Cowboy Raja

Our home had a verandah in the front, to the right, as soon as you enter the house through the small, twin, green wooden doors. The verandah served a multitude of purposes. It was closed on three sides: the back, and the left and right sides. The front had a big 6×10 opening that had a geometrically shaped grill, made of metal bars, probably 10mm square steel rods. You can easily sit in the verandah on a chair and watch everything and everyone go by in the street. Often my uncle or elder brother would carry bicycles into the house and park it in the verandah. On the south wall inside the veranda, we had the electric main with fuse and main switch. The grill in the front opening served as a tie-post for the cows that belonged to our friendly neighborhood milkman.

Before the widespread adoption of pasteurized milk in bottles and plastic containers, everyone in our neighborhood always bought fresh milk, milked from the cows, that was sold by our milkman, through a small shop next to our home. The shop is nothing more than a five foot by five foot opening, which was about another five feet deep, with no lights or electricity or any kind of convenience. If my memory was correct, there was a small awning on the top, and it had small green wooden double doors. This was the castle of our milkman Raja. Raja was quite a character. He always wore a white dhothi (a large piece of cloth tied around the waist, a traditional south Indian dress for males) and white full hand shirt, with sleeves folded. Most of the time, he wore a white turban, thick black glasses and sported a big black mustache. He owned several cows and had a few assistants to herd, feed, and milk them. Back in the day, and probably even today, having cows and making a livelihood from selling milk, is considered unattractive since a city dweller does not want to herd cows, take care of them, clean their droppings and milk them. However, the image of a western cowboy conjured a cool and awesome image. Hence, my niece and I, as we always like to coin nicknames for colorful characters, christened our milkman as Cowboy Raja.

Every day, without fail, my mom would collect all the vegetable scraps from the day’s cooking and combine them with the starch left over from boiling rice in a tin container. Cowboy Raja’s assistant would provide such tin containers to a few families in the neighborhood who volunteer to donate the scraps, and collect them when the cows arrive. Cowboy Raja sometimes would walk with the cows, or come in a bicycle while his assistants would bring them, without fail, around two PM. Typically, there would be three or four cows and the assistant would tie a few of them to the grill in our verandah. We often would stand inside the verandah, sneak our hands out through the gaps in the grill, and touch the cows. The assistant would mix some feed along with the contents from the collected tin containers, make a feed, and distribute to the cows in wooden vessels. The cows would happily eat them, and the milking would start. When the first squirts are pulled from the udder into the cylindrical tin milk containers, it would make a nice chirpy rhythmic, “tringg..tringg” metallic noise that would quickly fade into a dull “burrr..burrr” as the milk starts filling up in the container. The most distinctive thing I remember is the fake straw calves. Cows generate milk once the calves are born. Cowboy Raja would raise the calves to sell them later but often the calves die due to complications. If the calves are alive, they would accompany their mommy cows and get a few sucks from the udder first when milking starts. They would then be whisked to the other side while the assistant milks rest of the milk from the mommy cow. The saddest part is when the calves die. To keep the mommy cow thinking that her calf is alive, they would make a calf lookalike, albeit a very crude one, out of straw and sticks. These straw calves would come with the cow caravan and kept next to the mommy cow so that she continues to generate milk. It is sad to see mommy cow fondly tries to lick the straw calf thinking it is alive and drinking her milk.

Once milked, the milk would then be transferred from the cylindrical containers to a steel bucket in Cowboy Raja’s shop. My mom would give me a stainless steel vessel, with some cash, and I would go walk past the cows to Raja’s shop. There I would ask for a quarter liter of milk. Raja had aluminum-measuring cups of various denominations. I always wondered at the big one-liter containers and thought who would need such a large quantity of milk. Raja would dip into the bucket, measure the milk, and pour it into my stainless steel vessel. For posterity’s sake, he would measure a few additional milliliters in a small measuring cup and add it to our vessel. You would leave a happy kid, as you got a bit more than quarter liter. I wonder what happened to Cowboy Raja, his cows and his family as everyone buys milk from supermarkets now.

Spiders - Loss of a Friend

My contact with spiders continued as I studied Biology in my high school. A zoology project required us to build a portfolio of dead insects, with documentation showing their scientific name, habitat, and behaviors. I had already collected a butterfly, cockroach, a few varieties of ants, and caterpillar. Now I wanted a prized centerpiece, the dazzling spider. As I had seen several of my spider friends in our backyard, I decided to kill one of them in the name of science. I could not squash him with a stone, as that would only leave a mush. I have to kill him in such a way that his whole body, with the shining skin and thin long legs, is intact. A brilliant idea came to my mind. I would grab him with my aquarium fishnet and drown him in a bucket of well water. Then I would take him out of the net and dry him in the sun ready for my insect display box. I picked up my green fishing net and an aluminum bucket. I went back to the backyard well. Using the rope and pulley system we had to draw water from our well, I filled up the aluminum bucket with water. Then my hunt began.

