Satsang with a religious man

 There is a simple man in our village. He is in his early fifties and a gristha. He is a small farmer but his wife is a government teacher. His son and daughter and their spouses are in government services. People say Almighty has been very kind to him in giving him almost everything, without much effort; in fact, most of the things that other villagers struggle to achieve seem to be given to him on a platter. Whenever I meet this man, I can see a spark of the divine feminine in him.

As we know this universe has a divine polarity comprising divine feminine on the one side and divine male on the other side. It is not necessary that a person who has been born as a biological man or woman or any other gender identity will essentially have the corresponding divine male or female aspect or element in him or her. We categorize people either as a born male or a born female or some beautiful combination overlapping genders. But irrespective of their categorization in terms of biological genders, people have a subtler layer of categorization: divine female element or divine male element defining their personality. This latter subtler, more nuanced characteristic is not necessarily bound to the biological male, female or any overlapping gender identity. A biological male can have the spark of divine female in him, defining him as a soft, elegant, receptive persona. Similarly, a biological female may possess the divine male spark in her personality, making her aggressive, dominating and loud. The neighborhood peasant women, most of them, fall in this category. A few of them even beat their husbands, sitting on their chest, gnawing their face, shrieking loudly. I call them a warrior women clan.  

Now this person that I mentioned is biologically a man. He possesses the divine feminism beautifully personified in his personality. The way he speaks, very soft spoken, gentle with words, almost whispers. He is elegance personified the way he moves his body, the way he takes his soft steps, the way he smiles, everything. You can say he is a very nice personification of the divine female element. His emotions are poetry personified. But this spark of the divine feminism in his male body is intriguing for people. Things get still tougher in a male-dominated Jat society where being a man is about being loud, aggressive, raw, rough and tough. On account of this visible contrast in the material world, the contrast of a male body and feminine elegance, there are many who would just laugh at him. People pass sarcastic remarks. But that is their problem. This man is not bothered about what people talk, think or say about him. He is very busy on his path of Bhakti. People with divine feminine element in them have a great potential for self realization through Bhakti marga involving total surrender to the deity. It stands on complete receptivity of faith, unquestioning acceptance. How can it be possible without the mellowable, fluid strength of the divine feminine?

I have seen him and heard about him following various gurus in the region. He would go into the ashrams and do selfless work. He organizes kirtans and sings wonderful bhajans of love for almighty. In fact, there is a group of women in the village who almost take him as their guru who is there to guide them on the path of Bhakti. It’s a wonderful sight to see him and his group of women going for religious congregations, following pious rituals or singing devotional songs. I always had this feeling that this man is on very solid footing, with his feminine steps, as far as the ultimate realization is concerned.

Sometime back I found him standing in front of my gate, very submissively, even hesitatingly, as if lost in many inhibitions whether he should knock at the gate or go back unannounced. By chance I saw him standing there otherwise I believe he would have even left without calling on me. He greeted me in his gentle, elegant voice and manner and asked me if I can give him a bit of time because he needs to talk. As we started talking, there were tears in his eyes, the tears of an unrequited love for the almighty, his divine lover for whom his soul has been doing tapasya; the stream of tears almost a river of sweet suffering to meet his divine lover, the Almighty. After decades on the path, despite being a great selfless servant to many holy men, he openly confessed that there is the same restlessness, the very same suffering, the same stress as it was when he started on the path decades ago. He asked me frankly what was the use of selflessly serving all those gurus, what is the need of that selfless work in the ashrams, what is the purpose of holding those kirtans nightlong singing songs in Lord’s praise. A huge why staring at his soul?

‘What was the use of all this if after so much time and service I feel I am where I started from? There is the same restlessness, the same suffering, the same torturing feeling of something missing. Now I wonder has it been worth it,’ he seemed thoroughly shaken.

