The Inside Story: Unfurl that umbrella!

MY COUSIN Advaith is a strange guy. He’s tall and gangly. His legs seem to stretch right upto his shoulders. Is that because he’s from Shimla, which is in the sub-Himalayan foothills? Does the cold make you grow and grow and grow? He’s constantly muttering strange stuff under his breath. “What’s that?” I asked him yesterday. He blinked, then shrugged. “Nothing, pipsqueak,” he said in a superior 14-year-old way, “just composing a song in my head.”

Advaith is a whiz at the keyboards. He just listens to a song once, then plays it right off. Is that fair, when my fingers get entangled in the guitar strings every time I try to strum? He’s our guest right now because his Ma’s in America.

This morning, I rose before the sun did. All because of Advaith. “That’s the best time to go for a run,” he declared last night, almost getting under the blankets with his track shoes on. I had to stifle a giggle as I watched. What if he refused to let me run with him?

Huff-huff, pant-pant, sniff-sniff, I go, trying to keep pace with Advaith, two steps to every one of his. I don’t look up at the leaves or sky too much. What if I fall far behind? Will Advaith wait for me? That’s when I feel the first drops of rain on my forehead. “Advaith, shall we turn back?” I ask. “Rain can’t hurt you!” he says, never breaking his stride. “You go back, if you want to…”

So I do, sprinting extra hard for the porch before the skies began to pour. “Imagine running with an umbrella held over you!” laughs a voice in my ear as I tug off my wet shorts. It’s Iffy, my secret best friend, who’s appeared. 

An Egyptian god under an umbrella

 “Did you know that in ancient Egypt, umbrellas were considered to be symbols of power?” asks Iffy. I don’t. So, I quickly change into dry clothes, get under his invisibility cloak, and off we go to the banks of the Nile.

“Aren’t those carvings way out?” I say. Iffy replies, pointing to a figure, “Those ceremonial umbrellas were said to represent the dome of heaven. Look at that hieroglyph. Its umbrella-shape stood for a person’s shadow, which was said to have secret powers that could bring the spirit back to life!” 

Even as questions bubble in my mind, Iffy and I arrive in ancient China. Iffy looks at me sternly when I gawk at the chinky eyes and drooping moustaches around me. “Don’t laugh,” he scolds, “can’t you see they’re dead serious?”

And so they are. We watch Chinese processions walk by, each person under an umbrella of gem-studded gold cloth. Airborne, Iffy and I glimpse one emperor set out on a hunt. It’s so funny. Before him are 24 decorative umbrellas carried by servants, just to announce his presence! Drifting away, we arrive in Japan where the Mikado (the old title for the Emperor) steps out of his palace with a red umbrella, the symbol of absolute power, held before him.

“In the Orient,” explains Iffy, “the dome shape of the umbrella was said to symbolise the sky.” I look at the Mickey Mouse umbrella I clutch at. I’d never thought of it that way!

Ancient Greece is our next stop. Its priests step out for a ceremony, shaded by umbrellas. Iffy holds my hand as we take in a funeral, where the corpse is umbrella-covered. Why, I ask. “That’s to keep the sunlight pure,” Iffy tells me, “not to keep the body from decomposing.” I’d never have guessed.

In modern Europe, we find the umbrella was ignored till almost the 16^th century. “Because the women in Greece and Rome used lightweight umbrellas or sunshades, the men felt they’d be teased by their friends if they followed,” Iffy explains. “But that’s until the church adopted the umbrella. The Pope even declared that only he could confer the privilege on those he chose!” Even my rainbow-hued umbrella, I wonder. That’s nuts!

What were the early umbrellas made of? Iffy and I check out one of whalebone ribs strung on wire, covered with oil-soaked cotton. It’s awful, I whisper. “But that’s not all,” he replies, “it often let the rain drip through!”

Before long, we watch what’s happening in the London streets. One man has an acorn attached to the handle. “Since the acorn was sacred to the thunder god, he hopes it’ll protect him from lightning,” says Iffy. Another elderly figure holds an umbrella that doubles as a walking-stick.

But why’s that fashionable lady sniffing at her handle? I nudge Iffy. “It’s filled with perfume,” he replies, “while others held daggers, writing materials or even flasks.” Isn’t that fantastic?

Suddenly, we’re in 19^th century Scotland. I’m puzzled until Iffy ushers me into the writing room of Robert Louis Stevenson, as he pens ‘Treasure Island’. “He felt only ninnies and sissies carried umbrellas. Or those who were scared of falling ill,” Iffy tells me. “Others feared society would laugh at them for being too poor to afford a carriage.”

I know I’ve got to dash back home in time to get ready for school. But before that, Iffy takes me on a quick trip to Ethiopia, where priests carry the most gorgeous sunshades of red velvet with gold decorations during a ceremony. I’m so dumbstruck that I can’t say a word. But I burst into laughter when I watch a Frenchwoman in a tiny skirt walk through Paris yesterday under a see-through bubble that’s her umbrella.