I quickly swung the net over him, caught him in the net, and immediately dunked him into the bucket of water. I kept the net face down so that he cannot escape out of the immersed net. As I waited for him to die, nature taught me yet another lesson in life. These garden spiders live through rain and occasional flood. Spiders can stay alive underwater for hours. If they can grab a stick or a branch, they can crawl back up to surface and resume their lives. I tried to drown him for ten minutes, twenty minutes, and then a few hours, but he would not die. As I failed miserably in this effort and wasted my time, I thought why not suffocate him with toxic fumes. I had some chemicals that I brought home from my chemistry lab that reacts with water and release fumes. I took an empty bottle and dumped the chemicals and a few drops of water. Soon the fumes occupied the entire bottle. I dropped him into the bottle of fumes and saw him vanish in a cloud of white smoke. I closed the lid and waited for him to die of suffocation.

After a few hours, the fumes subsided. I could see him clearly through the glass. To my utter astonishment, he was alive and kicking inside. I realized that there is no way for me to kill him without destroying his body. He survived two attempts at his life and I said to myself that this is not his day and I am not going to have a spider in my insect collection. I released him back into his half-broken web as I had destroyed a part of his web when I caught him with the net. Now I need to find another insect for replacement.

The next day as I was roaming the backyard hunting for another insect that I can capture, I saw his web empty and the broken sections remained. He has not fixed his home back to perfection. I wondered what happened as I watched the hanging strings swaying back and forth in the gentle wind. My mind e leaves of the mango tree and hit this shining object on the ground. I gently bent down and there I saw my friend, the beautiful spider, dead and lying motionless among the dry leaves of the bush plant that hosted his home. He looked like a tiny furry ball with his long legs pulled inward towards his body. My heart felt heavy as if I lost a dear friend. I felt guilty that I may have been the reason for his death. Without my friend to weave back his web, even a gentle breeze would break his home apart. A quick monsoon shower would then wipe out the fragments and he would be lost forever.

Spiders - As Strong as Silk

Spiders always fascinated me when I was a kid. They were part of our family, part of the insect ecosystem that lived among the many crevices and dusty, cobwebbed junk stored in rarely accessed lofts in our ancestral home in Mylapore. To top it all, our cluttered backyard, filled with thorny December Poo bushes (Barleria cristata), unkempt banana trees, and dry leaf droppings from the huge hundred-year-old mango tree, had its own share of sprightly outdoor spiders. They were just about the size of a quarter, often multi-colored and had strong bodies unlike their soft indoor cousins. These hardy friends from the insect kingdom weaved beautiful webs of spider silk that occupied open spaces between the overgrown shrubs. Their webs were made of such strong silk strings that it could even hold small stones weighing many times the weight of spider. I had a perverse curiosity in messing around with their capabilities. I would drop stones of increasing size to figure out the right sized stone that would break the strings. I would then watch in awe as he locates the break and weaves the web back to perfection.

While the spider patiently sits in the middle, like a yogi in meditation, I too would wait patiently watching the web with the spider flap back and forth in the gentle afternoon hot summer breeze. Time would stop and my mind would pick up the rattle of leaves, an occasional hallowing song of a lonely Minah or clumsy crowing from the many crows that lived on our mango tree. The moment an insect, a housefly, a baby dragonfly or a tree ant, falls on the web, in a split second, like a speeding bullet, he would rush exactly to the spot and pounce on the hapless insect. He would use all his eight legs to poke and spew silk over the poor wriggling insect. Within minutes, the insect would be covered with silk and appear as if it is entombed inside a cocoon. Slowly, using his antlers, the spider would take its own time in sucking the nutrients out leaving an empty shell.

I liked teasing the spider and loved playing pranks on him. When he had nothing to eat and waited for the next prey, I would take a small one-centimeter piece of stick, and drop it on the web. As soon as the stick lands, he would pounce on it with joy thinking that it could be a juicy insect. He would inspect the prey for about ten to twenty seconds, and would realize that it is not a meal. An amazing thing would happen next. The spider would gingerly pry the stick away from the strings so that it falls through the gap between stings with minimal damage to his web. He would immediately start working on mending any strands that got broken in this process and will not stop until his home is back in shape again. Then he would walk to center and lay in wait for his next casualty.

