Nature's Spokesman

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by M Krishnan


  Once I saw a crowd of kites on the ground, in a forest glade. They had feasted with the vultures and were preening themselves after the glut, before roosting. And once I saw a kite hopping along the grass gawkily in the wake of grazing cattle. Hunger had driven that bird into a fresh inroad on the path of degradation, but apparently a kite on terra firma can only lose its balance when it tries to clutch with one foot at ebullient grasshoppers.

  That is just as well, for these birds have sunk sufficiently low. They are so common that we do not notice them, and when we do the occasion is often too annoying for us to appreciate their air mastery. Swifts and falcons are faster and more dashing, vultures more effortless in their soaring, but for sheer manoeuvre on spread wings the kite is unbeatable. No other bird has its slick skill in theft—its noiseless descent on the unsuspecting victim and grab with a comprehensive foot. The kite has a strong hooked beak, and a powerful build—it is surprising that it has not developed, beyond petty theft, to thuggery and murder, with its equipment.

  But perhaps that, too, is just as well. Those who raise poultry have no love for this bird as it is, and if it took to a more adventurous and violent way of life, the hand of everyone must be against it, in city and in village. And that would be no small waste of national energy considering the kite population of our country!

  1952

  29

  Cat Fight

  On 11 May the dish-faced, grey-and-white tabby with the large grey-green eyes, that my wife had encouraged, presented the world with three undersized kittens. I had predicted the event, almost a year in advance. When this lean, mildmannered stray had first sought the patronage of my wife, I had said that if she (my wife) was going to be so foolish as to encourage the animal with food and shelter she would one day regret her soft-heartedness, because the animal, being female, would inevitably have kittens in her room (this being the best room in the house), and the kittens would make a sad mess of every tidily arranged little thing.

  I had gone further. I had predicted, in print, which of the two contesting toms would gain the territorial rights of the roofs of my cottage and neighbourhood and, ultimately, the favour of this pussy. Watching the rival toms, particularly when their contest was acute and for a mate rather than a broad question of territory, I had learned many things. For example I learned that though the courtship proper is both loud and long, the yowling cats that make the night hideous (and, at times, the day as well) are not courting pairs as popularly supposed, but pairs of rival toms. When two toms are of a size, and one cannot just frighten away the other by sheer physical superiority, they go through an incredibly long-drawn process of closely proximate vocal disputes.

  For days on end (sometimes for weeks) they follow each other over wall and rooftop, sitting or lying down close together, and yowling at each other. Apparently neither is willing to chance the first rash move: gradually they work themselves up into a frenzy, the yowling rises in tempo to blood-curdling shrieks, and then there is a brief, fierce scuffle, fur flies, and they separate—though often they separate before this culmination in physical combat, and the process is repeated all over again. It is so much more a decision by duet than by duel. Naturally any injury to either contestant during this protracted game of attrition leads to its retreat, but the injured tom may recover quickly and resume hostilities. Ultimately one yields the field, after one or more real fight.

  Well, everything happened as foretold by me. Only, this wretched tabby chose the lowest shelf of my enlarging table for her accouchement, and not my wife’s room. My wife and my cook were both convinced that it would be fatal to shift the tiny, blind balls of fur, squirming about the trays on the shelf—a wholly sentimental and mistaken view, but which man had argued anything successfully against the conjoint opposition of his wife and his cook? Till the kittens opened their eyes, I was denied the use of my enlarger.

  Thereafter they were shifted to a small front room, by a tripartite agreement to which the mother cat (as represented by my cook, who professed to understand the creature) was also a party. This room had a boltable door and small windows high up, through which the cat could gain access to her kittens and to the world outside, as she pleased. The idea was that in the room, behind the bolted door, the kittens were safe from the powerful, semi-wild tom that was their putative father: my wife, and even more strongly the mother cat (as interpreted by my cook), felt that once their father found them, he would make short work of them. Of course nothing prevented that husky old tom from entering the room through the open windows—in fact, more than once I found him squatting on the floor by his mate, stolidly unmindful of his inquisitive progeny. However, I saw no reason to inform my wife or cook of this.