I have a sudden urge to share our adventures with Advaith. But will he understand? I’ll have to figure that out as Iffy and I gently drift home under the shelter of my Mickey Mouse umbrella. And then he vanishes ~ until our next trip together.

The Inside Story: Locks ~ The key to it all

“STUPID LOCKS! Who on earth invented them? Look at the mess we’re in now!” I stamp my foot outside our house, kick at the door, mad at being unable to find the right key. My parents, who are visiting my Didima, were sure my cousin Rohit and I could let ourselves in. After all, it’s only 4 p.m.

I empty out my schoolbag, but all I find are a clutter of pens, pencils, erasers, a tangle of string and too many textbooks for any one child. “Have you tried your pocket?” suggests Rohit. I stick my hand into my pinafore. And withdraw it sheepishly ~ with the key gripped tightly in my fist.

Rohit, who’s two years older, two inches taller, and almost smarter than me, offers to put together tea for us. He’s a whiz at baking, believe me! As I run up to my room to change into shorts and a T-shirt, a gentle breeze ruffles my hair, while a voice whispers, ”Do you know how old the oldest locks are?”

I hug Iffy, almost knocking him over. He’s my secret best friend, who’s appeared out of the blue. “Can we find out more about locks?” I beg him. Wordlessly, he wraps me in his invisibility cloak ~ and off we zoom.

Unusually, our first stop is a Bible showroom. What on earth are we doing here, I nudge Iffy. In response, he points out references to keys in the Isaiah passages. “They opened the oldest lock known to mankind, the pin-tumbler or Egyptian lock,” explains Iffy, as I gape at the rusty remains of the 3,000-year old contraption, found on the door of a palace in Khorsabad in Iraq.

In seconds, we zip over to look at some Egyptian carvings or bas reliefs dating back to 2000 BC. “Isn’t that a lock?” I point to a drawing in shock. Iffy nods. “These locks contained pins that kept the bolts from moving. When a brush-like key was put in, its pegs lifted the pins, unlocking the whole,” says Iffy. That’s cool!

Does that mean the ancient Greeks and Romans, who had a hand in everything clever, were left out? In a trice, Iffy and I frown over a bolt buried deep inside a door.
”That’s what the ancient Greeks used,” he says, “while the Romans came up with the ward lock…”

What’s that, I pester him. Peering into a strange-looking device, he answers, “Look, the wards or baffles project into the lock. Only a key to match the wards could unlock it.” Magically, he holds a tiny key on a ring out to me. “That could open a teeny-tiny lock the Romans invented,” he says mysteriously.

But we watch dozens of clever thieves pick the ward locks, common even in 18^th century Europe, with keys coated with wax to make duplicates. Not such a smart idea after all, I mutter.

“Watch this!” offers Iffy, as we catch up with Robert Barron, an Englishman who invented a lock with two tumblers in 1778. What’s a tumbler, I ask. “It’s a lever or pin whose position must be changed to open the lock,” Iffy tells me.

To my amazement, Iffy whizzes us off to London around 1790, where we watch a locksmith named Joseph Braman hang a notice in his shop window. It reads, “The Artist who can make an Instrument that will pick or Open this Lock shall Receive 200 Guineas the Moment it is produced. Applications in Writing Only.”

Then what happened, I wonder, intrigued by it all. “Braman’s design placed the slides, which kept the bolts in place, in a radial manner. It opened with a cylindrical key,” Iffy points out. For 60 years, even after Braman died, no one could best him.

Suddenly, we’re at London’s Great Exhibition of 1851. A New York locksmith named Alfred Charles Hobbs decided he would rise to the occasion. He worked on the lock for a few hours a day over a month ~ and then asked the Braman representatives over. What did they find? Their lock with its hasp open! My mouth hangs open at the sight.

           Iffy next takes me to visit Linus Yale, Jr., a painter who gave up on canvases to take up his father’s profession as a locksmith. In the 1850s, we watch him unlock all the best locks of his time, even the Parautopic Lock. “Guess what?” adds Iffy. “Often, he’d lock his own locks so that even their own keys proved useless.”

By 1861, Yale patented his cylinder lock. “It could be used on a door of any thickness, based on the Egyptian pin-tumbler principle,” explains Iffy. “These were mass produced, the world’s first unidentical objects thus turned out.” Isn’t that mind-boggling!

 

            As we hover close to our house, Iffy produces a bunch of strange locks. “Some locks today can be unlocked only by magnetic codes,” he says. “Others respond to small cards, which are actually electric circuits that trigger radio transmitters inside the lock. And very recently, there’s a lock that responds only to the sound of its owner’s voice.”

            “That lock would be perfect for me,” I shout out loud, as I reach home in time for Rohit’s scrumptious tea. But he hasn’t been with Iffy and me on our finding-out adventure. Should I tell him all about it? What do you think?