CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND
BY A.V. DHANUSHKODI
Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your philosophy”. HAMLET,
ACT I , SCENE V
EPISODE
NINE---AN EGG A DAY
Every
night, after dinner, I would sit in my cane chair in my room and read a novel:
Peter Cheyney, Earle Stanley Gardner or James Hadley Chase, before going to
bed. The genre, paradoxically a relaxant. Invariably
and most incongruously at that time, in the cool breeze of the night, I would
pick up the clear tinkling sound of the bells of a bullock cart or two, lazily
moving towards the city of Thanjavur
from Thirucirapally, on the bypass road. The tinkling of the bells was a
perfect accompanying instrument for the full-throated languorous folk-songs the
drivers of the bullock-carts would sing.
Between the bypass road and the highway, was the bungalow of the District
Collector of Thanjavur, my father. The
year, 1958.
The
Collector’s bungalow was situated in the midst of around ten acres of land,
barren, except for wild trees and bushes, sparsely growing wherever they liked
at will, spanning the entire area between the highway and the bypass road. In
the close proximity of the bungalow, however, one had tried to impose some
semblance of design in their growth, adding flower plants, mostly roses,
bougainvilleas, and jasmines. The bungalow
per se was palatial with a typical
layout of a Collector’s bungalow anywhere in India: in the centre of the bungalow
was a wide flight of wooden steps, leading to the veranda of the first and the
only floor above the ground floor. On either side of it on the ground floor was
a large room, one of which my father had turned into an office room. Next to that was a smaller room, occupied by
the clerical staff. The large room on the other side of the stair-case was used as a reception room to seat VIP
official-visitors, adjoining which was a smaller room, a kind of pantry
containing refreshments for the VIP visitors.
The
layout of the first floor was a replica of the ground floor. The large room above the VIP reception room
was my mother’s bedroom and the
adjoining room above the pantry was my bedroom.
The large room on the other side of the stairs above the office room was
my father’s bedroom and the adjoining room above the clerical-staff’s room was
my study.
Living
with my maternal grand-parents in Madras
(as Chennai was known then) for college education, I would go to stay with my parents during
holidays. Those days were most blissful,
as nobody bothered me. My father would be weighed down with office work all his
waking time and my mother would be equally busy, managing the household, taking
care of my father’s needs and playing the graceful host to the VIP visitors;
additionally, there was a horde of servants to manage. I was free to do anything, a freedom I never misused. I would read a lot, mostly tons and tons of
crime novels, as I mentioned at the outset.
Also, I spent a lot of time sketching nature--roaming the sprawling area
around the bungalow--and hens. We had
around fifty of them, I think. Most of them were Leghorns,
snow-white in colour and most elegant in their snooty movements, pecking
selectively at choice worms and victuals; and Rhode Island Reds, ruddy and fat, like Friar
Tuck, ambling along awkwardly, pecking at anything and everything. In between them were the most charming and beautiful
“country chicken”, as we used to call them endearingly. They were neither tall and snooty like the Leghorns, nor fat and grob
and raucous like the Rhode Islands,
but were ideal hen-templates in form, size, facial beauty and movements. And, they had the most musical clucking sound
any hen was capable of making.
Another
pastime of mine was watching hatching of eggs.
As you know, Leghorns and the
Rhode Islands
will not hatch, but the country chicken will.
Therefore, while the Leghorns and the Rhode Islands
were careless where they laid their eggs, the country chicken would hide theirs
in unimaginable nooks and corners, under bushes, stones, and piled up cardboard
cartons. I would systematically hunt
them out and bring them to the kitchen, where mother would place them in dated
boxes, for chronological consumption, but not before selecting from among them
equal number of well-shaped and big eggs of the three breeds of hens, for
hatching. She would then select the most
trustworthy “hatcher”, invariably the same country chicken with burnt-sienna
body-colour, and black dots over
it.
Nature’s
instinct for procreation and preservation of species is most tenderly evident
in the hatching of the chicks. The
hatcher sits patiently on the eggs for
twenty-one days, without consuming practically anything at all, at the end of
which one hears faint pecking of chicks from within an egg or two. The pecking spreads rapidly to other eggs and
one has to mercilessly lift the “mother” hen to see the egg shells cracking
with relentless pecking of the chicks within and hear the occasional chirping
accompanying them. Extreme patience will
be rewarded with nature’s wonder of the egg-shells cracking open little by
little, then the pink, rubbery, translucent beaks sticking out first, followed
by the slimy head with closed eyes struggling out and finally the chicks
tumbling out awkwardly, skinny gooey mess of miniature dinosaurs. A few more minutes of patient watching of the
wonder will be amply rewarded with the sight of the messy things quickly
transforming themselves into perfect walking and chirping eggs made of airy
downs, trembling with the slightest whiff of breeze brushing them. Added to the downy eggs will be two black
pellet eyes, pink translucent beaks and legs, all soft, rubbery, and pliable to
the touch. It would be weeks before they
harden.
