Blanket Babies

I need to introduce a lifelong friend; a friend who's been constantly at my side from the cradle. This friend stays young, and when age comes, she is renewed. Somehow she is always fresh and fair. She warms me when I'm cold and cools me when I'm hot. In my native land she's cast off not long after infancy, but in India she's acquired new fans, and I'm happy to say her latest recruit is my handsome carer and lifelong friend, Devaraj whose name means God King.

In UK they're hardly given a second thought, but the other day when I sent a lady into town with a specimen to see if we could get another one, I became fascinated with the reports that came back to me. They had never seen anything like it. Too good for here, they said; and another added that nowhere in Tiruvannamalai could you get a thing like that. “Try Spencers Plaza in Pondicherry” added another one, “They've got them in there”. How people who have just seen something for the first time have no idea about it in the first minute, and yet know exactly where they are sold in the next is something I never really managed to understand, but at least I felt that I was on the trail, and that one way or another the cellular blanket may be had in India.

The greatness of the blanket is that it starts on you in a miniscule way. It jokes with you a bit by not feeling in the least bit warm when it touches your skin — the feeling is cool, although not unpleasantly so — it's a light covering more reminiscent of cotton slacks you'd wear in the tropics to let your skin breathe in the heat of the day. After a few minutes of having the blanket on my lap I touch it again, and again am greeted by coolness, but with a subtle difference: my legs feel warmer without being warmed; they feel as if they're starting to make their own heat, the body cells being stoked and primed and winking into life.

Like a second skin the blanket breathes. The breeze passes me, or the the fan oscillates and every puff of air movement is felt under the blanket. It's no longer a question of 'me' and 'it': it's joined with me and is a part of my being. It suffuses and osmoses, rocking with the baby on the top of the tree as the bough in the wind. The wind kept everything light and airy, and my mother, in tune with her oft-sung nursery rhyme theme, kept in tune with the rocking air when she provided me with the new wonder blanket. Mum was a walking advertisement rep, and she told me about the blanket's magical properties in such a way that I learnt the words as catechism. In many ways, like her mother before her, she manipulated and domineered every domestic situation; yet her ways which would otherwise smother me to stupefaction were here aërated and mollified, until they were made as light as the soufflés she showed off to her neighbours — feathery clouding sponges of near-nothingness which didn't sink, however much you fanned them.

Blanket of snow, night's thick blanket or blanket weed in a pond: all of these are smothering words, terms that allow no breath to enter. Cellular these miracles may be, but blankets they are not.

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Research into this new kind of material was actively under way in 1952, and by 1955 Early's of Witney, Oxon had gone into full production. The material was taken up by hospitals in a big way, as being cotton, the blankets could be sterilized by boiling. One make which springs to make was made by Zorbit who made The Antibac® made for Hospital use only. I had one of those for many years.

Dysenteric Pebbles

For three days I wasn't able to make my day-time trips to The Cave: I'd gone into a close partnership with the toilet, and nothing could untie me for longer than 20 minutes. It was a shame, for a squirrel had given birth to a clutch of young, and was busy scampering and scuffling about as the did her frenzied nest duties. Before locking the doors, I'd enquired if she had access to the outside, and was assured that she jumped out through a ventilator near-by. For three days her brood hardly entered my mind, which was more concerned with where to pitch my tent to rest in the field of consciousness. In the phantom world between outbursts of heat and sweating, followed by tooth chattering cold. I called for blankets – lots of them, yet 20 minutes later I was drenched in sweat. Somewhere between these two states, there's a grey land where you can take your rest, and that's where I managed to sleep; I gobbled the slumber deeply and shortly before the cycle moved on, and I reckoned that the interval between the two states was about the same as Dawn and Dusk on the planet Mercury.

On the third day I rose shakily from my bed, initially unknowing whether I was dead or alive; but the smell that came to me as a entered The Cave told me that the dead thing definitely wasn't me. Something had passed away. The rotting stench was unmistakeable, yet not steady. It blew over in acrid little wafts. Our first thought was to make a search for a dead lizard as one of them passes away in the bookshelves every so often. However on this occasion nothing was found until our noses led us to the box where the squirrel had her kits. It was too late for two of them and the third, dehydrated and shrivelled, was squeaking its last, calling for milk we couldn't give. I was told wrong: the mother wasn't getting out by the window vent, but would wait until I made my daily entrance. I think that during the confusion and process of the guys propping me up, she must have scampered in and out.

