Moong Over Microchips

by Venkat Iyer

  By afternoon there were no other symptoms except for abdominal cramps and loose motions. À la Ron Weasley of the Harry Potter series I would go into the doctor’s cabin after each bout and ask, ‘Is it time to panic?’ He would nod wisely at me and say, ‘Not yet.’ By now Baban’s foot had become huge and it was extremely painful too. I requested the doctor to help out and he administered a Diclofenac injection which gave him some relief.

  Each hour passed and it looked like ages before it was 10 p.m. He was surely out of danger since twelve hours had passed and no other symptoms were showing up. The cramps and motions continued till the next day but petered out by afternoon the day after. They kept him for one more day and released him when the cramps stopped and he was able to consume solid food. We were sent back with some medicines and asked to return after three days.

  Once back at the village there was a steady stream of visitors from all over who had their own ideas on how to treat the snakebite. Finally, even though it was established that there was no poison in his body, due to public pressure we decided to go to the nearby village to an Adivasi who cured people with snakebites. We reached the hamlet of Somta where this young man came out with a bunch of dried leaves which he mixed with water and gave Baban. Then he pushed off into the jungle to return a hour later with the bark of some tree which he made into a paste and asked us to apply the same on the wound. I asked him who had taught him this and he said it was his father. On inquiring who had taught his father he explained that it was an old Parsee who had lived there many years ago.

  It took almost fifteen days for the swelling to reduce. We were grateful that the episode had a safe and happy ending. The dreaded event had not left its scar on us but just warned us to be more careful when we walked around the farm.

  One of the first things I did when I returned to Mumbai was to buy two pairs of rubber gumboots. They would at least give us some protection when we tramped around on the grass. I also got in touch with the panchayat office and managed to get a grass cutter from them. It is a useful machine and makes grass cutting an easy task, ensuring that the undergrowth is always trimmed.

  Allahrakha

  One day Baban and I decided to clear the undergrowth near the compound, armed with sickles, axes and sticks. Around 5 p.m. there was a movement in the grass ahead that caught my eye. I held Baban’s hand and pointed at the pale brown object a few feet ahead. ‘Sasa,’ he whispered. Sasa means hare and is a delicacy here. He slowly parted the grass and instead of the two long ears we expected to see we saw two big eyes and a white round face looking at us. It was an owl!

  Grabbing it by the neck we took it to the house for a closer look. It was a baby and she could not fly at all. She probably fell off the nest and was trying to hide. After a good photo session and a quick look in Salim Ali’s book on Indian birds, I identified it as the common barn owl. Though the name says ‘common’, the spotted owl is seen more than the barn owl at the farm.

  Now we had to do something with her. I was not sure of hosting her till she got better. A few calls here and there and finally I got through to a forest official who promised to send someone to pick her up.

  That done, we had to be good hosts to our new guest. What would she like to eat? After a consultation with Meena we decided it was worms. Soon we were on all fours searching for the elusive worm. Finally I pulled one out and of all the worms in the world it turned out to be an earthworm. Here was a moral dilemma: should I sacrifice a friend of the farmer to feed a bird? Finally statistics solved it. There were far more earthworms than barn owls. I held it to her but she did not accept it. Baban said, ‘You know, in the wild, the mother feeds the young from her beak.’ I glared at him and said that I refuse to hold the worm in my mouth to feed my guest. She will have to learn table manners if she eats here. The best I could do was chop the worm into small pieces for her. Anyway to give her some choice I kept one small piece of idli (in case she was a south Indian) and some chopped boiled egg too. She was kept under a basket with a heavy stone on top so the dogs didn’t get her. This done, Baban left for home and I went about my evening chores.

