Whispering Houses

Who said only haunted houses whistle, sigh, shudder, and scream? All houses talk, twitter, chat, converse, whisper and sometimes mutter to themselves. Born upon this earth, subject to age, deterioration, decay, and death; each house has a body and a soul, and has got feelings.

Houses keep chatting all the time to socialise with neighbours or to keep boredom at bay, though at a decibel level below human threshold.

House-to-House Talk

House No. A3: Hi, A6, how are you? Feeling better now? Do the new residents treat you well? Are you happy?

A6: I’m good. How about you? Yes, the new tenants are caring, almost like foster-parents. Locked up for so many years, I was suffocating. The spiders- big, black, hairy ones- had taken over the interiors; the jungle mouse, toads from the swamp, and snakes lived in the garden reclaimed by nature with tall grass and wild plants.

A3: Why was that? Had your parents abandoned you?

A6: (Sighs) Well, the stars could have been misaligned at my birth.

A3: Why do you say that?

A6: Orphaned since birth. My parents never spent even a day with me. You know how that feels, don’t you?

A3: Of course, I do. Suffered the same dejection and desolation for twelve years since birth. Vacant for years, ill-treated by occupants, some of whom were notional tenants since they paid a token rent, and the others freeloaders. Tell me whoever pours acid on the white marble floor in the bathroom or permits a pet Alsatian to chew the teak door?

But my misery ended when my parents moved in. They’re very fond of me. In fact, I’m their only child who lives with them.

A6: You’re lucky.

A3: How about your parents? Do they plan to live with you?

A6: How should I know? When they conceived me, they were oh-so-thrilled; spent much time planning our happy years in the future: morning tea on the north-western balcony overlooking the little lake fringed with verdant green filled with birdsong; reading a novel in the afternoon while gently rocking on the swing in the flower-scented garden; enjoying the delicious mangoes and chikoos (no, none of my parents have diabetes) in season, and garden-fresh vegetables in all seasons. Jhilmil sitaron ka angan hoga, rimjhim baras-ta savan hoga ….

Indeed, they ushered me into this world with much pride and elation. Then, they left the town, never to return. I’ve heard they have a better house, and a better life in a much bigger city.

But do they get to watch the iridescent blue sky from their bedroom, wake up at the kingfisher’s trilling call, inhale the gladness of the salubrious morning breeze uncontaminated by toxic fumes and caressed by the faint tunes of a distant flutist?

Why would they return to me – a decaying body with creaking joints and flagging muscles; and located in this forlorn, neglected colony lacking basic civic amenities. Just the approach road, more potholes than road, would deter anyone; how could I blame my old parents?

A3: Happiest day in your life?

A6: Griha Pravesh Day- my first birthday. All decked up with buntings and balloons and my soul sanctified with the pandit’s holy chanting. How blessed I was, how much loved by my doting parents, and admired by the select invitees. Owner’s pride, neighbours’ envy!

A3: Your saddest day?

A6: During one of his rare visits, my parent was asked, ‘Do you plan to sell it?’ and he said, ‘I may, if the offer is good.’ I know he will. I’m no heirloom, just an investment.

A3: Your worst fears?

A6: Old age, failing health, festering sores on my body, Peepul plants drilling determined roots into my fissures. End-of-life anxiety. Would I give up my soul grieving for my mother like the delicate Swarna champa tree?

A3: What happened to her?

A6: Planted lovingly by mother, she grew big and was laden every year with fragrant flowers loved by gods. I’ll wait for twenty years for my mother to return and caress me, but no longer, she had resolved. She just shrivelled and died thereafter.

A3: Any wish before you are signed away by your parents, and pulled down for a spanking new mansion by a money-bag?

A6: Sparkling laughter, prattle of babies, patter of their cotton-candy pink feet – cool kisses on my cheeks; and for my parents to live with me for at least a day and a night. Who knows they may get to know of my feelings, and rekindle their lost love for me?

Human Chat on WhatsApp

‘I wish we lived in the house we built with so much care. The air is cleaner than in this mega-city.’

