After Gourd Picking (II)

 Driven by the constant patronage of industries for a high-carbon world and loss of places to dwell, probably many bird species are facing a crisis of survival in what was once their natural habitat. Wood-peckers, house sparrows, peacocks or vultures, once a common sight are rarely seen these days. However, there is one species which is still growing at an unbridled pace and seems to be immune to the despotic regime of pesticide laden inharmonious conditions. But again, this is the species that I do not quite dote on as well. Maybe my views regarding Crows spring from some childhood memories mishaps. Waris Shah- the celebrated Sufi poet who immortalised one of the most famous love stories in this part of the world– the Heer-Ranjha chronicle, also acquiesces the shrewd nature of the crows when he writes-
“Ek baaj ton kau ne koonj khoi
Vekhaan chup hai ke kurlavanda-ee”
(which if not taken symbolically can be loosely translated to ‘A crow snatched the share from Eagle, I wonder whether the Eagle is calm or crying.’)

Stealing food, pestering other animals and making those unbearable sounds, only the celestial beings know what good Crows are for amidst vast assemblage of all other birds on our planet. Nevertheless, there’s one possible exception- The Thirsty Crow story, which enlightens the young minds of the elementary school.

*****
When my family moved from our ancestral village, it didn’t affect our studies much because our school was in the same town. The only change was the replacement of my school bus by a Hero bicycle. We had moved into a rented house, a regular building with an ample veranda on the 1st floor. With a medical store, hair salon and a small dental clinic filling the landscape, the house faced a not-so-busy road which was guarded on both the sides by giant eucalyptus trees. I celebrated my 10th birthday in that house. A new addition to our usual line-up were toy guns having yellow plastic balls as pellets. With their effect not more than a small sharp pinch and range not more than 20 feet, we could just nudge the eucalyptus trees. Staying on those trees, as omnipresent as they are, crows were ever-squeaky and unwelcome guests.
One evening while I was gobbling my favorite ice cream sitting outside, I left it on the chair just to get something from the kitchen. When I came back I saw my plate being  tumultuously attacked by a bunch of crows. They left nothing on that plate (Of course, if you don’t consider those contaminated slimy remains). Immensely perturbed by their act, I immediately fished out my toy gun to avenge the loss. “You bunch of ice-cream thieves……get ready to face it now”, I mused while stretching my arms out of balcony to aim at my vexatious enemies. Now I know why my parents never sent me to any archery school. Tens of shots fired but none of them seemed to even go near them. Then with the help of my brother and his knowledge of projectiles, we probably managed to hit a couple of crows. By now crows had thoroughly scanned their enemy’s face. Even though outnumbered we didn’t retreat & kept on firing ‘bravely’ from secure locations until our artillery was exhausted and crows chose to sit on the far-off trees that evening.

*****

Our maternal village is very close to the town. We would often go there on weekends and watch grandpa abide by his code of work on the bottle gourd fields. Encompassing various sensibilities of a zealous personality, watching him work made us feel firmly linked with the ethos of soil. In the vicinity of his vegetable fields were newly sowed Sunflower plantations. Sunflower plants during germination need protection from doves & crows because when newly planted, an outlaw flock always fumbles frantically in the mud for anything resembling a seed and scuttles away at the slightest hint of noise. Scarecrows are usually placed in the middle but they do not scare the crows at all. Children dread them more. Crows would come and sit on them, gossip for a while and laugh at the human stupidity that how humans think it scares their kind. Doves on the other hand always prefer venturing away from the scarecrows. Due to their etiolated grayish shade, doves camouflage well with the mud lines of the plants and sometimes need stone hurling slings to be shooed away.

******
After gourd picking, grandpa would usually sit by the fields waiting for someone to get refreshments before he left for town. Vegetables were just packed and done before I arrived that morning. With a considerable amount of sunshine above, I was day-dreaming while tooling along the moist sunflower fields, trying my best not to destroy any of the plants. Shortly afterwards, a chill shook down my spine as I was suddenly dive-bombed by a formidable object. “What on earth was that!….Crows?…Why would a crow attack you during yet another boring morning?…Oh No..!”, I thought in my head. There it was, a whole army of crows all keen on turning me bald! I ran hard and locked myself in the tube-well room. Holy Crow! I was out of breath. Grandpa came there to get some tools and was taken aback on finding me inside.

“What happened?”

“Nothing”, my chest heaved as I gathered breath.

“Then why are you hiding here?”

“I think the crows tried to attack me”, I muttered. Then through the window, I saw my brother coming with some tea and refreshments only to meet the same fate. And this time, Grandpa was a witness.

“Why are they only attacking you two? I have been working here the whole time and they didn’t so much as lift a feather at me! Do you have a past score with the crows?”, Grandpa sat down with his glass of tea, his tone tinged with sarcasm.

“What?…No!…we don’t know..or maybe..ummm..Yes” we replied almost in chorus.

“Explain”, he was visibly intrigued.

We told him how we launched an ambush against crows, about a week ago. These fields were more than three kilometers away from our house in the town.

“How could they recognize us?”, we asked grandpa.

“Probably they conveyed their secret message to all their counterparts in the surrounding areas with your facial descriptions, directing them to be on a look out for you two!”, Grandpa chimed in barely controlling his laughter. We were both clueless at how it was happening.