  Around 9 p.m. I got a call from a slurring Range Forest Officer (RFO) asking for directions. I knew they would never find the place so I asked them to reach the village and pick up Baban who would guide them to the farm. Four guys landed at the farm smelling like an arrack shop. The RFO examined the owl, checked each wing and declared that it was a barn owl. I just casually remarked that Salim Ali had confirmed it. My eyes popped out when he looked up and asked, ‘Ekde ale hote ka? (Did he come here?).’ In a state of shock I just replied, ‘Nahi, WhatsApp kela (No, I just WhatsApped him).’

  Once his IQ had been established he started his paperwork. Reams of papers had to be filled. Questions ranged from why I had decided to clean that section today to if I had seen the nest by any chance. As they went about this inane task I noticed the driver standing far away in the darkness. I called him to come and sit on the porch but he refused to budge. So I walked up to him to figure out what the matter was. He explained, ‘I am a Hindu Brahmin and we do not see an owl’s eyes after dark.’ He explained, ‘The owl is the carrier of black magic and if you look into its eyes the curse is on you.’ No amount of convincing that the baby’s beautiful eyes carried no curse made him come see the owl.

  Finally, after an hour, the papers were filled and signed. We packed the owl in a cardboard box and I was glad to see that she had eaten the earthworm . . . may its soul rest in peace.

  While the paperwork was being done our drunk RFO took pictures of himself and the owl in different poses. He grandly announced, ‘This is for the media release tomorrow.’ He then went on to say that he had seen a movie of Amitabh Bachchan once where the actor had the same bird as his constant companion. I replied, ‘Sir, I have also seen the movie. It’s Coolie and the bird he carries with him is a falcon and it’s called “Allahrakha” in the movie.’ Nothing registered except the name and he told me, ‘It’s a nice name. We will call the owl Allahrakha.’

  It was almost 10.30 p.m. when they left after assuring me that the owl would be taken care of.

  After they were gone I looked at the pictures of the owl I had taken and wondered if she would one day soar the night sky and maybe pay me a visit.

  Allahrakha is welcome.

  Hen Log

  Ever since I got the farm, I had always wanted to keep hens. A couple of years after we had settled in I broached the topic with Baban. He said it was not a bad idea, except that each time I went to Mumbai for the weekend there would be a chicken party in the village. He said, ‘People know when you leave and the fence is not exactly foolproof.’ I thought he made sense and put the idea on the back-burner.

  In 2013, Meena was posted to Pakistan as The Hindu’s correspondent there. Now, I had no need to go back to Mumbai for the weekend and thought the time had come to start our poultry farm. Baban agreed with me and offered one of his hens. The deal was that once she multiplied I would return a hen to him. It sounded like a great deal and I instantly accepted his offer.

  The next morning he came with a beautiful hen from his lot at home. She soon settled down at the farm. I placed a small box in the front porch for her to roost at night. We christened her ‘Mother’ since it was expected that one day she would have her own brood. She was big enough to start laying eggs and a week later she started. It was fascinating to watch her go around searching for the ideal place to lay her eggs. She made peculiar noises as she went about looking for the place. Baban told me that the crown would turn crimson red when she was about to start her egg-laying cycle.

  Her first lot was twelve eggs, one on each day. It was a joy to go out in the morning and pick up the warm egg she had laid. I learnt that hens always laid one egg at the same place and at the same time every day. They also did not know how to count and it sufficed if you kept one egg for her to identify the place she had laid them. Baban explained that if there was no egg she would conclude that the place was
not safe and start looking for another one.

  I was keen on multiplying the lot, but there was no rooster to mate with Mother. These eggs were unfertilized and there was no point in letting her hatch them. They would just spoil after a few days. We wondered how we could get a rooster since Baban had only one at home which he could not spare.

  As luck would have it, one fine morning, I saw a magnificent rooster saunter into the farm courting Mother. We had no idea where he came from or who the owners were. For a few days he would come in the morning and leave the farm in the evening. Then he just decided to stay on. He never sat in the basket where Mother roosted but perched himself on a nearby tree. Baban kept wondering whose rooster it was since no one had reported a missing rooster and it was not normal for them to leave their homes and come to a strange place.