Another squirrel has entered my life now, this time through the kitchen. She enters through the extractor fan over the cooker and is busy making her nest in a cardboard box full of wires, broken plugs and adaptors This is a more sensible choice for her, and I look forward enormously to watching the kits scuttle in and out. They all look like beach pebbles in embryo before they open their eyes, grey-backed with silver on the bellies; they're gobs of mercury waiting to streak along, just at the edge of field of vision, slipping past and gone so quick I wonder if anything was ever there.

The King's Life in the Balance

He was a pest, a curse, and a bane on so many of our lives. A rowdy of the first order, he bullied his way to the top of the trees. He only ate the sweetest, tenderest coconuts, supping out the centre of the young green fruits before wantonly throwing the remains to the ground, little caring that each bud he plundered would have given us an income, had we let them grow. He scared the kids, and seemed to take a fiendish delight in watching the kids run screaming back to their mums. He put us all on our guard, and waited for each of us to be alone before he'd appear in a doorway, growling from his belly and baring his teeth as he frightened us into giving up our last banana, or a tender guava, or a little bag of sugar or other sweets.

The monkey catcher came to catch him. He brings a cage with a trap door, and places tender food inside. Attaching the trap to a wire, he hides in the bushes, he melts into the leaves and soon the world forgets that he is there. Sooner or later a monkey is overcome by hunger or greed or both. He reaches in and finds the fruit secured. In tugging it he inches closer, then as he goes to grasp the prize — ker-lunk! the string is loosed, and that's our monkey trapped. Once that has happened, the rest is easy: the others, anxious to find out what's happened to their friend, will go to help. But the first one has worked his way into an inner chamber, leaving the first space empty, empty for another primate to enter. It's only a few hours more before seven or eight monkeys are encaged.

The cages are spacious, airy, roomy, and at all stages plentiful supplies of food and water are supplied. Before too long, two or three may be seen inside the cage, chatting and chewing, gossiping away about their new situation. One of them waves his paws expansively in the direction of the field, to explain the direction the troupe will be following next, as if he knows. He only needs to le the others think he knows.

Let's find out: The monkey man has lit a beedie and smoked it down to the stub. He asks for water, and a dish of rice and soup, before sitting on his haunches to consume his fare in similar vein to his cousins in the cage. The final stage of his job is drawing near, and with two large bags made of stitched-together paddy-sacks he hoops them over the other end of the cage. This also has a door, an escape door, and with a hucky-hucky-hushing sound he shoos them into the bag. A few deft sleights of the hand and the bag is released and tied and knotted, and we're handed a bag of wriggling monkeys.

Next step is grabbing a rider and hoiking the bag onto the motor-bike. We point ourselves away from the town and into the open road, deeper into the countryside, away from paddy, culture, crops and people. And while such places remain to us, we free ourselves and open up a further enterprise for them. We open the bag and shake it out, watching their bemused faces, as they purvey their land and wonder what's to steal. Adjusting from the darkness of the bag, they blink and wonder, even looking chattily in our direction as we let them out. For a few hours we were their captors, and now for many more they have their freedom; while we remain within our cages, made of bars you cannot see.

The King, however, never could be caught: he laughed defiantly as he bared his teeth, scorning the cages and bags, humiliating us all and out-witting the ruses of the monkey man. We settled down into an uneasy truce, we lived our lives and left the King to rule with tyranny atop the sighing trees.

Our King has Lost His Strength

And then there were the screams; the sobs, the cries of pain.

The Wheelchair Ridge becomes a Bed-rest

It made no sense, to hear the cries, and rush outside, and find the King of high trees crying on the ground.... Instead of Palm-fronds, leaves wet from a monsoon downpour now become the mattress for our King.      

The hard ridge I built to stop the wheelchair sliding into the soft silt becomes the place where Hero King will rest.

Oh yes, he was a nuisance sure, a plague, a pest, a background itch; it was our fervent wish that one day soon, the monkey man would catch him fast and bag him up so we'd carry him away, further than his kingly eyes could see, beyond our reach and out of sight and once and ever out of mind.