  In a month the kittens had grown infinitesimally—however, they were now able to frisk about and play with surprising speed. Morning and night their mother was at the kitchen, ahead of us, calling in a patient, low, inexorable voice for her milk and rice. She was being allowed generous rations, to provide for the heavy and sustained drain on her resources—and I noticed that several hours each day and most of the night she was away, hunting rats and squirrels, and being an expert hunter she found plenty of food for herself, besides what she was being given. One morning she did not fall to hungrily as usual, when her plate was set before her; instead, she raised her tail vertically, and calling in the same plaintive voice she used for begging food, proceeded to walk in and out of the kitchen, rubbing herself against our feet. Immediately my cook proclaimed that what the cat wanted was to have the plate taken to the front room, so that the kittens, now old enough to eat semi-solid food, could have the meal.

  I had just finished reading a book on the scientific investigation of the intelligence of cats and dogs, which said that their IQ was much lower, in fact, than what their fond and fanciful owners thought it was. Reinforced by recent booklore, I explained to my cook, in simple sentences, that to attribute the thought process she did to this cat was unscientific, anthropomorphic and absurd. She persisted in her explanation, and to disprove the woman I took the plate to the room where the kittens were. Immediately the mother cat stopped her insistent calling; she led her crowding progeny to the plate, took a few quick licks herself, and then retired; by repetitions of this move, the kittens soon learned to lick up the food themselves, though they were very clumsy in their feeding. While her kittens were feeding, the cat sat back, purring like a dynamo—when they had had enough, she ate up what was left. Twice each day thereafter, this process of persuading us to take the plate to the front room was repeated.

  Here was a definite and original instance of highly intelligent behaviour—I can vouch for the circumstances, which I verified with the utmost care.

  A large, black-and-white, half-Persian tom, with a very fluffy tail, and the high, mournful voice that so often goes with Persian blood, was now paying furtive visits to my room. On 21 June, past midnight when the mother cat was away hunting, this tom entered the front room through the window and quickly bit all three kittens. There was no doubt about the identity of the killer—his fluffy tail was seen disappearing, through the window when, roused by the noise, we rushed into the room. Two of the kittens lay dead, with two red pinpoints just below the angle of the chin and throat to mark the typical, throttling bite of the tomcat: the third was still alive, though also bitten.

  This kitten was transferred to my room, which happens to be the only cat-proof room in the house. The dead kittens were removed at once, and the mother cat, returning some hours later, hunted around for her lost children at intervals for days thereafter, jumping repeatedly into the room and circling around, calling to them in the short, gurgling call that she used for summoning them.

  She licked the wounded kitten all over, and cuddled up close by it, tempting it to suckle—but the kitten, probably because of its throat injury, could not suck. For the next two days I fed it at long intervals with a little milk, squirted into the mouth from an ink-filler, and on the third morning it was suddenly much be
tter. It no longer lay listlessly on its bed, indifferent, even to its anxious mother, but started exploring the room. However, its gait now was not the exuberant alternation of crouched creeping and quick leaps that it had been before the injury, but the splaylegged walk of infancy. I put this down to its weak condition, but I was not altogether correct in this. In a week it had recovered completely from its injury and was quite plump again, but its behaviour grew steadily more and more puerile. It refused all food from the plate, preferring to suck its indulgent mother whenever it could; it even went to sleep with its forelegs clasping its mother’s belly and a teat between its lips. And like all creatures reverting to an infantile state, it was most cussed in its preferences—for example, it insisted on sleeping inside my slipper when its mother was away, merely because I repeatedly transferred it from the slipper to a more comfortably padded box I had made for it. If ever there was a case of reversion to infancy, after shock and injury, it was that kitten.

  1957

  30

  The Jellicut

  It is a long time since I saw a Jellicut, but I am not likely to forget it.