‘Yes, I guess you’d have enjoyed living in your own house.’

‘For the last fifty years, we have lived in houses built by others. Never stayed a day in any of our three houses in three different cities.

I wish we had been living next door watching the same rivulet like you, dear friend. हर घर पर लिखा है रहने वाले का नाम!’

‘We wish you lived here. But I guess a house chooses who will stay there.’

‘You are right. We have never stayed in any of the houses we own. Looking forward, I fear about how our children would dispose of these houses; or, by the immutable laws of nature, these would go back to anonymity as every inch of land we occupy was once someone else’s.’

‘So true. Pointless to worry about possessing tiny parcels of land and the midget mansions we build on it.’

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

A peasant named Pahom becomes obsessed with acquiring land. Hearing of plenty of virgin land at unbelievably cheap rates, he travels far to the land of the Bashkirs where he is heartily welcomed.

He asked the Chief: How much land may I buy?

‘As much as you want.’

Barely able to hide his excitement, he asked, ‘What’s the rate, please?’

‘A thousand roubles a day.’

‘I don’t understand. What’s the rate per acre?’

‘We don’t sell by the acre. It’s a thousand roubles a day. As much land as you can walk around and mark with a spade in a day. From your chosen point, you begin walking when the sun rises, and must return there by sunset, failing which you forfeit your one thousand roubles.’

Pahom walks fast and covers a vast area, but with the sun about to set he runs in a frenzy, falling dead with the end point only a few feet away.

The story ends by answering the query in the title:

‘Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.’

(Cover page of Tolstoy's story; Image Source -Wiki)

दो गज़ ज़मीन (Do Gaz Zameen)

kitnā hai bad-nasīb 'zafar' dafn ke liye

do gaz zamīn bhī na milī kū-e-yār meñ

कितना है बद-नसीब 'ज़फ़र' दफ़्न के लिए

दो गज़ ज़मीन भी न मिली कू-ए-यार में

कू-ए-यार - the street where the beloved lives, and in this verse – the beloved motherland.

“How unfortunate is Zafar, for even in death, he was deprived of two yards of land in his beloved country.”

A poignant sher by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor of India, conveying his deep sorrow and longing for his homeland.

A Quote

"All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy)

Maybe, all happy houses are alike, and each unhappy house is unhappy in its own way.

Resources & References

How Much Land Does a Man Need? A short story (1914) by Leo Tolstoy. Link: https://www.owleyes.org/text/how-much-land-does-man-need
Do Gaz Zameen, a Radio Play (1984) by AIR, a Hindi adaptation of Tolstoy’s story. Link: https://youtu.be/qeiK2_zue8k?si=_7RFblyeEJt437cS
Bahadur Shah Zafar’s poignant lament; Rekhta.org

Co-Pilot

Unique Dessert: Ragi Pudding with Mahua

Unique Dessert
by
Chef with a Dash:
Mandia Tikhri with Mahul

Readers’ response to my food blogs confirms what I had long suspected: my talents may be better suited to culinary affairs than to creative writing! Whenever I fancy myself as a chef, create a dish, and share my undisguised delight with select readers, those who never bother to even acknowledge my blogs on assorted subjects (myths, epics, nature, travelogue, etc.), not even with an emoji, generously shower praise and offer brief or not-so-brief comments.

After reading my mahua recipes, a reader asked, ‘I thought it makes desi daru; how do you know that mahua flower is edible?’ How could I not know, since I spent my childhood in Khuntpali, a small village in western Odisha where everyone knew all about mahua, nature’s bounty providing food, fodder, and fuel?

I knew of mahua liqour, toddy, and ganja sold at Shundhi ghar (house), the village bar where the tipplers sat on their haunches in the open courtyard, and of the incorrigible alcoholic Manbodh Seth, a fisherman who had his house in front of ours. After his morning catch, he headed straight for Shundhi ghar while his wife Uma handled the sales, home and hearth, and their many children. When he returned home stone drunk, Uma berated him for wasting all his income on booze upon which Manbodh showered choicest, unprintable abuses on her, and often resorted to violence. A few others (Kanidhamna's sons Ghasia and Baragulia) also drank daru, mostly on festivals like Puspuni (Pausa Purnima), but there wasn't another like Manbodh, his elder brother and neighbour Purna being a teetotaler.

