Clangy-blangy fall of a farming vessel

 The farmers keep a big tin pan, a basin rather. It’s used to gather cattle dung in the barn to take it to the dump site. We call it tasla. Not a great item to look at, on account of its task, it but is as important as the brass plate in the kitchen. When a tasla falls on the ground, it makes a thunderous sound as if war has been declared between two groups of rowdy farmers. It freezes the moment in the entire neighborhood. Its clangy-blangy notes spread out with the intensity of a mini-bomb’s explosion. Sometimes it startles love-cum-fight sessions between the peasant couples to whom there isn’t much of a difference between love and war. Lovemaking happens to be a type of war. And sometimes not just humans, the birds also get stalled in their beautiful moments by the storm-surge of a tasla fall, like it happens this morning. A beautifully fan-tailed peacock and a reciprocating dull-looking peahen standing face to face on a wall and just on the verge of a cheeky-peeky-beaky kiss. A tasla bangs on the ground in the locality. As the noisy tempest is unleashed, the kiss gets lost and the startled love-birds run for life.

We aren’t sure how many farmer couples, sparring on the charpoys, leapt out of their duels, but yours truly can see at least one more effect on a helpless animal. It’s a heavily pregnant cat slowly moving on the top of a seven-foot high yard wall, carrying its sweetly overloaded stomach with the majestic mien of maternity. It need not be told to be careful; natural intelligence at work. It’s there in every ounce of existence. But the clang and bang of a falling tasla can spoil all natural equanimity born of inherent intelligence across species. It jumps as the tasla slays peace, or even secret wars on charpoys, in the locality. But as a mother it has to be careful. It seems uncertain whether it should go down or not. It then very cautiously slips along the wall, her front paws scratching the wall plaster. The feline would-be-mom neatly lands with a very soft jump. And we humans think that our knowledge is a product of our thinking. In fact our thinking overshadows the infinite natural intelligence pervading around. Remove the dust and see the bigger picture. But not when a tasla falls. We all including humans, peacocks and cats share a commonality, a common trait of getting frozen for a moment when a falling tasla slays the status quo.