He cries for Help then shoos us off

Yet now it's different, now we want to know, what might have happened to make this fall from Grace. Was it a scorpion, or a krait, lurking in the bushy can-can tufts which blow and billow in the humid air? Was he stung? Did he fall? Nah! It seems unlikely, unbelievable that such a guy with street-cred such as this can fall, or break, or succumb in any way. Yet succumb he has.

We look up, suddenly suspicious of the electric cable, the government cable leaning on its rotting pole, sparking and hissing when the branches brush against it. Electricity, the unknown force, the unseen enemy of the Monkey King. His wives and children and minions, subjects all, are gathered in the bushes at the wall side of our compound. Seeing if we can help, they stare hopefully up, yet hiss at us if they think we mean him harm. Our Rowdy, our Nuisance, our Pest and Danger, and yet our King to climbed to heights and places where we can merely dream.

We Offer Food, the Choicest Monkey-fare we have...

A Small and Valiant Hero

It was over three years ago that a man arrived on my doorstep; in his hand was an ordinary shopping bag which he held away from me slightly, asking if I'd like to see what was inside. The bag heaved slightly, and I couldn't wait. I plunged my hands in to feel a ball of warm featheriness, and ever so gently lifted it out to see a guinea fowl whose beady eyes blinked in the bright light. So arrived Johnnie, a bird who was to be my pride and joy, keeping me company and strutting round the grounds to inspect everything and everybody.

Johnnie pecks for worms in an empty flower-bed

 Not only does he pick up worms, bugs and centipedes, but they say that he can pick pests and parasites off cattle too. He's very green, and a scrupulous biological control officer. There ain't no flies or fleas on him!

Clean as a Whistle

When you make a dive for Johnnie, he just crouches down on the ground, with a crooning noise ~ but only if you're human. If another animal tries to get near him, Johnny is off like a little rocket!

Within a few days of being birthed from his hand-bag womb, Johnnie has made himself completely at home. In fact, Johnnie treats the place as if he's lived here for ever.
And even longer than that.

No unauthorized entry allowed!

When it comes to John's bath, the team of appointed bathers move in to do their duty. Bathing is a great daily event here, and  for maximum satisfaction for all, it's carried out in a small enclosure at the rear of the house.

For some it's a pleasure, for some it's a chore; some just want to get on with their study jobs and not spend an hour being swallowed up by the bathing and exercising ritual, but for Johnnie this event carried out at 10.00 a.m. each morning is an important job and a positive delight.

Just the Thing to Wet My Whistle

The special treat is, for some reason, my dirty bath-water. This would doubtless raise some eyebrows, were it to be witnessed in the outer and greater world. But Johnnie is crazy about sipping it while it's still warm, and I maintain that there are some vital micronutrients and trace elements which Johnnie finds beneficial to his health.

This is a Good as it Gets

After the ritual of bathing, it's time to spend in quiet refection as we offer our devotions foe the day. Not to be left out, Johnnie is very methodical in his duties as a verger, and he pays his earnest respects to the many names and forms we give to the One Creator and the the source of all life and being:

Hail Ramana!

Hail Mary!

     A few days before we leave India, Johnnie becomes fully involved in the packing:
                                                     

Better sure they don't leave something important behind!

Master has packed all the Important Tablets.
Hope he takes Good Care while he's in England

 Good-bye dear Johnnie, you valiant wee policeman of a bird; I guess you're past middle age for a guinea fowl by now, and you must take good care of your health!
     Regulating his life according to a strict and fastidious routine, Johnnie goes off duty when the shadows of night begin to fall. Ensuring that he hasn't left any loose ends behind, he heads for his favourite tall tree, where he flies aloft to perch on his favourite branch, away from night predators and snakes.

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Johnnie has left us now. Gone to meet his maker, as it were: Yesterday while quietly feeding, he was set upon by a gang of five hungry dogs, who attacked and him before tearing him to pieces and eating him up. It feels indescribably sad, that a quiet, peaceful and devoted being should meet his end in this violent way.

Good-bye, dear brave friend: For more than three year you shared our lives and our houses. I hope your end was quick and that it didn't hurt too much. 

What did the Lady Really See?

As a child, I saw a program on the telly where a tasty meal was prepared and served upon a plate; the food then was held out toward the viewer offering you the chance of taking it out of the telly and enjoying it. From that time onwards, I’d held a hidden wish that one day someone would buy me a TV like that. Or at least if it wasn’t to do with cooking, I wished that the day might dawn on which a TV story would spill itself out of its electronic box and so come into my life. What I didn't expect was that the time would arrive when this would happen to me, when I was at the tender and highly impressionable age of thirty-five.