Cats – Calling it home

I lived in a densely populated street, full of row houses that shared a common wall to the left and right, as well as a common wall in the back with another series of row houses in a parallel street behind. One can literally go from house to house, from one street to the other, simply walking over the roofs and climbing a few dilapidated walls. Most houses had partial Madras terrace ceiling for rooms in the front portion facing the street while rest of the structure behind had sloping roofs covered with curved burnt-clay country tiles stacked neatly in three layers. Every house had a central square or rectangular courtyard that opens to the sky. A verandah ran along each side of the courtyard covered by the sloping roofs, with red-oxide covered cement floors, and floor-to-roof teakwood pillars at each corner of the verandah. This architecture follows an ancient layout based on a system called Vastu. My family as well as my close neighbors had three generations of family members living in a single household. My father, mother, my two elder brothers, my younger sister, my first brother’s wife, his two toddler children as well as my paternal uncle, all lived under one roof. The same family structure repeated in every house in our neighborhood. Among this mass of humanity, about half a dozen cats lived, and roamed free over the roofs, terraces, in the verandah, backyard and occasionally into the open kitchen to steal a drink of milk.

A limestone and brick parapet wall separated our backyard from the neighbor’s to the right. I heard stories my brothers told about this wall and how it is as old as the abutting 100-year-old mango tree. There was a gaping hole, about a meter high and two meters wide, with jagged edges exposing the now powdered clay and the red bricks with broken edges jutting out along the inner uneven circumference of the hole. It was big enough for me to go through and jump into our neighbor’s yard whenever I wished. My mother always yelled at me when I do this as she worried that the precarious wall may collapse and crush me as I passed under. Worse yet, I may get stung by the many poisonous scorpions that lived among the dark crevices. Among the hidden chambers of this gaping hole lived the cats of our neighborhood. I have counted over six cats who were regulars, and occasionally, I have seen stranger cats from other streets venturing into this area for mating, food, or a fight. The tomcats played a special role both as a friend and as a competition in my growing up years.

Cats – Teaching a Lesson

There were two tomcats and probably two or three female cats that lived among the backyards of homes in our street. The tomcats always fought with each other at night and would make eerie sounds that often sounded like babies cooing or crying in distress. There will be a period of cooing followed by a loud commotion when one of the tomcats start chasing the other and both run over tiled rooftops at high speed, toppling some of the old terracotta tiles. The behavior of these cats always piqued my curiosity as a child. Sometimes I felt that the cat instinctively knows that humans cannot see in dark or they cannot run over the rooftops. I first realized this behavior when I chased a cat that strayed into the open terrace at night. As I chased it on the well-lit open terrace, it would run fast, jump over the four-foot parapet wall, land on the tiled roof, and just stay there. He would not run after that point. He would simply sit there and stare at me. The rooftop would be dark as the terrace light would not reach there and this cat would think that I cannot see in the dark, and I will not chase him any further. I have observed this same behavior a hundred times when I chase them away at night. This always annoyed me. How can a mere cat know my limitation and how dare it can think that I will not be able to chase him once he jumps into the ghostly shadows of night. I wanted him to know that humans are better than stupid cats, we will not give up a fight, we too can see in dark, and we too can run over rooftops. I wanted them to know that I am way better than his kind and I can chase them all the way to the bottom of hell irrespective of darkness or light.

I prepared for this lesson in humility well in advance. I kept a bucket of water with a pail near the parapet wall in the terrace. Cats hate water. I want to use this as a weapon to impart a valuable experience that he would never forget in his pathetic life. I waited for an opportune night that I could execute my attack plan. One night, a tomcat came inside the kitchen at night. I tiptoed past the kitchen and closed the door to our backyard. That way he cannot escape immediately into the dark backyard. Instead, he has to go through the corridor past the prayer room, living room, and climb up the stairs to the open terrace, jump over the parapet wall and only then, he would be able to vanish into the darkness of the rooftops. I started making loud noises to scare him. He started to run out of the kitchen and instinctively tried to dash through the backdoor. I laughed when I saw him bump on the door desperately trying to sneak out between the closed doors. I raised my voice and made horrendous noises to scare the hell out of him. He ran past me and started running through the house. I ran behind him like a mad man. Obviously, he outran me, but being small, I zipped fast behind him, ran up the stairs, and even climbed up the parapet wall. He then jumped down over to the rooftop and simply stared at me from the darkness thinking I cannot see him. In a few seconds, I saw him like a ghostly shadow with two shining eyes. To fool him into a false sense of security in darkness, I stared back for a while. He sat there comfortably thinking I cannot see him in the darkness. Then I quietly brought up a mug of water, and in an instant poured it over him. Poor tomcat, he got drenched completely, and ran away shaking his body, and his legs all the way until he vanished over the dark rooftops of our neighbors.