Mahul, the name for mahua in Sambalpuri/Odia, was gathered, sun-dried, and stored in every home, and while it was mostly used as cattle-feed, every housewife knew how to make chakel, podapitha (for which the village potter made telen- a clay cooking-pot with a thicker gauge and highly polished to ensure the baked podapitha didn't stick to the pot when scooped out), kakra and other delicacies with mahul as a sweet, nutrition supplement, particularly in the lean season. Chandrashekhar Sahu from Nagenpali near Bargarh, and my classmate in George High School recalled that mahul sijha (dried mahul boiled with a little gud) was easy to make and a popular delicacy.

Our village home was filled with the sweet fragrance of mahua flowers during March to June, the floral notes changing with the various stages of processing – fresh, pale-yellow, soft flowers to semi-dried to fully-dried. The fruits (tol or tori) arrived during Jun-Jul, heaped in a corner of the open courtyard, seeds separated from the outer cover, broken one by one with a piece of stone by a little group of women and children, after which the inner shells were ready to go to the teli who would cold-press it with his traditional wooden ghana or oil-expeller moved by a bullock or a pair.

Mandia Tikhri

Yesterday, on my request Sanjukta made mandia[i] tikhri (that’s the name in Sambalpuri/Odia); you may call it ragi pudding, though it is more a soft, flat cake than a pudding. I was not sure she’d like my idea of a fusion dessert, so I kept it to myself, and when she was finishing the dish after sweating for more than thirty minutes in the kitchen (no AC there!), I requested her to lend me a portion for my unique dessert: Mandia Tikhri with Mahul. No longer surprised with my crazy inspirations, she hid her frown well while ladling out a portion on a flat bone-china plate on which I had put a bed of moist mahua flowers, which now lay buried under the hot thick tikhri and would be cooked just right while cooling. After cooling, I put it in the fridge, and after a few hours cut slices and plated.

Here's what I got:

Front-view

Back-view, after flipping

Plating (Chef needs to improve his skill!)

Serving Idea (Can be more artfully served!)

Sanjukta’s Recipe

I have never made mandia tikhri myself since Sanjukta makes it so very well, and generally prohibits me from entering her kitchen. On my request, she shared the recipe. Next time, I can make it on my own, I guess.

Ingredients

· Mandia (Ragi) powder – 200 gm

· Milk – 1 ltr

· Gud – 100 to 200 gms, as per preference

· Assorted dry fruits – cashew, pista, kismis – 100 gm

· Elaichi powder – A tea-spoonful or less

Process

· Soak mandia powder in 2 cups of water for 4 to 5 hrs and then drain the excess water

· Boil the milk, add gud, let the gud mix well with no lumps left

· Put flame to medium

· Add ragi slowly, and keep stirring to make sure no lumps form at the base

· Cook for 20 to 25 mins, keep stirring

· Add dry fruits and cook for 10 mins, still stirring.

· Add elaichi powder

· Once the mix is thick (not too thick) and easy to pour onto a plate, it is ready

· Grease with a little ghee a steel plate with rim, or a glass bowl to have the pudding about half-inch thick

· Pour the tikhri or spread it evenly with the ladle

· Allow it to cool

· Put it in the fridge (not deep-fridger!) for 2 hrs

· Cut it in squares, rounds, triangles, or strips as per your plating and serving preference.

· Best served a little chilled. Even at room temperature, it’s fine.

· Stays good in the fridge for 2-3 days; you may cut it into pieces and store it in a glass or plastic box.

· Enjoy!

Note (in case you’re lactose intolerant, and prefer a healthy, lightly sweet pudding): Mandia Tikhri, often made without milk and dry fruits, also tastes great, and looks better – a shining rich brown – bringing out the natural hues of ragi and gud. Visually more appealing, in my view.