It was the mid 1980's, and after a sorry gap of one-and-a-half decades I found myself back in India, having fed on and swallowed the Mahatma Gandhi line with no thought as to how I’d digest the fish that he’d left wriggling on the hook. Caste distinction had gone, and brahmin and road-sweeper could now walk together in the garden of frangipani trees, even if they weren't yet ready to clasp hands or at least link their arms together.

I was staying in Madras (as it was then) as the guest of a merchant I'd met on my first visit, and for a few nights I was to be their guest before moving on into the deeper south. They now had a colour TV and an A/C living room with sofa, and they appeared anxious for me to watch the movie which had just started and, although part of my reason for coming to India was to get away from the telly, I felt unable to move off to the shady garden with a book. A guest was staying with them, a lady with a silent green silk sari who made a waft of scented wind in my direction as she swept by, for she wore fresh jasmine flowers tied into her hair. She was coming from the direction of my hostess's kitchen, bearing a small dish of ice-cubes, on the top of which were set four dark sweetmeats. I immediately recognised them as the Ferrero Rocher chocolates which I'd brought from England as a gift for my hostess. The Green Lady immediately opened the gold foil wrapping and popped one into her mouth, before sitting squarely on my right as she settled her ample bottom down on the settee like a mother hen on a clutch of eggs.


The film related the story of a love affair between a high-caste brahmin lady and a young man from one of the lower castes. Degree by degree the pair were fighting social prejudice and bigotry, their few triumphs and many set-backs musically unfolding in front of us. The vision in cool green had become so transfixed with the proceedings, that she'd returned to the 'fridge to get a few more of the diminishing supply of chocolates, and had even managed to replace the ice. Returning with her replenished dish, she gave me a little grin as she immersed herself in the story, saying: “I expect you're thoroughly sick of these, but for us in India they are a great treat! Mmmm” As I watched her sucking the dark cluster into her orifice, my glance flicked over to the left to where my new friend and object of adoration, Chandru, was standing in the shadow near the screen. Chandru my carer of a few weeks’ standing, was lurking with the look of I-don’t-belong-in-there on his face; Chandru, whose skin was the same colour as the chocolates which the Green Lady was devouring with relish.

In a flash I saw it all: India’s heart had long been torn by class division: when the mad slash of zealotry had taken his life away, Mahatma Gandhi had left his healing message for the Nation ~ the message that untouchability was a sin and a crime. Little by little the message had filtered down to everyone and now this middle-class home, this fan-cooled living room had become a melting pot for that message for me — on my right side the Green Goddess was munching away, and on my left was a young man from the caste of thr lower scribes, who had worked his way into the job of caring for me and had also seated himself in my heart. What more natural than for him to come to sit next to me on the same sofa as the Green Lady, watching a hopeless love affair on the TV, yet knowing that within this very room, racial prejudice was melting as fast as the ice-cubes in the lady’s saucer?

A vision welled up in me, a picture of harmony and peace, goodwill to all men. This very room was to be the melting pot, the microscopic picture of bonhomie which would radiate steadily outwards until it engulfed all of the sub-continent: after all, the ingredients were here, instigated by the very programme we were watching. It had reached the point where the lovers from different castes were being torn apart by family and social prejudices. It was very heart-rending too. The Green Silken lady took the corner of her sari with her left hand and wiped away a tear which had started to run down her cheek, whilst with her right hand she took another chocolate from its bed of ice and crunched noisily. That particular hazelnut must have been a hard one, for I fancied it had put up a valiant fight before getting crushed between her molars.


What was I waiting for? There ahead of me was the film, on my right hand was the lady, on the left my shadow-lurking lower-caste friend. Why not call him over to join us and we could all wallow together and end up being friends? Didn’t revolutions begin in the most unlikely of places, and hadn’t I read once that the Indian Mutiny been sparked off by a chapatti? What, in effect, was preventing me from calling him over? Only my own stupid self, I decided. I myself, who could soon be sitting alongside the very Indian waiting in the wings, I could be the spark that starts off a social revolution, if only I could conquer my own inbuilt sense of hesitation; besides, I knew already that these chocolates were a rich source of the euphoric drug theobromine, which was why one gave them as a token of love, didn't one? Deciding that my fears were groundless and that this was, after all, 1985, I patted the seat next to me with my hand and called him to come to sit by me, while making reassuring noises that there was no reason whatever to be afraid.

