The Bat Tattoo

24 Roswell Clark

As I worked I asked myself from time to time, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Because it seems to want me to, was the only answer I could think of. I let the wood come to me and as I progressed safely from adze to chisel and gouge I watched my blades cutting away whatever wasn’t the it that I was doing. Or maybe it was doing me.

In The Times this morning there was a tiny little item from Bangalore. The people of Karnataka, it said, are worshipping a one hundred-tonne rock that fell off the back of a truck. This rock was on its way to a temple where it was going to be carved into an image of the monkey-god Hanuman. Every time I think of that I shake my head and smile. Very perceptive, those Karnatakans.