Postscript

Jun 21, 2024: Today, I noted that Microsoft Copilot offers a 'Cooking Assistant'. Curious, I asked it about the dishes I can make with mahua.

It suggested Mahua Podapitha (along with recipe), and a few other interesting dishes.

Impressive!

From Dear Readers

G.Subbu

A friend, and an inveterate limericist shared these two delicacies:

Limerick 1

Prasanna's experimented with Mahul ,

The Odisha phool which is cool ,

His friends who are "high" and mighty ,

Especially when they are thirsty ,

Prefer the desi Mahua in a glassful !

Limerick 2

After pottering around in the kitchen for days - three ,

Prasanna has now become an expert in cookery ,

Started off with a salad ,

Now, a dessert has been crafted ,

Relieved , guys at the main course said - Thanks for letting us free !

Thanks, Dear Subbu.

Sangeeta Verma, a friend.

"Responding with more than an emoji! In the good old days before refrigerators what did they do to chill the mandia tikhri?

And Chef did not tell us what his family thought of his innovative dish?"

My Reply:

Q1 - No need to chill. Enjoyable at room temp.

Q2 - Spouse is the only family I got at Bhopal. She has not posted any comments. You're free to draw your own conclusions! Children are too busy to read my blogs!

Mita, a friend from Sambalpur

The recepie is very interesting. We are getting tol in the market now a days with which we make tawa fry. Very tasty!

Jayalaxmi R.Vinayak, a friend

"My mom -in- law used to make a similar delicacy which we called Ragi Payasam.

Your Mahua puran reminded me of Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies!"

[i] Ragi (Eleusine coracana) is also known as finger millet. Here are its names in various Indian languages: Sambalpuri/Odia- Mandia, Sanskrit- Ragidhanyam, Kannada- Ragi, Telugu- Ragula, Tamil- Kezhvaragu, Hindi/Urdu- Nachani or Mundua, Marathi- Nachni, Gujarati- Mandika, Bengali/Nepali- Marwa.

It is a nutritious grain widely used in traditional Indian cuisine; rich in calcium, iron, and dietary fibre, making it a valuable addition to our diets.

Icecream with Mango and Mahua

This is a sequel to my previous blog: Salad for Spouse (Link: https://pkdash-author.blogspot.com/2024/06/salad-for-spouse.html

Several readers got most of the ingredients right, but no one got it all. I had put up a googly; that was a little unfair; since two ingredients could not be seen and one rather difficult to recognise!

A few readers recalled a salad I had made several months ago. This one looks rather like that, a reader observed. No, that was a guava salad!

This one is indeed Unique!

How is this salad unique? It is the only salad till date with Mahua flower as an ingredient! Chef with a Dash invented and served this Unique Salad on 14 June 2024 to Dear Spouse on Day 1 of the three-day Raja Festival of Odisha.

He asserts his IPR for this invention!

Ingredients: For serving Two

· Potatoes- 1 medium-size

· Tomatoes- 1

· Moong sprouts- a handful

· Roasted chana- a few spoonful

· Mahua flowers- 15-20

· Olive Oil- a small spoonful

· Raw mango- 1 quarters of a small mango

· A small piece of jaggery

· Garlic – 6 cloves, peeled

· Ginger – a small piece

· Red chili powder – a small spoonful

· Green chili – one, chopped fine; another sliced in length

· Mint leaves

· Optional additions (I didn’t use any of these.): Roasted peanuts, pomegranate, chopped onion, Chat masala, lemon, mustard oil in place of olive oil for a tang and a zing

Recipe

· Boil (not overcook) the potatoes, dice to cubes

· Tomatoes – dice to cubes

· Mahua flowers – soak the dried flowers in water for 2 hours and clean it properly; the flowers would be tender and fluffy

· Make a raw mango chutney - two or three pieces of raw mango, a spoon of jeera, one green chili, a piece of jaggery, and a bunch of coriander leaves

· In a salad bowl, put the potato and tomato cubes, moong sprouts, roasted chana, mahua flowers, crushed garlic and ginger, add a spoonful of virgin olive oil, red chili powder, minced green chili, mango chutney, salt to taste.

