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jackals would worship me as a god.’
    ‘Very well,’ I agreed.
    Returning home, I gave my friends the news. They were delighted. ‘This will be good work indeed,’ they approved. ‘The world will benefit from it.’
    A few of us got together to form a committee, and we decided to name it ‘The Society for the Improvement of Jackal Behaviour’.
    There is an old holy porch in our village, fallen to ruin from long years of disuse. We decided to meet there after nine each evening, to engage upon the worthy task of making a man of
the jackal.
     

     
    I asked him, 'Young man, what do your brothers call you?'
    The jackal answered, 'How-How.'
    'Disgraceful,' I said. 'This will never do. We must first change
your name, then your appearance. From this day on, your name
is Shiburam.'
    ‘All right,’ he agreed. But the expression on his face told me that the name Shiburam was not as sweet to his ears as How-How. Well, there was no help for it. He just had to be human.
    Our first job was to make him stand on two legs. It took a long time. He tottered about with great difficulty, falling down every so often. It took six months to get him to stay erect. To hide his paws, we made him wear shoes, socks and gloves.
    At last our president, Gour Gosai, said to him one day, ‘Shiburam, have a look at your two-legged reflection in the mirror. See if you like it.’
    Shiburam surveyed himself in the mirror for a good while. He twirled and pirouetted and craned his neck, trying to view himself from every possible angle. Finally, he complained, ‘But Gosai-ji, I still don’t look like you, do I?’
    Gosai-ji pointed out, ‘Shibu, just standing straight won’t suffice. It isn’t easy to be human. What about your tail? Can you bring yourself to sacrifice it?’
    Shibu’s face went pale. The fame of his tail had spread to a dozen neighbouring jackal-villages. Ordinary jackals called him Fine-Tail. Those who knew jackal-Sanskrit had named him The Furry-Tailed One. He spent two days and three nights in an agony of indecision. Finally, on Thursday, he announced, ‘I agree.’
    His splendid auburn brush of a tail was cropped close to his rump.
    The committee members exclaimed in reverent tones, ‘Behold a beast delivered from bestial bondage! At last he is rid of his deluded affection for his tail! He is blessed!’
    Shibu heaved a deep sigh and, suppressing his tears, echoed in a small voice, ‘Blessed!’
    He had no appetite that day. All night, he dreamed restlessly of his lost tail.
    The next day, when Shibu appeared at our nightly meeting, Gosai-ji asked, ‘Now then Shibu, doesn’t your body feel light without that tail?’
    Shibu said unhappily, ‘Very light indeed. But something tells me that even without my tail, our complexions make us different.’
    Gosai-ji answered, ‘If you wish to remove that difference between your race and ours, you’ll have to sacrifice your fur as well.’
    Tinu, the barber, arrived.
    It took him five days to coax the fur off Shibu’s body with the razor. But Shibu’s new-found good looks confounded every one of us.
    Shibu asked worriedly, ‘Why don’t you say anything?’
    The committee answered, ‘We are speechless at our own brilliance.’
    Shibu felt somewhat at peace. He forgot about his cut-off tail and shaved-off fur.
    The members closed their eyes and said firmly, ‘Shibu, this is the end. Our society is here dissolved.’
    Shibu declared, ‘Now all that’s left is to astonish the jackal community.’
    Meanwhile, Shiburam’s aunt, Khenkini or Miss Yapper, had been pining for her nephew. She went to Hookkui, the village chief, and said, ‘Chief, why haven’t I seen my How-How for more than a year? Do you think he’s fallen prey to bears and tigers?’
    The chief replied, ‘Who’s afraid of bears and tigers? It’s men we have to be afraid of. Perhaps How-How’s fallen into their snares.’
    A search began. At last, the group of volunteers wandered into the bamboo thicket