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It's an easy task - finding a
crow. We see them everywhere. Every morning I say good morning to the
crows on the mango tree next to my balcony before I say good morning to
anyone else. One of the reasons for this of course is the fact that I
stay alone, so there's no one else I can say good morning to. But you
get the point.
So it came as a surprise to me
when we couldn't find a single crow at Shrirampur. I drove around the
town, near the river, through the jungle - well, not really a jungle
but something bigger than a small thicket of trees. But we were
disappointed everywhere.
There were five of us in the
car. I was the wrong choice for being the driver mainly because I had
already antagonised the whole crow community against me by wildly
running after them and cursing them often in my car parking lot. It was
only after I realised that the real pooey culprits were the pigeons
that I started to mend the fences by saying good morning to the crows
every morning. But, except for one crow that regularly sits on my
balcony, no other crow had forgiven me.
One of the passengers of the car
- my cousin - was a wild life photographer and we were hoping he would
have some idea about where to find a crow. Now, wild life photography
has got nothing to do with crows. But in our desperation to find a
crow, our logical abilities weren't working too well. The heat didn’t
help either. The third passenger, another cousin, was just staring
outside absently without talking. I could see that his eyes were
searching, but he wasn't interested in talking. He has an ability to
see things that no one else can. So I thought it’s better not to
disturb his search. The fourth passenger was my dad. He doesn't
normally like to go on a drive, especially with me as the driver. But
today he insisted he wanted to come. So there we were, on our
crow-search.
As noon approached, we were
getting hungrier and edgier. So even though we knew we won't be eating,
we stopped the car at a small roadside restaurant. We ordered tea and I
was about to walk into the restaurant when dad stopped me. I was
confused for a bit but decided to follow the instructions and turned
around and got back to the car. The store owner saw that and promptly
transferred the tea from tea cups to small disposable earthen pots.
Sipping the tea, I narrated my
crow-experience to the others. Everyone had some observation about the
crows. How the crows are always in a group but never seem to fight.
They never interfere with other birds and we certainly have never seen
them terrorising or causing any other problems for the humans. How the
crow appears calm and composed even in the most trying conditions, even
when there's no food around. A crow is also supposed to give an
advance warning of visiting guests - dunno if it ever works though. But I
had once cursed the crows handsomely as a kid when they didn't give us
any warning of the visit of a distant relative who enjoyed pinching my
cheeks as a way of showing her affection. I had to keep my mouth shut
for the next two days as it ached so much. I think the crow community's
anger towards me must have started that day. But they are such
gentlemen, or should I say gentlecrows, that they never really bothered
me much except boycotting my good morning wishes. I have a great
respect for the crows but looked like they had decided to continue with
their boycott even today.
We spent the whole afternoon
looking for the crows. But they just didn't want to show their face and
now even the sun was moving closer to the horizon. We were getting
very frustrated by now. Hunger didn't help. And finally, we decided to
stop and ask someone. It seemed a very stupid thing to do, but we
stopped and very nervously asked a passer-by about where we could find
crows. He said, sir, why are you looking for crows in this village? My
cousin informed him that his dad was born here, that’s why we were here.
The villager looked down for a moment and then said, “No one usually
comes here looking for crows. That's because there's only one place
where you can find crows here. At the big "pipal" tree that is outside
the village. And you can't take car there; you will have to walk.” It
was ironic that we were excited at the prospect of finding the crows.
We reached the tree after
walking for twenty minutes in the rough terrain. My cousin kept the
plate full of food at the base of tree and stood there with folded
hands. The other cousin and I stood there looking as my dad brought out
the fifth passenger, my uncle. He couldn't walk anymore. Couldn’t
talk. He needed very little space in the car today - just enough for the
small earthen pot with a red cloth covering its mouth. This had been
his home for the last ten days. Dad kept the pot next to the plate and
sat a little distance away from the tree. I closed my eyes for a few
minutes, trying to hold back my tears. When I opened my eyes, I could
see a few crows eating the food from the plate. All of them looked
familiar to me. But I discounted the thought while they emptied the
plate. I picked up the plate and my cousin picked up the pot. We
silently walked back to the car and reached the river in sometime. All
the rituals had already been performed in the morning. My cousin
removed the cloth around the mouth of the pot and muttered a prayer as
he emptied the ashes in the river.
The next morning, I took my cup
of tea and walked to the balcony. As usual, my crow friend was there
to greet me. But today there were a few of his friends with him. It was
a pleasant surprise. Looked like the crows had finally lifted their
boycott.
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