I felt that he was disgruntled with his gurus, with the manner things are organized in ashrams, the sweet sour bickering among the devotees, all summing up to give almost a kind of feeling that you have in the society at large, or within your house.

‘Who am I to tell you? A novice while so many Babas haven’t been able to guide you?’ I was about to reply. But a split-second reflection stopped me. And I would go on to explain a few things to him as per my level of understanding born of my journey so far. Why I chose to speak to him? It needs a flashback.

There is this girl who is a very distant relative of mine. She is a sweet householder with three beautiful children. From the derivative threads of relatives, I qualify to be her maternal uncle so she calls me Mamaji. I had never met or talked to her in life. She had heard a few summarizing bits about me, just vague biographical pheases. She is a devotee of Mahaavtar Babaji. She called me for the first time and introduced herself. As per her belief system, she acts as a medium to convey Babaji’s messages. She goes into a trance, the pen draws of its own will, a psychotic trance, and meaningful messages surface, many of which have resolved problems for those asking divine intervention from their side. ‘Mamaji I hardly know Sanskrit and chaste literary Hindi words but sometime the messages come in such highly refined language that even I’m surprised and they help people,’ she told me. The problem-solving messages by Babaji helped many in her friend circle. She was intrigued and wanted to know more. She pestered Babaji to tell more about it and he would just laugh her away in her dreams. Feeling more intrigued she thought of going to Sadguru to get a clearer idea about things. But Babaji laughingly teased her that don’t go to him. His mission needs people like you and he will keep you as a spiritual worker among his followers then who will take care of your children. ‘Then Mamaji your name struck me. My inner voice said that this man knows quite a few things intellectually that may explain many things. But experientially he is still a novice, in fact a fool. So Mamaji explain things intellectually, your being a fool experientially doesn’t matter,’ she laughed.

So I poured out my entire verbal diarrhea in response to her never-ending queries. ‘Ho Mamaji you can set up a nice business in the bazaar of spirituality. Who is bothered about experiential aspect of true knowledge? Nobody. You can start selling yourself. I will help you. There are so many judges and high officials who are lost souls and need words, words and more words on spirituality,’ she teased me and gave a business plan. ‘I will surely fail in any business, be it material business or spiritual one,’ I laughed away the plan. Then after a few more conversations and having been bombarded by more intellectual words, she started wondering about my fate. Now, yours truly has waded pretty testing waters in life. She felt sorry for me, the typical way nieces do for their senior relatives and then when she went into her trance she put up my question to Babaji. ‘Why has it been so tough for Mamaji? Why has he such a floundering date with fate?’ she asked. And Babji assured her, ‘Don’t bother about him. It’s his own choice. This speeding of karma. He wants to take a leap. A leap of five birth’s karma in a single lifespan. Now that will raise sparks and raise the temperature for him.’ She told me this sullenly. I said don’t feel sorry beta, it’s our own journey based on our own choices. After that as an intellectually crammed (to the extent of verbal and written diarrhea) and experientially novice, I try my best to explain a few things to those who arrive at my doorstep. Beyond that I’m not interested in anything. So I decide to talk to this wonderful human being who had now come seeking my advice.  