Chandru came over and sat beside me cautiously as he took my hand. The woman on the right sharpened her face so that her nose appeared much more angular than it was made to be, and the muscles in her body seemed generally to tighten up; she took one of the two remaining sweets off the melting ice and pushed it in her mouth, not with the lazy relaxed swing of a few moments early, but with an impulsive motion that was almost a twitch. “Oh of course,” she said, “I see he needs to come and help you back a bit” and stupidly I fell in with idea, with Chandru easing me back another inch or two onto the settee; but he carried on holding my hand after I’d become settled. The lady on my right began unwrapping the last clustered chocolate from its melting dish of ice and carried on watching the movie, which was now approaching its melodramatic climax, with plenty of tears and pleadings and tugging at the hamstrings of the heart. Chandru was holding my left hand firmly in his right, and I saw my short stubby white fingers poking out between his long and slender black ones. I looked down with a pang of shame, for I would have wished that mine were as long and graceful and delicately formed as his. He however did not seem to mind or even see the clash of what my eyes saw, for I think he felt another tension hitherto unknown to me. His hand-grip tightened, [DCS00020] but his entire body grew more fidgety, and he said: “Shall I get your bed ready for you to take some rest, dear? You have had a long journey of many kilometres and you should take some rest.”

My enthusiasm of a few moments ago evaporated, and I knew that with Chandru’s announcements, the magic of the dream was melting fast. I was aware of kitchen noises and cupboards being noisily closed. What sounded like a ’fridge door followed by a mallet sound. Soon after this, Milli the daughter of my friend entered with a beaming face and a dish of crushed ice fragments on which were borne more Hazelnut Chocolate Clusters. She looked sorrowfully at the green lady’s pool of water with its fast disappearing lumps and its twisted strands of golden silver paper. “How are you Chandru?” she said smiling. Scanned at [7-15-2010 16-09 PM (5)] “Heavens, look at the time! Night falls so fast in the tropics, and we fear your auntie will be worrying about where you have got to and believe me, you don’t want your bus to become bogged down in the traffic. This is Madras, not a country town you know!”  

Chandru’s twitching nerves now had an outlet, and he sprang up as if propelled on a spring. With a hurried thank you, and words of how much he had enjoyed the film, he jerked his limbs in several directions, and picked up his little overnight bag; he mumbled a hurried good-bye to me, and within a few moments he had left. Milli came over and sat next to me, offering me a Ferrero Rocher from its crushed ice-bed. I thanked her, but reminded her that they were a gift, and in England I could get them any time I wanted.

I stared vacantly at the TV and reflected that in distant childhood I'd been watching it and wishing that the magic drama being enacted on the box would spill out into living room. Now it had done that with the granting of my wish. This was my reintroduction to the new India, and I wondered whether I'd be ale to swim the waves without becoming engulfed by them. We all had seen different pictures, different movies, and my attempt to harmonise them marked the beginning of a struggle that was to puzzle me for many years.

Memories of an injured friend

The phone went "Hello," I said.
"There's a big bird in our garden, dear - I think it's nearly dead"
"I'll grab my coat & partner and we'll be there" and off we sped.

Attacked by something big and fierce, he flapped a bloody wing at me,
When I came near he spat and hissed and would have turned my hand to gore.
Out came the leather gloves and then he lunged and clawed and tore.

I held him fast, kept clear my face,
It was not hate but only pain
Which held him in that ruffled state

We took him to our garden shed,
Gave him water and a nice clean bed;
We'll see how he is tomorrow, I said

The following day dawned bright and clear,
Yet still I couldn't hold him near
Without exacerbation.

I soothed him, fed him, brought him viands
Till at last he fell compliant
When he on me became reliant.

Each passing day he drew a little near to me
He saw no further reason to attack, you see,
For

I soothed him, fed him, brought him viands
Till at last he fell compliant
When he on me became reliant.

