In the slow rural lane

 

A bright morning always has been the stuff of legend—even on sultry, humid monsoon days when the sun seems to accentuate the musty torture. The morning sun cuts through the humid air; the sunrays seep through the humidity as if checking the proliferation of poetic anachronism pervading in this little yard. The peregrina flowers are abloom with narrative vigor. Tiny crimson clusters playing cultural cameos for a brief time. The lemon green butterflies are busy among the flowers as if holding musical dialogue with them. The small crimson flowers hold their jam, soup and syrup on the breakfasting table. Happy breakfasting you little chits of flying colors!

Poets are merchants of dreams. I copiously inhale my profits from the sight. Beyond the stony walls of the gawky and showy world, I marvel at the unrestrained seduction of the butterflies by the flowers offering their nectar with graceful candor. Then my eyes go to the ground and meet a sight—sad and sweet. A tiny classical tragedy spun by death and its heartless desertions. My emotion is sweetly sorrowful. I pick it up. A dead butterfly. It’s not deeply disquieting as death usually is when beheld from such close quarters because the colors of a dead butterfly are still peppered with sweet life-giving allusions. Your eyes become luminous when you hold a butterfly even if it’s a dead one.

Life and death are always engaged in melancholic-joyful, lengthy-short, haunting-uplifting, bitter-sweet tussle of duality. A butterfly carries its colors with such astonishing simplicity! I hold the fresh butterfly corpse bearing the trademark of colorful flirtations with life. The rest of her ilk are busy among the flowers with elegant gaiety, unmindful that one of them lost the air in her wings and fell down. I’m sure it was a painless journey for the winged beauty. As I hold it in my hand, I catch the sight of a bright blue kite stranded in the top branches of a prickly keekar. Monsoon storms have mercilessly chaffed at its once flying self. The kite also flew with charming airy anecdotes, scurrying off in different directions, challenging the power of the holding cord. Aflame with desire for freedom, it swayed with suppleness and airy assiduity. Well, it had its mundane magic and handful of revelry.

Life is only about playing for big (or small) stakes. It’s our choice basically. Some have easygoing disposition, others are loquacious with an ever-faltering composure. The butterfly corpse is still endearing and demure with its feminine colorful liveliness. I give it a leaf burial.

The sky is full of dragonflies. They feast upon midges and mosquitoes. The bee-eaters and swallows scoop up the dragonflies. Relentless tragedies side-by-side to vibrant ecstasies. And the sepia-tinted trilling call of a bee-eater is a treat to my ears. How will this vocal beauty emerge if not for this game of life and death? Though steeped in commonness and stashed in ordinariness, everything is magically so-so special. And like snuffy scholars we have to seek and shape that beauty with our eyes, our heart, our sensitivities.

‘We have seen a big black snake just near your gate!’ many people have warned me. I can understand their spasmodic delirium at the sight of a snake even if it’s non-poisonous. I take their information with a pinch of salt. I expect it to be a harmless rat snake. A dangerous krait won’t usually be seen in broad daylight because it’s a nocturnal guy. Moreover, it’s smaller than the ones they point out with their arms stretched out to meet many feet. This one they say is huge, so they confuse it with a cobra. But a cobra will always announce its presence with warning hisses and a taut hood. So my choice filters down to the harmless rat snake. And I’m proven right. My sister comes raising a war cry against the snakes, ‘It’s there…didn’t I tell you!’ I rush to the spot and find a big rat snake inspecting our toilet in the yard corner. Its size scares the people. Still on precaution, I thump a stick near it. It doesn’t raise a warning hood, confirming what I think of it—a rat snake not a cobra. I just beat the ground near it. It slithers out and enters a little section of the covered drain in the yard formed under the steps leading to the toilet. It sneaks into the tiny culvert. My sister is jittery with fear, so I push a stick into the narrow inlet and prod it out from the other end. It slithers away with its curvy, crawling majesty.

A rat snake is very fast. It just vanishes from your sight in a moment. I think it will return at night. It is most welcome to stay hidden during the day and thus not scare the family females. But I know the benefits of its presence. I haven’t seen even a single mouse in months with this resident reptile around. And no frogs as well. During the monsoons there would be so many frogs in the yard that they would even challenge my right of an evening stroll after the meals. They would keep bumping against my feet during the pensive walks. They even leave a sticky substance on collision with you. It isn’t good for one’s skin. No frogs, no mice—welcome my snake friend!

But one frog is very clever. It entered the house while very young. It’s an old country house where a frog can hide with safety. It’s grown up now. I hear its adolescent croak at the dinner time from some hidden corner. It feeds upon fleas and other insects so need not go out and risk its life. O yes, forgot to mention it. I saw a cute little baby monitor lizard in the store. It isn’t gavera, linked to the myth of a poisonous reptile, as they say, which can kill a person. It has harmful bacteria only in its saliva. I am not too bothered about it. I hope it will go out when it comes of age.