I told him, ‘See you should not expect the people on the path of spirituality, the devotees, the religious institutions and gurus to be the perfect replica of divinity on earth. These are mere indicators; they just systematize a certain set of rules so that the devotees can progress on the path, a start, a beginning, to further build upon it. All this systematization of scriptures, rituals, gurus, deities is just a vehicle. The main reason of your pain is that you considered a mere vehicle as the destination. Just like you take a train or a bus or a two-wheeler or an airplane to reach a particular destination, does it mean that particular means of communication is your destination. Don't we just forget about the vehicle and enjoy the destination once we arrive. The means are never the end. But this is common human folly to start taking the means as an end in themselves. The same is with gurus, with ashrams, with followers, with holy works and pious bhajans. All these are just material or not so material means to an end, the end of supreme realization. You should not look for perfection in institutions, in gurus, in your fellow devotees. It is never about them. It is always about you. Because wherever you have an institutional build up, there are certain elementary or basic things of life that we need to run a particular institution or ashram. Worldly materiality cannot be avoided. It is always looking over the fence to creep in. So after a time the very same feelings that you feel as a householder, they also manifest in ashrams and institutions and a devotee feels almost cheated thinking what is this, I was expecting something totally different but here things are more or less the same as they were in my house. Please do not fall in this trap of judging the gurus, the fellow devotees, or a particular stream of belief or sect or ashram. Don't feel victimized or cheated that it was not worth it, that nothing came out of it, that you wasted your life. It has been worth it believe me. It has served its purpose. It was first in the hierarchy that accepted you with its divine grace. You must have been feeling suffocated and restless within your duties as a householder, as a part of society just like any other person around. And that is why you, in accordance with your soul’s eagerness to spread its wings and be a part of something larger that defines you as something above and beyond your identity, came out and met these wonderful people. You were adopted in a sort of larger family where the rules and responsibility that were streamlined as a householder are now modified to give you a feeling of freedom. An opening. A coming out from a narrow alley to a wider street. There you were the head of the house, here it is guru. Instead of the family members, now you have fellow devotees. Instead of the common mechanism of running a house, here it is about running a larger organization for an institution or an ashram. The fundamentals are the same, just that you become a part of a larger entity, a larger household, a larger community where you feel better, relaxed just for the more open nature of it. A breaking of former confines. It is just like this. Suppose there is someone who is incarcerated in a small cell in a jail. And if that person is brought out and allowed to come into the prison yard, which itself is still a part of the prison but the moment he comes out of his narrow cell he sucks in the free rays of the sun and he can smell the traces of freedom, he can enjoy life even though he is still in the jail. And if you keep him in that prison yard for a few months, the same feeling of being trapped, being incarcerated, being jailed will come creeping even though now the space is far-far bigger than what it was there in the tiny cell earlier. So similarly earlier you got fed up with the little cell of your household, then you were given a bigger platform as part of ashrams, as part of devotees, as part of devotional music groups and you felt better. Now please don't think that this stage in your life has not been worth anything. It has served its purpose. Just like the prisoner coming out of his narrow's little cell feels better in the prison compound, similarly you were coming out of your house and its troublesome confines and enjoying life as a part of religious communities. It gave you a sense of freedom. But now your soul wants something more, it wants to become a part of a larger entity, a large group, a lot of further spread out setup where it can further spread its wings to fly in liberated skies. Now as far as I can feel and understand, you want a dose of further unqualified freedom, unconditioned from disciplehood, serving in ashrams, massaging guru’s legs and the like. I will tell you a few simple techniques that will help you feel liberated from your situations that you feel have confined you in a narrow bracket as of now.’