· Toss gently. Vigorous tossing would crush and dismember the mahua flowers!

· Put bowl in freezer for 10 mins

· Plating: Serve the salad, heaping it with a spoon, and garnish the top with a few whole mahua flowers, pudina leaves, and the green chili diced at length.

· Enjoy!

Note: The salad is nutritious, healthy, and sumptuous. Can be eaten with meals or as a snack. All ingredients are readily available, except for mahua flowers.

No processed item used, but for olive oil even without which the salad would taste fine. Next time I make this salad, I’ll try with mustard oil. That’d give a zing, and make my salad totally local.

Salad dressing is a freshly-made raw mango chutney; in other seasons, aam chur or tamarind pulp may be used.

Next when I make this salad, I'd toss a few spoonfuls of roasted seeds (pumpkin, watermelon, sunflower, chia, flax, sesame, soynuts). Easily available, a Ready-to-Eat Snack, a 7-In-1-Mix. That'd make it a Designer Salad!

Mahua Flowers

Where to buy? Not available easily. I bought half a kilo for fifty rupees from Mansaram, a Korku tribal from Harda, MP who offered from his food stall at the recently concluded Mahua Mahotsav, Tribal Museum, Bhopal tribal cuisine including mahua laddoo, mahua puri paired with a local saag, bajre ki kheer.

A word of caution. Since mahua flowers are picked up from the ground, the dried flowers are likely to have a little soil sticking to it, and must be cleaned before using it for edible purpose. That’s not difficult. Just soak it in water for a few hours and rinse well. Now, it’s good to use.

Mahua Cuisine

With the mahua bought from Mansaram, I have made mahua parathas, pairing it with tender green jute leaf curry from my terrace garden. Mahua-garnished salad, of course.

Here is a dessert I made today.

Dessert Creation by Chef with a Dash!*

Amul Butterscotch ice-cream served with a slice of mango, and a few soaked-to-soft mahua flowers. There was a power-cut in our area, and the ice-cream is a little runny; but the pairing was great.

On my request, Shiba Narayan Rana, a dear friend has sent from Odisha a packet of dried mahua flowers, the produce of his own mahua trees. I plan to make a few more dishes with mahua – chakel or chakuli – thin and crispy pancakes made with rice, black gram, and mahua flower batter; poda-pitha with the same batter; laddoo with alsi and/or til seed.

The easiest to do is this: Take a handful of dried mahua flowers, toss it on a non-stick pan, roast for 2 to 3 mins on low flame. It’s a tender flower, take care, don’t char it.

That’s it, enjoy once it cools.

Colours of Mahua

For those not familiar with mahua, here are a few photos:

Freshly-gathered pale-yellow corolla of mahua flowers.

Dried mahua flowers bought from Mansaram.

Mahua flowers after soaking and rinsing.

***

*My Dessert creation might have been inspired by a young chef- Prateek Sadhu's use of mahua flowers to garnish dessert serving in his Mumbai restaurant 'Masque'.

Anshu Vaish, an esteemed reader shared this:

"Years ago, I ate strawberry custard with mahua flowers - served at a dinner hosted by BMS Rathore and his wife at their home. Delicious dessert!"

Salad for Spouse

Did you read today’s Dainik Bhaskar? She asked.

Not yet, anything important?

DB now files stories on Odisha.

About the officer blamed for Naveen Patnaik’s defeat?

No, today’s story is about Raja festival.

I read the story. Raja (two short vowels, unlike two long ones as in Raja, meaning king) is a unique festival of eastern Odisha. There may be similar festivals in other parts of India, but I am not aware of it.

