Uncle Annamalai visits the site

Mum Lioness returned from a morning darshan to find the cave strangely quiet. She thought she might stroll over to the building site and see what was happening.

When she reached the site, she found all the animals putting bricks together with some sludgy material for bonding them. Then she noticed someone walking up from the corner of her eyeses.

Sri Annamalai Swamy! "Cubs!", she called out.
The cubses gathered around Uncle Annamalai. He told them, I have been thinking for a long time about something, but now suddenly the design has come into place in my mind. It all popped in last night in my sleep. Do you think you could help me out?

Tiru gladly nodded his head, even though he knew that they were on a tight schedule. Om cub brought some sheets of paper and pencils.
Uncle Annalamalai sat down and began to draw. He drew perfectly, not requiring an eraser at all, almost as though he had made this design many times. After a few minutes, Aruna cub asked, "Uncle, what is this strange thing?"


Uncle Annalamalai put down the pencil and looked into the distance. "For a long time I have been dreaming of a gadget but could not get the mechanics correct in my mind. I think I finally have a blueprint for a Magic Idle Machine."
"A WHAT ?? !!!" the cubses shouted in unison.

"Bear with me a while", he said. "You see --- this here is what I am calling a solar panel, it collects energy from the sun to make the idlis, and this thingie here collects water vapor and condenses it to water, and this --"
The cubs looked a little downcast.
"But what's the magic about it? This is all science!", said Tiru cub.
"Wait, i haven't finished! You don't need to put any ingredients into it at all. You just press this green button here and it starts making a dozen idlis a minute. And if you press that red button --"
"-- then it stops?", asked Om cub.
"Yes"



The cubs were overjoyed but then they had a quick conference of their own and Tiru spoke, "We like the idea but there is one glaring issue!"
"You see", continued Aruna,"12 idlis a minute will not be enough for our hippos and rhinos and elefinks and other workers!"

"Oh, this is just a prototype!", explained Uncle Annamalai. "Once you cubses get this working, we will make another one in which all measurements are just multiplied by 4. And we can make one for each floor of the hospital if you want! Any other objections?"
The cubses looked at one another but could think of none.

"Now I must go!" said Annamalai Swamy. "There is one more machine I have been wanting to invent, perhaps now some ideas will start coming!"



Mum Lioness and the cubses looked at Uncle Annamalai as he walked away into the distance. For a long time they kept looking in that direction.