I
would often sit before the mother hen, now puffed out as big as a Rhode Island
Red, with all the chicks tucked within its feathers, to keep them warm, as they
grow day by day. Often I would hear the
chicks chirping within the puffed up hen and, now and then, would see a tiny
pink beak or a head darting out and in, if I was alert and watchful
enough. Sometimes I would lift the hen
to see the chicks, but there would be none on the floor; however, if I would shake
the hen a little, the chicks would drop down one by one, to add up to a dozen
or more. Some would be white, some red,
and some multicoloured. Landing on the floor, they would scramble around in
confusion, searching for the missing mother, without having the intelligence to
look up to see her in my hands. Yet,
they would have the inherited intelligence, if left on the top of a table, not
to venture farther than the edge of it, after peering down the bottomless
abyss, but return to the safety of the solid table. Once, I did push one of them over the edge,
and watched it as it weightlessly floated down, flapping
its “wings” and “yelling” in extreme agitation, landed on its rubbery legs, and
ran around in circles for a while. I
would also derive immense pleasure, watching them troop behind the hen in a
single file, pecking at microscopic grains and worms. When they would wean themselves away from
their mother in about a month,
I would feel sad.
I
was not particularly fond of eating eggs at the time. I was, however, fond of handling the
perfectly shaped and packaged nutrition, especially those of the Leghorns and the Rhode Islands. They were big and heavy: white of the Leghorns’ and light venetian red of the Rhode
Islands’. The
eggs of the country chicken were small and light, but tastier than the
others. If at all I would want to eat
eggs, occasionally, I would prefer those of the country chicken. But my mother would give me no freedom in the
matter. She was absolutely certain that
if I wanted to eat eggs, I should be
happy with either the white lady’s or
the red ruffian’s eggs; never
for me the “country” eggs. I wouldn’t
push the matter further,
because I wasn’t too keen on eggs.
One
morning, I was suddenly overcome by a craving to have eggs for breakfast. I tiptoed to the kitchen (one of
the edicts of my father had prohibited entry into the kitchen) and peeped
in. Mother was making crisp dosais for father. She had heard me tiptoe to the kitchen-door,
“What is it?” she asked, without turning around.
“I
want an egg for breakfast
today,” I replied, preparing myself for the heated dispute that was sure to
follow.
“O.K.,”
she said, after a moment’s hesitation, the meaning of which I knew. She too was preparing herself for the
anticipated altercation, “Leghorn or Rhode Island?”
“Ma,
you know what I want,” I pleaded.
Suddenly I heard the clucking and pecking sounds approach me from
behind. I turned and looked down to see
the most charming bird of all I loved.
It was the polka-dotted burnt-sienna country chicken, scanning the floor
for grains.
“I
know what you want, but I am not giving it to you,” she replied in a firm
tone.
“Why
not? It’s so tasty.”
“That’s
precisely why. It is tasty because it
contains more fat, and fat is not good for you.”
“But,
I am so lean and young.”
“You
won’t be lean anymore, if you eat her eggs,” she said, pointing to my hen,
pecking and clucking around my feet now.
“Ma,
one egg is not going to make me fat,” I was reasonably insistent.
There
was a long silence. It was a happy sign
that her heart was relenting. I waited
patiently. Strangely, the pecking and
clucking had also stopped.
“Alright,
get one from the box. But only for
today.” Then a pause.
“From
tomorrow, if you want to eat country eggs, ask her,” she said pointing to my
hen. I knew she was joking. I laughed and my mother laughed with me. At that moment, I felt a soft gentle nudge at
my ankle. I looked down. My bird was looking up at me. I had goose pimples and a tingling along the
spine. The next moment, she moved away,
clucking and pecking. Mother could not
have noticed the strange vibration that had passed between me and my hen.