  The Jellicut is the southern bull ring. There are no horses and lancers here, no flashing matadors with blooded swords. No one waves red cloth at colour-blind bulls; such cloth as there is may be of any colour and is swathed around the bull’s horns. The men are unarmed and unprotected, and their aim is not to kill the bulls, nor even to infuriate them.

  All the same this rustic sport does not lack spectacle, or excitement, or risk.

  Each bull that enters the ring—a circular stockade—has a piece of cloth, often brightly coloured, wound across and around its horns in a loose bandage, and the game consists in the men snatching the cloth clear of the horn as the bulls are driven down a fenced lane. That is, basically, the Jellicut, and explained this way it seems a tame pastime. Let me give a fuller account.

  Around Madura, and elsewhere in the south, an active, mediumsized breed of cattle, compact and powerful, is to be found in varying degrees of purity. The Jellicut bulls come from this stock, and are specially reared for the ring. The best type of fighting bull is a beautifully balanced beast, not running to exaggerated dewlap or hump, light and quick-muscled. It is so evenly made, without frills and fancy touches, that its power is not apparent at first sight, except perhaps in a certain arrogance of carriage and gait. A well-trained bull will suffer no stranger to approach close, and is wickedly fast on its feet and with its horns. White, laced with front-grey or a rusty fawn on the head, fore quarters and legs, is a much fancied colour and is said to indicate fighting blood.

  Not all the bulls that enter the Jellicut ring are pure-bred or have the fighting temperament; even steers get in, at times. Some specially dangerous bulls are widely known and respected, and are taken around the countryside for the sport. These are known by the names of their villages, or by the number of years for which they have held their own, unconquered, in Jellicuts. A Jellicut is a major event in rural areas. Men and beasts come to it from all around, sometimes from considerable distances.

  The crowd gathers right from the morning for the afternoon’s sport. The bandaged heads of the bulls give them a deceptively complacent and domestic look, as their owners lead them in. A number of bulls are driven into the circular stockade—at the farther end is a long, narrow, fenced lane, leading out to open fields.

  The spectators crowd around the palings thickly, and the men who enter the arena take up strategic posts in the lane, the frequent gaps in the bamboo fencing allowing them a ready, squeezed, acrobatic exit, should the need arise.

  The fun begins with the first batch of bulls—any number up to a dozen—entering the stockade. A terrific din is set up, with the aid of drums and tin cans and loud voices. The bulls careen round the ring, the dust rises in a red ground-mist under their hooves and they are off, with waving tails and low heads, down the lane. They are not allowed to enter the lane all together, but one by one, so that the waiting men have a chance.

  The men hug the fence, and as a bull goes lumbering past one of them steps in and deftly snatches the cloth from off its horns. A cool head, smooth-moving limbs and perfect timing, rather than bravery or brawn are what make for success in this game, as in all sports of skill. But it is not always that the bull goes tearing blindly past, allowing its crown to be lightly snatched—close holds, and courage too, are often needed.

  The Jellicut begins modestly, and the first few batches to enter the stockade hold no really dangerous bulls: some of them are just overgrown, mild-eyed calves still. The bulls with the worst reputations come later; they are reserved for the time when body and spirit have been sufficiently warmed.

  At the last Jellicut I saw, staged in a village a dozen miles or so off Madura (I have forgotten its name), there was a notorious bull, a beast that had not been routed in five years, and with the name of a killer. This bull entered the stockade late in the afternoon, when we were tired of watching the sport and were about to turn home. A wave of excitement spread down the close mass of watchers, and five bulls entered the lane in quick succession, giving the men near the lane mouth no opportunity to single out any of them.