  The next lot of eggs was surely fertilized and we let Mother hatch them. She sat for twenty-one days on the eggs, venturing out of the box only once a day after the sun was out. She would step out of the box and stretch her legs one at a time and then fluff her feathers and run from the house to the gate. On her way back she would peck here and there, eat the food I would keep on a tray for her, drink a bit of water from the bowl and go back to the box. Once inside she would carefully turn the eggs over, ensuring that each one got the warmth of her body.

  After twenty-one days, one morning, I heard tiny cheeps coming from the box. I peered in and saw the most beautiful chickens I had ever seen. They were just tiny balls of golden feathers with a small beak and two wobbly legs. A couple of more days and Mother had hatched seven of the eggs.

  Once they were able to stand on their legs Mother took them out of the box and into the area around the house. I would watch them for hours as they went about following their mother and trying to imitate what she did. They were so tiny that at times a couple of them would get left behind as they tried to keep pace with their mother. Mother was extremely careful and would always call out to the ones who were left behind, even going back sometimes to bring them along with the rest.

  One afternoon, I heard her clucking frantically and I rushed to check what had happened. I reached her just in time to see a crow pheasant soar away with one of the chicks in its claws. The chicks were too small to run away and were excellent prey for the crow pheasants. Within a week the entire brood had been preyed on either by the crow pheasant or the shikra. I felt I had failed Mother in some way.

  When she had the next brood we were careful. We made a small cage out of an old wooden crate and ensured that the chicks did not get out till they were at least a month old. By then their feet were strong and they could scamper away when Mother gave them alarm calls on sighting birds of prey. This worked and after one month we had four healthy chicken. The brood this time was smaller and two died after being hatched.

  In 2014, Meena returned to India from Pakistan after being expelled from there and was posted to Delhi for her next assignment. I went to Delhi to settle her in the new house when one morning Baban called frantically. He said, ‘All the chickens are dead.’ It seemed like a mongoose attack. Three of them were lying on the bloodied front porch with their throats slit and one had been dragged to the edge of the farm where the remains of the carcass were spotted. I had failed Mother again.

  On my return to the farm, I called the local welder and designed a cage with netting from an unused gate that was lying at the farm. We decided that at night the chickens would have to be moved to the cage and let out only in the morning. It was common knowledge that the mongoose attacked only at night.

  Mother’s third brood had four chickens and the cage worked. They soon grew big and we had three hens and one rooster. We named one Mother Junior for she looked like a replica of Mother and the other two Turkey and Ostrich after their looks. The rooster was Chief for that’s how he behaved. Chief turned into a magnificent rooster and was extremely friendly, even eating out of my hand at times when I fed him.

  In a few months, Ostrich and Turkey had their own brood. There were so many of them now that it was difficult to name them. Meena decided to call them Hen Log, after the famous television soap opera Hum Log. Sometimes we imitated veteran Bollywood star Ashok Kumar who appeared after each episode and summarized it in his characteristic drawl. I kept my part of the deal with Baban and returned a hen and a rooster as bonus to him.

  A few months later, in 2015, Meena quit her job and moved to the farm. Finally, both of us lived at the farm. There was no need to go back to the city. After eleven years, we were on track as per the original plan that we had started out with.

  The Cats and Pepper

  After she moved to the farm, Meena wanted to keep a few cats. She loved cats and at one point in their tiny flat in Mumbai they had seventeen cats. We thought we would start with a pair at first. I contacted Vithal and asked him to get us a pair of cats if he found any.

  One night, as we were preparing to sleep, we heard calls from the gate, ‘Seth! Seth!’ I took the torchlight and went to the gate to find Vithal with Baban in tow and a small sack in his hand. It was the kittens. It was late and Vithal was pretty drunk. One always knew when Vithal got drunk as he would switch over to speaking in Hindi after having a couple of drinks. He said they were a pair—one male and one female—and he had found them in Nanivali. We kept the kittens covered under a basket for the night.