***
Next
morning I got up early and went down to the kitchen for my cup of coffee. Sipping it, I wandered around the house,
watching the fifty odd hens clucking and pecking at worms, insects, and grains
for the day. I felt a sudden urge to sketch them. I gulped down the coffee and ran up the steps
to my room to fetch my sketchbook and pencil.
Taking them, I turned around to rush out, when something caught the
corner of my eye. I did a double-take to
see a beautiful small egg on the seat of my cane chair. It was the egg of a country-chicken. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I
put the sketchbook down on the cot and slowly walked to the chair, expecting
the mirage to dissolve into thin air any moment. It didn’t.
It was solidly sitting there in my place, waiting for me to pick it
up. When I did, it was so warm, I
thought it was a boiled egg.
I ran
down the steps and along the corridor in
the courtyard to the kitchen, where my mother was getting ready to make
breakfast for all of us. I rushed into
the kitchen in great excitement shouting, “Amma, Amma!”
“Don’t
bother me now, can’t you see I am busy?
Appa has to go to office early today.”
“Sorry
Ma, but I was so thrilled, I couldn’t wait to show you this.”
“What?”
she snapped in irritation.
I
showed her the egg.
“I
told you not to take that. Put it back
in the box,” she commanded.
“But
Ma, I didn’t take it from the box. She
gave it to me,” I was breathing
hard with excitement.
“What? Who gave it to you? What are you talking about?” She was losing her patience.
“My
hen, the polka-dot!”
“Enough
of your fooling. Put it back and bring
one of the others”, she insisted.
“Truly
Ma, she gave it to me,” I replied and described to her what had happened. She didn’t believe a word of what I
said.
“Doesn’t
matter. Just for today you have it. And don’t repeat this tomfoolery tomorrow,”
with that last word, she went back to work.
I
was a little confused and distraught myself, as even I could not believe what
had happened. I placed the egg next to
the stove and left the kitchen wondering about it. Then a
thought occurred that perhaps my mother was playing a practical joke on
me. The more I thought of it, the more I
was convinced of it. I wondered at her
ingenuity in fulfilling my wish, without ostensibly yielding ground. Truly, she must be very, very fond of me.
I
got up late next morning. The clock
showed 7. I hurriedly went into the
adjoining bathroom and was vigorously
brushing my teeth, when I heard a very familiar sound, accompanied by a faint
unfamiliar sound. The familiar sound was
that of a hen clucking, a country-chicken; the unfamiliar sound was like a
sharp stick scraping wood, in an uneven rhythm.
Then the unfamiliar sound changed
into the walking of a hen on a wooden floor. The sound was getting louder and louder.
I
stopped brushing my teeth, opened the bathroom door very quietly, peeped through it into my room, and saw my
country hen walking into my room, clucking gently. Then she stopped in front of my cane chair
and looked up. After a moment’s
hesitation, she heaved herself up, flapping
her wings, and landed on the seat. I
could see her partly, as she settled down comfortably. All was quiet now. A few moments passed, as I watched her with
unbelieving eyes. She got up, walked to
the edge of the seat, looked down, and jumped, flapping her wings and cackling, as she
landed on the floor. Then she walked out
of my room, through my mother’s bedroom, to the flight of wooden steps. I heard her hopping down the steps, one by
one, her talons scraping the wood, clucking all the way down. Soon her sounds dissolved in distance.
I
tiptoed out of the bathroom, to the chair, and saw a beautiful egg on it. When I touched it gently, it was warm. I picked it up very carefully, feeling the
warmth of the egg fully in my palm now.
I was thrilled beyond words.
When
I described to my mother what I had seen and heard, she was speechless. I asked her if I could have that egg for breakfast and she said
emphatically YES! And, she added, “What
Nature, your Supreme Mother, gives you, must be good for you. I am powerless against HER WILL.”
I
stayed with my parents for ten more days, until the end of my vacation. Every day, until I left for Madras, my hen gave me an egg, precisely at 7
every morning, straight from her womb, with all the warmth of her affection for
me. And, every time I picked up the warm
egg, I marvelled at the miracle. Now I
realize, after so many years, that it was no miracle. When your heart reaches out to nature, nature
responds, nature as manifested in everyone and everything around you.
District
Collector of Thanjavur was the last position my father held before retirement
from government service. When he retired
and came to Madras,
they did not bring the hens with them. I
asked my mother about them. She said,
they had to sell them. To whom, I
probed. To a restaurant, she replied,
avoiding my shocked eyes.
I
still have a sketch I made of my hen, carefully preserved in my steel cupboard.
March
2010
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