A January Jaunt

 

White-breasted water-hen is a blackish grey, long-legged, stub-tailed marsh bird with white on breast and face. This one loiters singly. There is moist ground along the path-side bushes. I see it regularly and it seems a solitary wanderer like me. It carries its stubby tail erect as it skulks around, jerking it time to time displaying the chestnut color underneath. These birds are very noisy during the monsoon, but for the rest of the time they are usually shy and silent.

During the monsoons, it hides unseen in a bush and unleashes pretty noisy chuckles, croaks and grunts—krr-kwak-kwak, kook-kook-kook. It loves croaking through cloudy nights. Its diet menu includes worms, insects, grains, shoots and mollusks. It steps around slowly like a long-legged beauty. Its long, yellow legs with long, spread out toes (three branched out forward and one backward) enable the silent wader to leave a fine trail of its toe-marks on the plain, soft sand. The pattern looks like a flowery motif, a fine free-wheeling filigree, looping artistically, taking open, liberated turns. An amazing regular pattern, open to uncertainty and vicissitudes of life. To any solitary lounger it’s a treat to observe and muse over these marks on the countryside path. They attract you like floral patterns in relief on Persian monuments. You can feel the silent wader’s ease while walking on the soft, smooth sand. The symmetry of its gait and toes is such that they fall in a double marked line, so proportionally going along that only a beetle with its tiny legs leaves a better patterned trail. This particular water-hen must be a singular bird, cozily staying in the area, passing time in the moist fields and bushes along the path. I see the delectable proofs of its walk preserved on the clear canvas of sand in the evenings.

The temperature has plummeted down very sharply, almost touching the freezing point in the first week of January. As you grow old, the cold starts eating into your bones during the winters. You pine for sunshine more than anything else. Like a frozen snake coming back to life, I’m walking on the countryside cart track under pale sunrays this afternoon. It’s dark green carpet of wheat on both sides with patches of bright yellow mustard in between. This is mankind’s well-manicured lawn, striking in its modernist monotony. The nature tamed to an extent that the will of man seems the will of God. A few trees survive in the corners of the cropped fields and on the embankments. They seem to hold their little root-hold as if on a lease from the farmer. Then there are mushroom huts among the green and yellow of the wheat and mustard.

Something comes crashing out of the wayside bushes. It’s a black dog, quite well built for its breed. It is running away for its life, its tail safely under legs as if the tail stands for life and losing it or getting it harmed would mean losing the life itself. I have never seen such a fast canine sprint. It simply vanished from my view before I could even realize it. Then a huge Saint Bernard lumbered out onto the path with its long-limbed bulk. The escaper had transgressed into its territory, most probably a mushroom farm farther into the countryside. Well, it helps to be a coward, as long as you have muscles in your legs to support the chicken heart. The big dog stood almost clueless as to where the foe had gone. The runner had safely escaped. Clueless about what to do, the pursuer sniffed at the path-side grass forming the outer boundary of the ruts in the path. Then something snarled at it. It’s a small, shriveled, itchy canine chit lying coiled up in the grass. Well, you have to defend your territory even if it means a square yard of frost-beaten grass by a dusty cart track. The big dog, its face bigger than the little itchy imp, looked surprised and respecting the little thing’s territorial rights moved away. It means really strong people will allow you the satisfaction of punching above your weight.

Kala Tobhla is easefully waiting for his drinking pals to assemble at the little farmhouse by the side. Last year he was very busy in the mushroom farms. ‘No mushroom farming this year?’ I ask as I come across the path. ‘No, no! It was total loss! I hate mushrooms so much so that I even shouted at my wife when she asked me if she could cook mushrooms for dinner. I warned her never to cook it. She is just not to even touch them,’ he poured out his woes.

There is fine sand on the path. It’s not dusty at this point of the season as dew and fog leave enough moisture to keep the dust tamed. The soil bears the marks of farming life. It bears the prints of agricultural endeavors. There are tyre marks. The tractors leave quite authoritative ones. And smaller vehicles a bit lesser ones. Different tyres leave their own patterns, a crazy monotony of designs. In between are the marks of shoes and slippers. But very few people walk on foot these days. Then comes the area of the white-breasted water-hen. Her toe marks stand out quite exclusive among all the man-made markings. It looks like a signature of sanity among all the rubbered and soled stampede.

As a gauzy veil of mist builds up over the green and yellow in the farms, I leave the main cart track and move on the little path going zigzag among the farms. It bears the marks of the so-called lesser species. The peacocks, dogs, insects, birds and the casual human foot among them. These are the little spaces at the margins of the board of human activity where the so-called lesser species walk and leave their footmarks to remind us of their existence.