At the onset of monsoon, Mother Earth is believed to be Rajaswala, and her three-day period is celebrated by putting all women regardless of age on a pedestal, as it were, and giving them a good time. They are prohibited from cooking, a thoughtful respite from the never-ending grind of cooking three meals a day for the family; or even helping with chopping vegetables or seasoning the dal. Men do all the cooking, buy new sarees and dress (that’s compulsory) for ladies and girls, and tie swings on trees in the courtyard or in the village common grounds for the women to congregate and sing traditional Raja songs in chorus (banaste dakila gaja, barashake thare asichi Raja…, the elephant trumpets in the forest, Raja festival has arrived, let us enjoy. The elephant has no role in the festival, but gaja rhymes with raja!). Typical Odia sweetmeats are made and savoured – poda pitha, peda, arisa, kakra, khiri, etc. After the wholesome feast, the women are offered paan stuffed with fragrant spices.

Families who strictly adhere to the traditional way of celebrating this festival do not permit the women to touch Mother Earth with their bare feet; they must wear foot-wraps made of banana leaf. Not a laughable excess; there is a morning mantra in Sanskrit, expected to be chanted daily, where the person seeks forgiveness of Mahalakshmi before stepping out of bed upon the Earth, who is the Goddess incarnate. Vishnupatni namastuvyam, padasparsha kshymasvame.

Being not too dumb, I figured out why spouse wanted me to read the daily. Opened YONO and transferred to her account an amount enough to buy her a decent saree, in my opinion. Then I announced with a flourish, ‘You will not enter the kitchen for three days beginning today. Whenever you feel like, walk up to the terrace, and relax on the ancient swing (needs a paint job, and a little repair, but safe to swing gently). Don’t do a thing, please!’

What if the cook goes AWOL, she asked? Do you really expect me to sit at the swing in this sweltering heat?

Did you get a message from your bank, I asked?

She hadn’t checked. I’ll tell her about the fund transfer at a more opportune time.

I was serious about cooking, went to the kitchen, and made a salad for spouse.

Here is what I made and served.

What do you think of it? Good, Very Good, Looks Appetising!? Come on, none of your applause would come even close.

No one has yet eaten this unique salad, except for my lucky spouse and self since I invented the recipe today, and made it for the first time. Can you list the ingredients? Easy-peasy? Go ahead, expand the photo all you want, and submit the answer; the reader who offers the best answer gets to savour this unique salad by Yours Truly.

Tomorrow, I’ll post the recipe. Watch out for my next blog.

***

Dance of Life: Koels, Cobras, and Sparrows

Dance of Life:
Koels, Cobras, and Sparrows

Why juxtapose the songbird with a deadly serpent and a homely sparrow? Read on to find out.

A Pair of Koels

The other day I spotted a koel crouching on the neem tree in front of our house acting rather funny extending its beak and then retracting it repeatedly. Why would the bird do that, I wondered, and looked again. A few inches below and nearly hidden behind a luxuriant branch was a bigger koel, certainly the male, mirroring his partner’s movement. Is that a courtship dance? I had no idea. Koel is a shy, secretive bird, rarely seen out in the open, most reluctant to feed on the ground or perch on electric poles and wires - the preferred perching sites for more self-confident birds like the little sunbird, the magpie robins, bulbuls, doves, mynas, drongos, and pigeons.

Why are koels so shy? Are they embarrassed at their homelessness (koel, a brood parasite, never builds a nest) and for furtively placing their eggs in a host’s nest, outsourcing the task of raising kids to other unsuspecting birds?

What a privilege to watch a pair of koels consummating their love? I kept looking, suspending my morning exercise – exercise can wait, but the amorous play might climax and end soon. But, the beaking (akin to necking for larger animals) continued for several minutes. No sign of further progress. Then she stopped her beak dance. Why, what happened? The male was no longer seen. Was he tired and frustrated? Did the lady play too-hard-to-get, difficult-to-please; or did he fall short of her high standards for a proper mate? Before flying off, did the male say, ‘Call me if you change your mind.’?

I felt sorry for the male. He had been very patient, but that had not helped. Did he go looking for a more willing female? But why is the female still there? She stayed put at the same spot at the same branch, as though in deep meditation. Not a feather twitched, nor a leg moved. After fifteen minutes, she was still there. Is she asleep, or merely crest-fallen at hastily dismissing a potential suitor? I walked up to the terrace for a better view, with my phone-camera in hand. The female was rooted at her spot, and the male a little below her on another branch but completely hidden behind a thick foliage. He, too, was immobile. A few motorcycles and cars sped past honking their horns even though the street was empty, but the pair of lovers was unperturbed and unfazed.

