Tiny chits of peace-slayers

It was a silent little garden. The birds had their nests. A squirrel also. The birds sang. Everything changed since the kittens' arrival. It's just an endless noisy day full of birdie distress calls. The garden lizards have vanished. I saw one of the kittens vomiting a semi-digested stuff...looked like rotten lizard pickle. So my forecast comes true. The squirrels who used the cloth line to go to their nest on the tree are playing safe. The tailorbirds, the prinias, the robins, the bulbuls. All have to use a major part of their energies in shouting warning calls all through the day.

One of the tiny hunters was seen escaping with what looked like a sparrow tail in its mouth. Was it one of the prinias. I can't hear their meek peen-peen-peen today. The miniature leopards are taking full advantage of their light weight and reach nests tucked among the highest branches about 25 feet above ground. Not that I haven't tried to bribe them with malai milk, that too pure buffalo wala, in order to keep their hunger satiated. They but prefer the raw furred delicacies. They leave the milk with a mocking smirk and go hunting.

It's play as well as dining for them. A lethal combo. In just three days it's a different world in my small garden. Even slugs get unnecessarily slayed, for sheer fun because they don't eat them, just kill them for practice I think. A shrew has been a garden resident for the last two three years. I took it as a lucky sign. I'm preparing myself to come to terms with its mauled corpse one morning any day soon.  I just watch them helplessly. They are all males. That makes it even more troublesome. Girls behave slightly better. I get annoyed at them for slaying the peace in my birded garden, the little winged friends who give me so many tales to write. But when the big fat rascally feral tomcat came to kill them to keep his harem intact and unrivaled in future, I contrived with my brother to teach the lampoon a lesson. He got a stick strike on his bum from the hands of my brother. We feel like protecting them; we feel like caning them for killing birds and lizards. It's a strange feeling. They play. They kill. Nature. But it's heartbreaking to hear the distress calls of my bird friends. I can just watch helplessly. I know this is natural. But would I be a poet if I accept this fact so easily. Well, I only pray that these hunters grow soon and leap away on hunts beyond our garden. Then me and my birdie friends will take a sigh of relief. But will they leave any bird alive till that time comes?

PS: An update. Just now one of them has been seen with a squirrel baby nicely tucked in its mouth.

The lonely plant

 

It was a lonely tulsi plant in a far corner of the brick-paved and cement-topped yard. A chance sprout; a little seed falling in an almost invisible hairline crack in the cemented yard. And there it grew; a stunted plant for the lack of space around it. A tough life; but it came helpful during the winter. While many big, luxuriant tulsi plants couldn’t cope with harsh cold, it kept alive with its unassuming, low-profile self. The situational disadvantage, in terms of a cemented surrounding, provided an advantage also—a little projecting slab on the wall kept it safe from an open exposure to the frosty sky during the coldest months. It survived. Next spring, looking at this tiny fighter was a lovely sight; like basking in a roomful of light. The other day I gifted it with a neighbor. I put a flowerpot bearing a nice green flowering shrub near it. I hope they will turn friends. Their branches touch. I’m sure the lonely tulsi plant, away from the flowers beds, will surely feel happy about having a neighbor.

PS: A few months down the line it gets proven that even a plant feels lonely and would love to have a friend, neighbor or companion. The said plant has grown to four times its earlier size. Hail Bonhomie! Build yours guys!

Simpler, the better

 

My mother would always praise me for my simple ways about food. She would sometimes forget to put salt in the food and I would eat it without even knowing if something was missing. When she would eat later and come to know about the most crucial thing missing, she would laugh and tell me about it. Believe me, when I’m hungry eating a raw boiled potato or a spicy pizza are just the same. I swear on this. And I feel so good about it. It’s a gift from nature. I know the basics of cooking and that enables me to prepare a few necessary things that only I would like to eat. People normally are very particular about so many things but to me a few basics matter. So salt, spice, ripe, overripe, cooked, undercooked, baked, over-baked, or the shape of chapatti hardly have any effect on me. I can relish whatever I make even if a street dog would not feel comfortable in enjoying it. So it’s very simple regarding culinary matters. Simpler, the better. And there are so many ways one can survive upon. Like Sadhguru survived on a frugal meal for many years. It involved a fistful of raw peanuts soaked in water overnight and a banana. So one can have many variants of eatables either eaten naturally, boiled, fried or whatever. I had a discussion with Kaka Maharaj (who stays outside the village in a hut) and he told me that a devotee basically survives on bhajan or call it sadhna.

Flexibility and adjustment to the social mould

 

I write a lot and I speak a lot as well when I’m with family or friends, almost like a chatterbox. But it’s quite strange that I don’t miss speaking to anyone when I’m alone for even a month. There are many times every year when I’m all alone for extended periods and hardly speak for almost a month. And it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. When all we siblings and our children are gathered at one place, I’m part of the group in chatting terms. And when all are busy and at their places, I straightaway get into my mode of seclusion involving reading and writing without missing anyone. I find it strange sometimes. But that’s how it is. There doesn’t seem to be any hangover of those pleasant gatherings and routine talks. I find both speaking and not-speaking relevant in their own contexts.

Most of my friends belong to the non-spiritual category, so there I have to be just like them. It makes them so happy that they never feel any carryover from my world of academics and spirituality. In fact, most of the people appreciate it that I just mix with them on their frequency. The nicest compliment I have received is: ‘He meets an illiterate and poor person as if he himself is perfectly illiterate and even poorer than the person’. A wise village elder once said this about me. And I feel exactly like this. I just allow people to be what they are; try to be in their mold while I’m with them. It makes them comfortable with themselves.

This year's quota of kittens

 

A friendly feral cat visits once a day, eats a chapatti or whatever else is on offer. Brushes against the legs of anyone who is comfortable with the feline touch. It has been going for the last few years. Every year she brings her kittens, leaves them in the courtyard, goes out to hunt for rats and squirrels. The rest of the dietary supplements are taken care of by her foster human family. This morning her three children have arrived to fill up this year's quota. It's sad news for the garden lizard couple who has the entire courtyard to them. They would spend most of the time on the ground. The kittens are enough grown up to maul them to a funny chameleon pickle. They better beware. The tiny hunters are snoopy and are enquiring every nook corner. Suddenly they spring in the air and snap up some little house lizard baby or some complacent cricket from the wall. There are nests: squirrel, silverbill, spooted munia  and tailorbird couples have their nests among the clump of trees in the unkept garden of this countryside nondescript poet. Obviously the bird parents are panicked. The squirrels are continuously tiktikking and chitchitting. The tiny chits of tigers roam the little forest with their typical hunter's attitude and poise. Full of caution and opportunism. One of them was seen eyeing the silverbill couple with such amusing greed that I burst out laughing. Well, it's nature's play. The cat has timed her delivery for this time when there would be enough rodents to hunt. The birds have laid eggs in the monsoon season to cash on the abundance of insects. Little loops of food chains, overlapping, giving rise to this entire gamut of survival games. 

The kittens usually spend sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a few months. When they grow up sufficiently they scale the walls to taste the feline freedom of a feral cat who is comfortable with human touch sometimes..