  I asked my neighbour (never are neighbours nearer) to point out the killer to me, and he waved an obliging hand at the oncoming bulls. There was the bull, right in front, a big fawn-and-white animal with rolling eyes and a large, massive head held threateningly low. As it trotted past, a man leaned out from the fence, sidestepped the sweep of the horns, and plucked the cloth casually off its horns. Joining in the spontaneous applause, I felt my neighbour poking me in the ribs. ‘Not that one,’ he said. ‘Do you see that grey bull behind all the rest? That’s the one.’ The grey bull was well behind the others, sauntering down the lane and keeping to the middle, the down-held head swaying from side to side to the rhythm of movement. I must say I felt disappointed at the killer’s looks and leisurely manner—there were many bigger and more defiant bulls in the Jellicut that day.

  A splendid young man, who had distinguished himself earlier, stepped lightly down the lane as the grey bull passed him, and reached out for the cloth. The bull turned in a flash, the young man leaped back from the quick, sideway toss of the horns, and the bull continued its sauntering way down the lane. Only when the man collapsed on the fence, and was helped out of the lane, did we realize that the bull had scored. I had come up to this Jellicut with a doctor from Madura, and we hurried round the stockade to the casualty. The horn had pierced and torn the abdominal wall, and the man was in obvious pain, but I was told that it was not so grave an injury as it looked. We tried, long and ineffectually, to persuade the young man to go with us in the car to Madura, where he could have proper attention: he would have none of our help, and was sure that the aids and medicines available in the village would do.

  A week later, meeting a man from a nearby village, we learned that the bull had claimed another victim.

  1951

  31

  The Dying Gladiator

  By a twist of fate the one time I had the chance to acquire a gamecock, official prestige barred me. I was a magistrate then, and my fondness for livestock had already drawn comment. My racing homers had been invested with the aura of respectability by the local Boy Scouts using them for their pigeon post (a post suggested and mainly run by me), but the goats were less easily justified.

  There had been emergencies when I had to herd my goats myself, and however unostentatiously a magistrate turns goatherd news of the event gets abroad. I had a polite, unofficial note from my chief which said that rumours (which, of course, he discounted) had reached his ear that I had been seen in the scrub jungle piloting a number of goats with bucolic shouts, and that while he appreciated my right to do what I liked outside office, such capricious behaviour on the part of a first class magistrate was, nevertheless, ill-advised.

  There had been a pompous paragraph on the official proprieties and the dignified and unbending countenance of justice, and, evidently
pleased with the etymological aptness of the description, he had repeated the words ‘capricious behaviour’ several times.

  So, when a case of betting on a cockfight was produced in evidence, I resisted temptation firmly. My clerk, whose adjective law was superior to mine, assured me that the thing to do was to confiscate and auction the fowl besides fining the owner—I still doubt the legality of this procedure, but it had been followed by my predecessors in office, and who was I to try to act wiser? There were people present in the court who would gladly have bought the gamecock at the auction and, after a discreet interval, sold it to me at a formal profit—and somehow they had sensed my interest in this piece of evidence.

  But I was firm. I contented myself with sharing my lunch with the haughty bird during the afternoon recess, and with admiring it. The iron spurs, which were also filed as ‘material objects’ by the police, were interesting, about an inch long, made of mild steel, and really sharp. They were encrusted with blood and had already begun to rust, but I wanted to keep them, as a souvenir of my triumph over temptation. I was denied even this satisfaction. My learned clerk said the rules decreed that such objects, which could be used again to commit an offence, had to be destroyed.

  Only once, as a schoolboy, have I seen a cockfight, and have confused and almost staccato recollections of it—the crowd in the bylane, people squatting and standing in a ring around two gamecocks, the earnestness of the men, the indifference of the birds to each other, then, unexpectedly, the spontaneous flare-up of combat, the incredibly swift and savage attack, flailing legs and flying feathers and blood, the sudden collapse and death of one of the combatants in an unrecognizable, shuddering mess of dishevelled plumes and slashed flesh. I have seen dogfights, ramfights, partridgefights, even a brief tussle between two circus camels, but for sheer shock and impact and savage fury that cockfight was unapproachable. Blake must have known its violence and gore at first-hand, to have written.

 

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