I pointed to his footwear and said, ‘Why deprive yourself of graceful contact with mother earth? Try to walk as much as possible on naked feet.’ I could feel that he is not in a position to renounce his material world. He is pretty much attached to the beautiful world mainly through his little grandson. Nothing wrong with that. So I suggested him a long pilgrimage of let us say two months to visit Haridwar and Rishikesh, ‘Keep a cloth bag, put your footwear in it, have a bottle of water, have a stick as your guardian, as your companion, keep a yellow ascetic robe in it. If you feel hesitation in wearing the ascetic robe in the village itself, thinking what will people say then you can wear the robe at a distance from the village where nobody recognizes you. Now why am I telling you to wear the ascetic robe even though you are not a renunciator. The reason is it is a mark and symbol of asceticism and it will save you from many a dark eye on the way. It is not an old sight in India to find ascetics in their traditional robes moving across isolated places. So many people would just give you respect and they won't bother you. For example, when the night is falling and you need a place to spend the time and some villager or someone from a little hamlet comes across and sees an ascetic coming he or she will offer you a place to spend the night and even offer you food. And then you can just stay on mother Ganga’a banks for a couple of months. You used to take bucket bath earlier, now you have to spread your identity to be bathed by the unlimited, blissful waters of mother Ganga that are not bound by any material restrictions or physical limitations. Earlier you used to define the sky above you in the form of a roof on your head but now you will be defining your identity in terms of the infinite vault of the sky above. Anyway it will be as good as the prisoner, who got fed up in the prison compound, now coming out of the prison gate and becoming a part of the open society at large. Similarly from the definition of your identity born of your footwear’s touch on ground leaving a footprint by your shoes, a mediated reality, a fake ego reality, here now as you walk with naked feet you will be giving the infinite lovable touch to mother earth and get defined in a new manner by the real sole of your feet not just by any intermediary footwear intervening between you and mother earth. Use your footwear when it becomes too difficult for you to walk on account of rough terrain. Now you would be taking bath in the open rivers and ponds and water bodies instead of just being bathed by the limited waters of your bathroom or your bucket. Stop now getting defined by the roof of your house and its suffocating limitations. Now you'll be defined by the open skies. It will give you the space that you need. It will provide you an opportunity to spread yourself on a bigger platform. And believe me once you return to your house after 2-3 months, you will retain those glimpses of freedom and unbound deliberation with you. Because on the path of spirituality the barometer won't come down at least in this lifetime. If you have touched, tasted and smelt the divine, you will retain that divine grace with you. You are lucky to be located in a village where there is still open space around, where there are canals with freer (relatively speaking) waters, where there are big trees. So I would advise you to spend two-three hours daily walking on naked feet on canal embankments where there is solitude. You can take bath in the canals and imagine you are bathing in Ganga. Everything is emotion, bhaav. With pure emotions this village canal will transform into Ma Ganga. You can just visualize or imagine that these are the waters of divine Ganga. Ma Ganga will be washing you of your pains and suffering right here in this canal. If you're not satisfied with the company of humans, go and embrace trees, talk to them, sit under them, enjoy their company. And this according to me brother seems to be the appropriate way as per your journey spent so far. You just need a bigger space to allow your soul to further spread on its path.’

I spoke many other things. I spoke with spiritual excitement to the extent that my mouth went dry. What I have presented here is just from recall, there were many other outpours of verbal diarrhea. But what wrong it does if your intellectual jargon helps someone feel better. He had tears of joy now. I could feel him opening up to the scenarios described by me. ‘I already feel so much better, just by imagining it,’ he said. ‘Any experientially challenged fool—like me—will talk and give the longest sermon on earth but main thing is following it. It looks simpler than it really is,’ I thought. But I didn’t say anything. I could see the change in him. He arrived with a lot of suffering but left a happy man. A temporary respite. But then all spiritual practices are about temporary respites, a series of little salvations, little-little battle won for peace and ultimately there are few fortunate ones who win the entire war, the ultimate triumph, perfect self realization, call it nirvana or whatever. 