I saw him next day, we'd called him Oúlu
He was more fluffy and more gainly,
Getting better and acting tamely

Another day, and he looked restless,
Grateful, and yet wanting to leave,
With us he'd had a safe reprieve

I soothed him, fed him, brought him viands
But now his look had turned defiant
No longer would he be my client.

Just one more day, his time was through
We'd let him free, no hullabaloo;
And then I clasped him with full care
Lifted him up, and threw him in the air.
He beat his wings and circled round about
Then he was up and he was Out
In seconds he'd relearned to fly
Then up he wheeled and vanished in the sky;
Up to greet the rising sun
Tu-whit, Tu-woo, and he was gone.


I soothed him, fed him, brought him viands
For now I knew I'd lost my client.
For each of us was self-reliant.

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Glossary: viands = food-stuffs, victuals

Grateful acknowledgment is made to http://www.decaturmetro.com/tag/injured-owls for the use of the photograph of an injured owl.



http://www.decaturmetro.com/tag/injured-owls/

Does Virgin have to be a Total Prune?

Dear Richard Branson,

The afternoon was so nice and bright, I thought I'd take my guys out into the back garden, where we relaxed to read or listen to some songs. I was finishing a book I had been deeply into and, remembering that my mobile could go on the net, I'd started googling a few interesting links, when I was interrupted with a mini banner which said:



I think my phone must have thought my mind as green as the grass on which I was lying; nonetheless I found my face turning a little pink as I dialled the Virgin helpline and prayed that a girl wouldn't answer:

"Hello Virgin Mobile, this is Lisa speaking," announced a member of your staff: "How may I help you?"

My face had now turned to a livid puce when I realised that my prayer hadn't really been answered at all; but I guess it had at least been modified, as I judged from her accent that "Lisa" wasn't from British shores. So I imagined a sunny backdrop, perhaps from Italy or the South of France, and that made it all so much better, even if I wondered why your staff are allowed to work in such exotic locations.

"Lisa," i said, "I'm lounging peacefully in the back garden with my friend and I've got my Virgin Phone and a Coke in my hand, and I've found a reference which has got me searching for the English meaning of a 1975 Indian song; but Virgin appears to be living up to its name and telling me I'm not allowed to read it. I'm think I'm big enough and old enough to take read the site, Lisa, don't you?"



"Oh John," she said, "I'm sure you are!"

I was sipping my Coca-Cola®, when something in the lilt of her Mediterranean voice went into alliance with a bubble in my mouth, and I snorted coke out of my nose into a fine spray which then broke out into a splattery cough which set her laughing, and it wasn't long before the virgin and I were cooing to one another like a couple of teenagers out on a first date. Between splurts and giggles, Lisa managed to spit out that to remove restrictions on my account she'd need to speak to a third party. Parties being in somewhat short supply at the time I managed to hook in little Rajah who's thirty years younger than me on the clock, but most would agree that at half my age he's more mature than I'll ever be. So for a few minutes he stopped fiddling with his own gadget and started playing with mine whilst promising the Virgin Girl that I was allowed to drink shandy now, and in his view I was over 18. "Make sure he switches off before rebooting his phone she said" Rajah handed her over to me in peals of silvery laughter, which was where I left her on that sunny day called Yesterday.

And Richard, have you been playing too? It's time to stop playing with your aeroplanes in the garden dear. Come in and eat your tea. Time to stop playing Nanny to me, because that's my job, not yours. Now off you go -- time to learn to manage your companies like a Big Boy!

Love John.

PS: I almost went of focus. What was the fuss all about?


I'd been finishing the Whistling in the Dark interviews, and was flicking through the intro again where I was reminded about the 1975 blockbuster film Sholay, "that finds an excellent parallel in the overtly gay, 2007 film Brokeback Mountain [which] ...is in fact the other side of Sholay, its off-screen side. The Yeh Dosti number sung by Jai and Veeru on a motorbike emerges as a queer song when when one scrutunises its lyrics and imagery."


Yeh dosti from the film Sholay (1975)



Yeh dosti — from the film Sholay

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Refs:
Raj Rao, R. 2000: Memories Pierce the Heart: Homoeroticism, Bollywood-Style, in Andrew Grossman (ed), Queer Asian Cinema: Shadows in the Shade, p 305. New York: The Haworth Press.

A queer reading of the song Yeh Dosti is set out in the author's forthcoming novel: Engineering College Hostel (Penguin).