(A Pair of Koels on a neem tree at Baghmugaliya Extension, Bhopal; photo by the blogger on his smartphone)

Why are they at kissing distance, oblivious of the outside world, yet doing nothing? Are they engaged in after-sex chat, discussing the strategy to locate a host bird’s nest; or are they enjoying a post-breakfast siesta after nibbling a few ripe nimbolis?[i]

The love birds stayed perched at the neem tree on the same branch for nearly an hour. I shot a few more photos and videos.

Later, I Googled about the mating and breeding behaviour of koels to learn of their clever, concerted action. Once the male spots a potential host bird’s nest ideal for the female to lay her eggs, he calls her to inspect and approve. Thereafter, the male hops and jumps to annoy the resident bird - a crow, starling, magpie, or even an aggressive drongo. When the male comes too near the nest, the home owner protests angrily and chases him away during which the female sneaks in and quickly lays her eggs in the vacant, unguarded nest, sometimes eating one or more of the owner’s eggs or merely pushing them away to crash on the ground. Upon return from the successful chase, the owner finds her nest in order, and all her eggs in place; satisfied, she begins hatching.

Kalidasa, too, had observed the enchanting mating dance of koels:

“Drunk on the honey of mango blossoms,

The koel rapturously kisses his mate ….

(Rtusamharam, Spring, Canto 6-14)*

Mating Dance

Our colony atop a rocky terrain abuts a little stream and a swamp. It is no surprise that snakes are sighted occasionally and during the breeding season baby snakes sometimes stray into the gardens and porches. This morning, a neighbour alerted us about a mongoose entering our garden. Was it chasing a snake? I issued an advisory to keep shut all doors opening to the garden and the backyard; but know it would be ignored.

Several vacant plots with shrubs and weeds provide perfect cover for reptiles. A few years ago, the Forest department had rescued a baby python who had strayed unto the metal road and forgot the path to return home. Link for my previous blog ‘A Python’s Plight’: https://pkdash-author.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-puzzled-python.html

Ashok Ratnaparkhe, a neighbour has seen many times a pair of mature cobras on the vacant plot adjoining his house. Fenced with a small gate locked by the owner, the plot is out of bounds for men and animals and a haven for the cobra couple who contain the rodent population in the area including the fat rats captured by folks at their home with mouse-traps and released on the east bank of the abandoned Laharpur Dam since they won’t commit paap of hurting Ganesha’s vahana, unaware that they are offering wholesome meals for Shiva’s pets!

A few months ago, Mr Sharma had seen the pair of cobras mating on the little clearing in front of Ashok’s home, so engrossed in love-duet that they completely ignored the man walking a large dog and struggling to restrain his alarmed pet from approaching the amorous serpents.

What time was it? I asked.

8.30 PM. It was chilly and there was no traffic on this road.

It is said to be a lucky sight, I said.

During my schooldays, I had read ‘Secret Magic Remedies,’ (not in my syllabus!) a book by an anonymous author which recommended that if you sight a pair of cobras making love, spread your towel near them and if they happen to roll over the towel during their passionate act, wait till their departure, pick up the towel and keep it as a treasure. This is your magic towel which would win any adverse litigation proceedings and guarantee victory against your enemies regardless of how powerful they might be.

I was a little child, and though kutti with Thabira, my classmate and neighbour after a quarrel over who had cheated in a game of glass marbles, I was most unlikely to go near mating serpents with a towel in hand. I had no ongoing litigation either.

I wished to tell Mr Sharma about all these wondrous opportunities he had missed for want of carrying a towel while walking his Alsatian; but his dog had other priorities and they had proceeded on the walk.