Shiva and his naga

 Indian mythology is full of beautiful fables and interesting tales. Now they have very mystical meanings if we analyze them, interpret them in a higher dimension. I always thought why do they depict Shiva with a Naga, mostly a black cobra, around his neck and my individual interpretation is something on the following lines. A snake being one of the most perceptible creatures on Earth. Their entire body is in a position to perceive things to a level that is almost impossible to even imagine for human beings. Like for example there is a snake in its hole and there is an earthquake thousands of kilometers away. Now there is a high possibility that the snake will perceive the tremors because it is so sensitive to even the softest reverberations coming across its body. We humans have almost a primal fear when it comes to snakes. Just think of a snake and you get goosebumps and when you come across a snake it can perceive the fear in you. It can perceive the change in your blood chemistry because when you get excited, when you get fearful your blood chemistry changes and your breathing pattern also turns abnormal. Now a snake being so perceptive, even if you don't show any outer sign of being afraid, but you are scared inside, it can perceive the biological or chemical changes in your bloodstream and it reacts to that fear. It is commonly believed wherever there are meditating spiritualists the snakes really like their company. I have read stories about meditating ascetics in the forests and as their mind goes into that state of equilibrium, that equanimity of temperament, that balance of mind and the consequent lessening of fear, a snake especially a cobra really likes those waves of higher frequency. In the neighboring village there was a realized Soul, he left this body about 25 years ago, but people accepted him as an enlightened human being and he used to meditate a lot when he arrived in this area. He used to meditate in a little scrub forest. In his memoirs he has clearly written that when he would meditate there was a black cobra that would continue moving in a circle around him and that continued for at least 5 or 7 years. So it proves that a Cobra has a special liking for those who are spiritually evolved or who are on the path of spiritual evolution because there are certain changes, biological changes as a result of the spiritual practices, which create a kind of divine atmosphere where there is no fear, where the snake loses its instinct of fear and biting. I think the reason they show a Naga around Shiva's neck is that Shiva being a realized soul, a supreme  being who was 100% established within himself, so there was no fear and the snake would find him just like a warm rock during cold winter days, where it could relax since there was no fear, no change in that great yogi's blood chemistry  or emotions or thoughts or energy field. As established as a rock. So a snake would be near Lord Shiva the way it would prefer to crwal on a rock. According to me, the main purpose they show Shiva with a naga was that he was a supreme personality that was 100% realized and established within its human form; there was no turbulence either in his emotions or in his body or in his energy field and a snake would be so comfortable around his neck as it would be comfortable on a rock during harsh winter days in order to soak in the sunrays. The adiyogi established his chitta in all forms, to be like a living rock, a supreme fluidity inside a supreme stability.  And with someone so blissful why won't a naga fall in love. It abandoned its fears and biting insticts. And there we have our beautiful Shiva with a Naga around his neck.

The history of my clan

 

Here is a brief history for my clan brothers, the Dahiyas. It’s better to know one’s roots. Well, the present-time Dahiya is a time-twisted derivative of Dahae. It was a central Asian nomadic tribe. Well, we have grown up listening to our elders telling us that long-long ago our ancestors migrated from central Asian steppes. Later on, academic research proved the substance behind those oral chronicles. The facts that are presented here are taken from many well-researched books and sources presented by many western and Indian scholars and historians.

The Dahae initially lived in the north-eastern part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, in the arid steppes of the Karakum Desert near Margiana, alongside the Saka groups and the Sogdians and Chorasmians, and immediately to the north of Hyrcania. The name of the Dahae, attested in the Old Persian form Dahā, is derived from a Saka language name meaning ‘man,’ based on the common practice among various peoples of calling themselves ‘man’ in their own languages. However, one famous Western historian maintained that it meant ‘stranglers’. Well, there is a possibility of it meaning the both because in traditional patriarchy like the one found among Jat clans including Dahaes or Dahiyas, ‘men’ and ‘stranglers’ would come out almost the same.

The Dahae people lived in the region to the immediate east of the Caspian Sea. They spoke an Eastern Iranian language. The area was known as Dihistan and Dahistan during the Sassanid period. There is still a place called Dahistan in western Turkmenistan—the land of Dahaes, almost like Hindustan is derived from a literary expression meaning roughly ‘the land of the followers of Hinduism’. Then there is Dahestan in nothern Iran also. It was the area of a branch of Dahae who moved into northern Iran. My clan (the present time Dahiya, a derivative of Dahae or the people of Dahistan) was settled in the east of Caspian sea in central Asia around Oxus valley.