  The next morning we realized that what he had got us was a pair of male cats. They were tiny and cute and anyway there was no way of returning them. We named them Crash and Eddie after the two possums in the animation movie Ice Age.

  The pair, after they got over the initial fright, were fun to watch as they romped around the farm. We got fish from Nanivali or Kasa whenever it was possible and they just loved it. We set the rules from day one for them. They were not allowed inside the house. Food was served only at scheduled times and they would have to wait for it. Crash learnt the rules quite fast and obeyed them, while Eddie would try and sneak into the house and steal some food if possible.

  Once the cats had settled down, we thought of getting a dog. Both of us loved dogs and had kept them as pets earlier. We spread the word around and got many an offer which we refused for some reason or the other. It was on one of our trips to Mumbai, when we had stopped for breakfast at a restaurant, that we ran into Meena’s old friend Mini and her husband, Zak. She and her husband were staying in Dahanu and ran a kennel for dogs. Zak knew a lot of people and said that he had heard of a pup which someone wanted to give away. He promised to check on it and get back. The next day we got a call from him saying that the pup was still available in nearby Gholvad.

  We went to Gholvad and met the owner. He had got the puppy from Mumbai but his family was not ready to accept dogs and he was looking for someone to take the puppy and give it a decent home. We went to see the puppy who was tied in the back porch. It was only two months old and looked like a Labrador. She was completely black expect for one white patch on her chest and one paw. We just loved her. She sat quietly on Meena’s lap in the car for the hour-long journey back to the farm.

  We asked people to suggest names for her and finally decided on Pepper. Pepper grew to be a friendly dog and even Baban, who had a mortal fear of dogs, started liking her. After she settled in at the farm, one of the first things she decided was that she hated the hens. Especially after one of them tried to steal some of her food, she just chased them when she got the chance.

  We had to think of a solution quickly. There had been a couple of instances where we had to rescue the hens from her jaws. Each time there was an incident, Chief the protector of the brood would attack Pepper. He lost quite a few of his beautiful plumes during these skirmishes. Finally, we decided on a schedule. The hens would remain in the cages till 9 a.m. and were released only after Pepper was tied up in the front porch. They were free till 3 p.m. when they would have to return to their cages and Pepper would be released. It worked beautifully since at no point were both the hens and Pepper free together.


  Once, when Meena went for a walk with Pepper on a leash Chief attacked Pepper. Meena shooed him away and even threw some stones at him while she held Pepper on a tight leash. We presume that this incident was what made Meena enemy number one in Chief’s eyes. Every time he saw Meena he would attack her. When she told me this I did not believe her. I thought she was imagining the whole thing. She then stepped out into the back porch and said, ‘See, he will appear now.’ Sure enough, within thirty seconds, Chief appeared out of nowhere and started attacking her legs and causing blood to spurt out. He had a sharp beak and would ruffle his feathers into a circle around his neck when he attacked. No amount of shooing or throwing things at him worked and he continued his attacks on the door even after she had shut it.

  In the village, people were surprised to hear this story. They had never heard of attacking roosters. We soon realized that it was not only Meena that Chief attacked but any woman who came to the farm. Meena’s mother, my mother and our friends were all victims of Chief ’s attacks. One of our friends, Romilla, has a deep scar on her thigh as a memory of Chief’s attack. Things were getting out of hand and one day, as she was leaving for Mumbai, Meena said, ‘Ravi, you have to decide. It is either me or Chief at the farm.’

  That evening, I called Sagar, Baburao’s son who ran a chicken shop, and asked if he wanted a rooster. He was excited since the locals loved the desi kombda or rooster and they fetched a high price. The next morning Baban helped me tie up Chief and I took him to the shop. Sagar offered to pay me but I declined. I did not feel like taking money for Chief. I gave him one last look before leaving the shop. Chief was regrettably sacrificed and peace was finally back at the farm and people could walk around without the fear of being attacked.