Sparrows at School

Our math teacher in high school was tough, a disciplinarian, unsmiling, and quick to punish us for not finishing homework or other minor faults. We maintained strict silence in his class and never dared pass slips and notes to neighbours to be relayed all the way to the backbenches. One day, while he was explaining a complex formula and scribbling the numbers on the blackboard with his back to the class, there began a muffled giggle which soon became a little wave rippling through the room, upon which the stern teacher turned around and demanded to know from the student who was giggling the loudest what was so funny about the formula on the blackboard. Come and explain it to the class, he ordered. The student went up to the blackboard, stared at the numbers in utter incomprehension, darted a look at the window, and giggled again, more loudly than before. The teacher looked at the window, and saw what the students had been seeing for the last several minutes. A pair of house-sparrows in a charming courtship dance and making love, again and again, unconcerned with the voyeurism and titillation of the adolescent boys. Maybe, the little birds were imparting sex education which the school didn’t.

Our teacher was dark-skinned, couldn’t get red in the face, but ordered us to ‘Stand Up’ on our benches for the remainder of the period and went out of the class in a huff.

***

Resources

· CornellLab: Birds of the World (birdsoftheworld.org)

· Ebird.org

· Birdwatchingtoday.com

· Animalia.bio

Comments by Readers

C.P. Singh

This blog straightaway took me to the life and times of Emperor Jahangir and his passionate habit of watching and observing the most natural mating behaviour of birds and animals. In "Tuzuk e Jahangiri", a sort of autobiography, he has described their mating behaviour as vividly as you have. Of course, his interests were a little more intense, and in bigger animals – elephants, horses, etc.

Truly a wonderful, vivid and lucid description of a matter to which not many of us would have paid much attention.

Thanx, indeed, for sharing your enjoyable blog.

(I found in archive.org 'The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India,' Translated, edited, and annotated by Wheeler M. Thackston, Published by OUP, 1999. Borrowed it for an hour and browsed, hope to read it sometime.)

[i] Nimbolis (Hindi) are golden yellow ripe neem fruits with a bitter-sweet pulp covering the seed, the neem tree’s clever evolutionary strategy to get the birds and squirrels to feast on the fruit and spread the seeds all over for propagation of a new generation of neem trees!

*The Complete Works of Kalidasa, Volume One: Poems; Translated by Chandra Rajan, Sahitya Akademy (First Edition-1997)

Poetry in common speech

Poetry in common speech

Prasanna Dash

One winter evening in 1994, we reached a village, not far from Maihar, a famous place of pilgrimage for the devotees of Sharada Mata, for TLC (Total Literacy Campaign). The adult literacy classes had commenced, but response was lukewarm, and attendance, particularly of women, was thin. Our mission was to persuade elderly women to join in so that others are also inspired to begin their study.

We went to the poorest mohalla of the village. The women were busy cooking the evening meals for the family. However, with the younger women handling the kitchen, the elderly women were relatively free, and available to chat with us.

We sat down on a chabutara around a peepul tree, and about thirty persons gathered soon. I asked an elderly woman, in her early fifties, ‘Mataji, aapke gaon mein shaam ko bujurgon ke liye kakshayen lag rahi hain, kya aap ko pata hai?

‘Haan.’

‘Kya aap padhne jaati hain.’

‘Nahin. Ab ka padhi, Beta, ab to lakdi robat hai!’

She had spoken in Bagheli, the local dialect. I wondered why her daughter would weep when she went to the literacy class when it struck me that she wasn’t speaking about ladki, but about lakdi. I had very modest acquaintance with Bagheli, yet I got the meaning.

She had said, ‘No point in beginning study at this late age. The funeral pyre is already yearning for me. (Literally, the wood on the funeral pyre is weeping for me.)

That was a kahabat in common use, but an amazingly poetic expression about death.

***

Note:

Author's profile may be seen at http://amazon.com/author/pkdash
Books by this author are available on Amazon.in, Kindle eBook, Flipkart, and Notion Press, Chennai.

***

Stick's Sermon

Stick’s Sermon

A frail, humble walking-stick marched to Dandi

With steely resolve,

Spoke in silence and scooped up a handful of salt

That shook the foundations of an Empire.

Now, the lathi is muscular and loud,

Baying for blood;

Ready to teach a lesson or two

About non-violence

To the world.

***