There is an ambiguity whether we were almost religionless nomads or the followers of a cult that allied with Zoroastrianism. Settled on the north-eastern border of the Persian Achaemenid empire, the Dahae people spoke a dialect originating from eastern Iranian language. According to the Babylonian historian Berossus, the founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus, died fighting against the Dahae. But when it came to fighting someone who was considered a foreigner by all the feuding tribes in the area, that’s Alexander the Great, the Dahāe fought within the left wing of the Achaemenid army along with the Bactrians and the Saka against Alexander the Great at Gaugamela in 331 BCE.   

Saka coins from the Seleucid era are sometimes specifically attributed to the Dahae. They are the Dahae, who along with the Kangs and other Jat clans, fought Alexander the Great, on the north of Oxus river under their leader, Spitama. A whole division of Greek army, was cut to pieces at Samarkand in the valley of Zerof Shan. By the time Alexander reached there to take revenge for the ‘first Macedonian disaster’, he found only his dead soldiers to bury. He had to fall back and establish his camp at Zariaspa, but the valiant Jats under Spitama attacked his main camp, too. Alexander failed to defeat them, so this brave world conqueror started torturing the women, children and other non-combatant population. Meantime, the Achaemenid Empire fell at the hands of Alexander. Now he could focus on torturing the civilian population of the Dahae settlements.

Jat mathematics of ‘16 multiplied by 2 is equal to 8’ is still popular. You can imagine its crude version almost 2300 years back. They had a very easy solution. Alexander was torturing women, children and the old but the Dahae leader Spitama won’t accept submission even after the strong Achaemenid Empire had fallen to the great conqueror. Those simple Jats had a far simpler solution. The Dahaes themselves beheaded their unbuckling leader Spitama, and produced his head before Alexander. Only then he stopped the mean persecution of the general population. Many of them then joined Alexander of Macedon in his quest to India as mercenary soldiers. In this way a large number of Dahae Jats then joined the Greek army and when his Macedonian soldiers refused to fight in the Punjab, Alexander threatened to move ahead with his Jat (Bactrian) soldiers only. As per Greek writers, the Dahae under Alexander, were the first to attack the army of Porus in 326 B.C. This was not the first or the last time, when Jat blood was shed from both sides.

Jats are known to break each other’s head for the real illogical fun of it. They are highly prone to fight among themselves. I can still see this propensity opening out in street fights at a regular basis in Jat villages. So there were Dahae Jat soldiers in Alexander’s army now. But they had their own clan brothers who dreamed of breaking their heads. These fellas aligned with Porus. In this manner, following their querulous ways, the Jat clans, looking for better land and pastures, started migration to present time India.

I can still see the bloodthirsty craze for owning more land in my clan. Every Jat settlement has many bloody feuds for land that resulted in killings and lynching. But we are changing. Agriculture has been our only type of culture but now with education we see more cultural colors beyond farming fields. As of now, there is a tight clump of fifty odd adjoining villages of erstwhile Dahae, the dwellers of steppe plains and Oxus valley, who still hold their distinct identity in Sonipat district of Haryana. The Sultanate came, the Mughals came, the Britishers came but we kept sticking to the lands we had occupied before them. So near to the centre of power at Delhi! That shows our propensity to stick to our land. They also realized that these fellows will bite back if disturbed. So the seats in Delhi kept changing but our clan kept sticking to its chunk of land at all costs. They killed, got killed in return, kept on killing each other as well, but stayed there.

That’s how nationalities form. The bloody fluidity of changing border lines and people moving this way and that way. The Britishers were the wisest of the lot who occupied Delhi. They knew the art of human resource utilization. They knew that these people are very quick with arms and very slow with minds, as Rudyard Kipling famously said about Jats. So to pamper to the vanity of our ego they declared us a martial community and put batons, swords and rifles in our hands. Even within my memory, I have seen and heard about many family feuds for lands where people have been killed. There have been honor killings, far more than you would believe as per official data. The women and female children have faced a lot of discrimination. But now Jats have cultivating their mind like they did in the fields. We have hundreds of officers in prestigious all India services. There have been commendable fighters for the army. There have been Olympic gold medal winners and scientists. But still a lot has to change I can feel.   

