The Dedes have made themselves scarce after my outburst two days ago. I really think it wasn’t that big an outburst to justify their reaction. I just told them what was on my mind and you should be able to do this amongst friends, shouldn’t you? I wanted to give them an idea about how to improve themselves and education is always a good thing, isn’t it? But judging from their reaction I must have hurt them a lot!

Philosopher is the only Dede who still speaks to me apart from Bad Conscience (the guy I am not so keen on). Philosopher told me they always believed our relationship was based on mutual love and respect, but my outburst indicated that my love for them was somewhat lesser than theirs for me. But he added in his opinion there is no way you can measure love, he was only the bearer of the message. This is his style of telling me the subject is not open for discussion. He has no mandate to speak on behalf of all the Dedes. And he added: “I personally love you all the way to the moon and back.” It was heart warming and I had to give him a hug, even though he is not the huggy type of puppet.

While we were having our conversation something was going on at the front door. At first I ignored it. It sounded like an entire army of rats or possums or cats were running over the front porch. But then I heard whispering as well and I knew the Dedes were up to something. I had to ask Philosopher.

“They are doing a Dharna” he said. I looked at him blankly.

“They didn’t know either what it was, but Arindam suggested it to them. You know their friend from India? He seems to think it is an effective method to get an apology from you!”

He told me that after Arindam had planted the idea, Mouse had invited them all to the kitchen to look up on the internet about how to do a Dharna. They figured out a Dharna is a means to show the world that somebody had not treated them in a just way. So, they have to go to the offenders house and fast on the doorstep until they get justice or die.

I’m sorry if they got it wrong, it was their first attempt and they had to learn it via the internet. When they voted on whether they should go ahead, Devil immediately said he thinks it is basically a good idea, but with his love for food, there is no way he could participate. He suggested to send Skeleton Edeltraut to my doorstep, as she doesn’t eat anyway. Even though they thought it was a brilliant idea, they all agreed one puppet on my doorstep wouldn’t have much effect. After all, they all had been offended by me. In the end they decided there are enough Dedes to divide them up into groups and take 8 hour shifts. As long as Skeleton Edeltraut was always there, surely no passerby would notice that they had swapped. And then they went to bed to start in the morning.

The first shift is out there now.