******

Paraphrasing these lines from ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’, I direly wish someone had advised us beforehand, “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em but remember it’s an extremely dangerous job to hit a crow!” While sipping his tea carefully Grandpa continued, “Crows are like those people in our village who are always ready to get into a fight. But they usually don’t initiate it, unless provoked.” Still tottering under the mindless blows of this demented populace, all we wanted at that time was to get out of their reach. As grandpa suggested we sneaked out of the fields with straw baskets covering our heads. My brother took our pesky buggers completely by surprise as he rotated the hand sling, hurling a few stones with such a skill and dexterity that it would leave Bruce Lee astounded. Their battle formation was completely strewn apart. Although they tried to launch a counter strike but failed miserably.

This little victory of ours was short lived though and brought no respite as it further angered the crows. We might have won the battle but the war was still on. Clearly, it was time for more desperate measures. Everybody at home got to know about our hilarious encounters which earned us the honour of being the laughingstock for a good number of days. But it was only my Naana who came to a sensible conclusion, “You have to undo what you’ve done!”. And I doubt taking any other advice more seriously in my entire life. He told us to feed the crows whenever and wherever possible, starting from our very own roof where it all started. From that moment onwards, for next few weeks or perhaps months, we followed our grandpa’s advice. We’d offer them chapatis, biscuits, bread crumbs and what not, I even went as far as keeping the same ice cream for them outside the veranda.  Although the attacks continued, their frequency and intensity decreased gradually. Now only a handful of the more vengeful ones attacked us in fields. Better sense prevailed amongst them and they seemed to be gearing up to draw the terms of peace. Grandpa also helped us to get along better. From his lunchbox he would save one or two chapatis, one he’d feed them himself and when they would be near him he’d ask us to join and feed them silently, thus a new sense of trust blossomed. Finally, they would start accepting our crumbs. The truce, so painstakingly achieved, stands unbroken till this date.

*****
Two lessons were learnt, albeit a little late. One, of course, that crows are darn good communicators with a massive backup support and second, grandpa’s advice, “Do not coax them. They are not innately vicious but sometimes you have to lose a bit of ice cream to have your peace of mind!” The whole escapade reminds me that certain things are better kept at a distance by all those who aim at revelling in a joyous existence.
Signing off with this beautiful melody from The Lovin’ Spoonful which sort of befits the mood. Ciao. 🙂

**
“What a day for a daydream, What a day for a day dreamin’ boy,
Dreamin’ about my bundle of joy.
And even if time is passin’ me by a lot,
I couldn’t care less about the dues you say I got.”

**

After Gourd Picking (I)

 

An incandescent orange-hued sky blemished by some shapeless glimmering clouds would herald the dawn in the silent backdrop of dew-stricken grass. Sunrays struggling to strobe through the horizon would soon make their way past the eucalyptus trees, just enough for us to identify all the gourds in the field. “This one also?” holding a halved Topaz razor in my little hands I would innocently ask my Grandpa if the bottle gourds that we had gone picking were big enough to be cut and put into the vegetable basket.

Vacations in my maternal village were a tad bit different experience- the sight of vibrant yellow mustard plantations, the early morning dew seeping from those grassy ditches, the fragrance of coriander, rustle of sugarcane fields, daily rides lying on top of the bullock cart laden with green fodder, watching a frenzied flock of white cranes roving behind freshly ploughed land which would emanate a geosminic earthy flavor, whiff of froth from the milk bucket, directly squirting warm milk into the mouth while milking cows and many more wonderful happenings. A day would invariably start with my Grandma shouting at 5 in the morning, “Get up, it’s already such a bright day outside, get up before it’s Noon.” Arghh! It’s 5:00 a.m. not 10. Although children were exempted from this martial drill, but who wants to miss out on an early morning adventure trip to the fields. Getting up blearily we would be welcomed by a huge glass of milk and some bread schmeared with freshly churned butter in the kitchen, where we’d all sit rubbing our eyes. God knows when Naani got up and did all these chores. Next thing I remember is landing up in the fields by some means.

Not that we were of much use there, cauliflower fields in winter and bottle gourds in summer would beckon our presence. “One more?”, I would identify a  gourd in a whole field of Gourds (Slow clap!). Although there would be at least ten other people around in the field, it was my dear Naana who had to answer my annoying query every time I spotted a gourd. (I would pick about 8-10 on a lucky day and expect a red carpet welcome at home for my feat). Even though it was exasperating for him, he’d still make a quick & unwavering reply “Whoa! You have become an expert at this.” We would all come out and sit by the tube well, wash all the yield. In no time, we’d go back home and have a tummy-exploding breakfast of Aloo-Parathas, curd, and Lassi. Leaving the fields by 6.30-7 a.m., grandpa would take the tractor-trolley to the town’s vegetable market and come back only to find his solace in that patch of land.

From shy mornings to gentle evenings, working for the entire day in fields was something that he had done for decades but for the past few years, he treated that piece of land like a newborn child. No one else would work on that land after ploughing and planting the vegetables, all that was done between two ploughs was my grandpa’s work. Every morning, a generous yield of the Gourd, Cauliflower, Brinjal, Coriander or Radish would be loaded on to the trolley depending upon the season. He would nurture and embellish that land with trowels to root out all the weeds, with a spade to chip off the grassy corners, irrigate it timely, the whole idea was so sacred to him that he would feel jittery when he was not working in his fields. In the afternoons, he slept in the tube-well room or under the Pilkan tree(White fig). Someone would get him his meals at that place. Prodding every inch of it from dawn to dusk, the sweat of his brazen fingers would somehow galvanize that bleak land into a meadow of fruitful plants by morning. (To be continued…)