That’s how histories are made, willingly unwillingly. We assume, we accept, we ignore, we selectively choose, we deliberately ignore. Just to justify our present. Or our goals that we hold sacrosanct and higher than others. The tribe from the steppes whose soldiers were recruited by Alexander the great now form prestigious fighting units in Indian military. Times change. The rulers change. Nationalities get redefined. Boundaries change. Names change. People change. Languages change. But what doesn’t change is the same age old virus of hate, fear and greed. It keeps alive in one form or the other. What drove people thousands of years ago to beat their basic fears still drives in a technology-sharpened manner.   

The Window

 

‘The Window’ is a beautiful Persian movie. No big efforts at super-heroism, no ironies of heart-breaks, no bombastic romance, no gooseflesh rippling drama, no thunder-stricken rigmarole of saving the planet from the aliens. It’s not about chafing thoughts, it’s all about the frolicking gaiety of common emotions in the life of common people.

Beyond the grinding millstone of bigger caprices, it’s about sublimated emotions. It creeps genteelly like a flowery vine. It’s a long-drawn painting of beautiful hills, smatterings of snow on the slopes, chatty streams, green pastures and a sense of virginal peace to tow all these along. There are no chivalric, lionized doctrinaires delving into deep mysteries of human existence. It’s a gently flowing painting on a self-absorbed canvas. The human characters simply add to the soft shades of the softly evolving painting.

In his small world, little Ali takes soft, chiming steps to be a nice human being. With a working-man’s prudence, he contrives a canvas and paints his simple pictures using pomegranate juice, egg yolk, charcoal and leaf paste. He paints to bring a smile to a girl who is bedridden and cannot come out to play. The old, reclusive painter who teaches him to paint has an unfinished painting by his son who has gone missing.

The missing young man loved portraying virginal, untouched scenes. He has left an unfinished painting of a lone tree on a hilltop against the background of snowy peaks. As a sort of gurudakshina for his old painting teacher, little Ali roams around the hills to find the location of the tree in the unfinished painting. He finds the place and this is where the old man comes across the grave of his lost son.

Then the caravan of life takes Ali’s family away. Before they move, little Ali gives their small TV set to the sick girl’s poor family. She already has started smiling looking at those softly drawn pastures, streams, sunrises and hills painted by Ali. Through his little acts he is learning to paint a real life beautiful picture.

Hunting for a Hunter

 

During our childhood, my brother loved birds, mostly as pets. Flying birds cannot excite a child like they stimulate the poets. He fancied catching a hawk and carry it as his pet. A boy with a hawk surely would go as the undisputed leader of the neighborhood urchins.

Shikra is a relatively smaller bird of prey. The wilderness around the village was yet to be tamed. It meant we had many shikras in the sky during those days. The bird hovered in the air—at one point in the sky like a helicopter—as it took aim at some field rat among the bunch-grass, sedge and shrubbery around the village pond.

The majestic hunter caught my brother’s fancy. He mustered up his band. They observed that the small hawk suddenly swooped down, literally fell over the rat. There would be a scuffle of few seconds before it took to air again with its take-away. And here the band of boys smelt a chance. They procured a big, wicker-worked fodder basin used to feed cattle. They planned to hide among the bushes and drop the instrument made of mulberry switches and canes over the hunter, while it struggled on the ground to tame its prey.

The thing was thrown hundreds of times over a period of weeks. And finally they had the catch. The cattle feed basin landed on an impressive cluster of bushes. The hawk made a timely escape. As they approached to retrieve their hunting gear, a big black snake hissed from under it. A snake being too much for a pet, they ran away leaving the snake with its nice kennel. An elder person had to go and fetch the thing after the snake had rejected its new home, finding it reeking with cattle saliva and sunlight filtering through the narrow chinks.