production by machines, and the maker’s hearts, empty and bothered by the concerns of a plastic life. Thus, the enchantments were fading. The manor at the crockery was lucky, that so many of the enchanted ones were together in the same place. He knew of houses where only one piece of crockery could talk, and no one to understand it. Driven to desperation, the piece of crockery would finally be too lonely, and break itself with an intentional fall.
With a deep sigh he ended his narrative, saying that this was the reason why he preferred to sleep. It took him to better times.

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• Crockery Conversations! Part 1 (whizwoman.wordpress.com)

Crockery Conversations! Part 1

The lights were switched off after the kitchen was cleared of its dinner contents, and the owners of the house retired to their respective bedrooms, some for reflection, some for rest. That is when other beings came to life. Those beings, which weren’t spared, much thought by anyone, as they were silent spectators throughout the day, to everything that was happening, secretly or otherwise. It’s as if they were a part of the background and had melted into the walls. They say walls have ears. What they do not say is that crockery has ears too, and mouths. They do not say it, primarily, because they don’t know themselves. Crockery, as beings, are, secretive, to say the least.

As the clock chimed twelve and got down from its stand to have a chat with the newly bought wristwatch, the crockery assumed it as a safe time for conversation. Mrs. Pott, quite naturally the biggest teapot around, who showered motherly affection over the rest, as well as bossed them a little, sat for a round of gossip.

“Do you remember what happened this day, about 50 years ago?”

One of the plates said, “We were bought to this mansion then, is it not?”

“Yes, quite a lot of us have been withered and recycled now, serving other households. Yet, compared to the kind of crockery made these days, we are much more durable”, she said, slyly glancing at the China plate who was sitting at some distance.

Mrs Pott wasn’t much interested in Politics. She only knew that Communism, China, and other words beginning with the letter C were unfavourable. And having lived with such a mind set for about 50 years, now, was like expecting a frog to sing in a concert. (My request is that this comparison be taken in an old fashioned sense, as frogs do sing these days, and get away with a lot of money. JB and RB are good examples)

Mrs. Pott was of good English make, and although not very happy about being in Indian household, she soon realized that this wasn’t any Indian household. It was a royal one. She soon made piece (err, peace) with other Indian crockery, all except the paan-daan, or where they made the betel leaf refreshment. She hated the hideous red pigment and the stain it left. And rightly, so, she thought, as it was later found that tobacco had with it caused cancer.

But, anyway, getting back to the current topic of conversation, a new lad, by the name of Snoop Mugg, had entered the tea and coffee section. The younger cups were very enthusiastic about this new entry, as that meant a lot of chatter from where he came from, and of the people it had served before. Mrs. Pott, however, did not approve of him. First of all, it was shaped like a dog, and she knew what the place of dogs should be. Definitely not in the kitchen.

She irked at how people and crockery mixed so freely these days. The new daughter-in-law of the household, for example, was a Muslim. How could they just blatantly inter-marry like this? She was firmly sure, that if the ancestors of this Manor were still alive, who had a good sense of where each person’s place was (much like the British, she nodded approvingly) they would never let this happen, never pollute the pure blood like this.

At the mention of the words “pure blood” a coffee mug that was a favourite of one of the book loving teenagers of the house, said “Pure blood, as in out of the Harry Potter books that Priya reads while she sips coffee?”

“Who is this blasted Harry Potter now?”, asked Mrs. Pott, irritated at being interrupted.

The mother of that mug quieted him, rightly, for a fight would have ensued, and Mrs. Pott would have dominated. A sudden noise startled them, and they realized the cook had come to heat the water that Maalkin had first thing in the morning. They had lost all idea of time in their gossip. Or maybe the Clock forgot to chime because of its chatting. We shall know what exactly happened, in the next little sneak peek into this queer household..