Dragonfly Kiss

A dragonfly exemplifies nature’s ultimate genius in avionics. It demonstrates extreme maneuverability that is far beyond the grasp of human engineering at this time. As a child with limitless curiosity, I have observed that the human innovation, the helicopter, is the one that comes closest to the agility of a dragonfly. A dragonfly can hover in midair, move front a few paces at rapid speed, and come to an instant stall, do the same thing in the opposite direction in the blink of an eye. It can climb up vertically like a VTOL aircraft, and zoom down great speed and park in an instant on a very thin branch of a bush or a tree. My mother always said that dragonflies announce the arrival or rains and the rainy season. My mother would always say that dragonflies predict an oncoming monsoon rain shower. Every monsoon season, I saw the same three varieties of dragonflies. First is the big fat one, with a fat body the size of a small candy and having a long tail at least 3 mm in diameter. I have seen them in dark blue, brown, and grey colors. They look rough and tough and act like the boss of the swarm. The second variety is of a medium build, body about the size of peanut, with a thin long tail. They also come in the same three colors as the fat ones. The last variety, which is my favorite, is a thin fly, head only as thick as the head of a pin with a long thin tail. Overall, it will be about two inches long, with even thinner wings. These thin ones come in multi-color patterns of blue, green, purple, brown, red, and grey.

The fat and medium ones are hardy fliers and they fly high, about 10 feet off the ground and normally roam around near the trees. They are the favorites of the rowdy boys from neighborhood slums. These boys, who roam the streets, often without a shirt, and wearing dilapidated shorts because of poverty, enjoy a bit of free entertainment during the dragonfly season. They would catch the fatty ones and tie a long string to their tails. They would hold one end of the string and release the dragonfly. The poor fly would think it is free and would rapidly try to get away and fly up. The kid would be holding the other end of the string, hence the unsuspecting fly would reach the maximum length of the string and would struggle hard to get away, but the kid would keep yanking at it and make it fly like a kite. The boys would have a great laugh and keep taunting the pitiable dragonfly. Sometimes, there would a bunch of boys doing the same thing and the strings would cross over each other, and the boys would argue and try to pull all the files back to ground and attempt to untangle. Ultimately, the dragonfly would exhaust its energy and would fall to the ground, unable to fly anymore. The boys would simply dump them on the side, with the string attached, and run off to play another game. The dragonfly will slowly die and a passing sparrow may take pity and expedite the process by consuming it for a quick snack.

My favorite needle dragonflies are so small and normally roam the bushes close to ground. They are fascinating to observe as they fly in a zig-zag manner getting blown off track even by a gentle breeze. They would often land on the thin branches of the December flower bushes in our backyard. I would gingerly go behind it and catch its tail. I would then hold it while it would flutter its thin film of wings in a desperate attempt to escape my grip. There is a myth shared among the kids in our neighborhood that if a dragonfly lands on your forehead and kisses, you would get lucky and find a one-rupee coin that day. Instead of waiting for this impossible random event to happen, I would catch the dragonfly, make it stay on my forehead for a while, and then go looking for that mythical one- rupee coin around the house. Sometimes, I would actually find one but not because of the dragonfly. My father would have a bunch of coins in his shirt pocket. When he takes it off, a few would fall accidentally and run away under a cabinet or a bed. My father would never pick it up and when I find it after the dragonfly incident, I would attribute it to the magical powers of the dragonfly kiss. When it is not a season for dragonflies, we would see butterflies and the legend has it that even butterflies have this magical power and if it lands on your forehead and kisses, it would bring good luck.

During the day, the dragonflies fly inside our home and wade out since our home always had the doors open. In addition, right in the middle of our home, we had a courtyard that opens up to the sky. Hence, I have seen multitudes of dragonflies buzzing through our home during the monsoon season. However, if any of them fail to get out before dusk, they are in for big trouble. After sunset, as it becomes quickly dark, we would switch on the five-foot long fluorescent tube lights. These flies would then hone in on the light thinking they are exiting out, but instead, simply bang against the tube light and flap their wings as fast as possible thinking that they could break the barrier and enter the open sky. Alas, they would simply be buzzing around the tube light all through the evening. That is when I would observer the delicate dance of the predator and prey. In our old house, a group of house lizards, about six inches long and white skinned, lived among the crevices of the roof during day and venture out to the area near tube lights during night. They are well aware that several insects get fooled at night and would be buzzing around the tube light area. Dragonflies, moths, and even common houseflies can be observed doing the stupid buzzing around the light at night. A dragonfly would be the best meal that the lizard can get. The lizard would move stealthily and slowly, inch by inch. Along the way, it would be analyzing the path taken by the confused dragonfly and position itself such that it can make a quick grab as it bangs and buzzes in its direction. Sometimes, the dragonfly would change its mind and go the other direction or fly into the hall, but without fail, it would always propel itself to bump into the tube light and buzz around it. The lizard would wait patiently, keep changing its alignment and when the time is right, it would make a slight forward movement, open its mouth wide, extend its sticky tongue that would trap the fly and pull it into its open mouth. The entire sequence would be perfectly orchestrated in a fraction of a second and the pathetic insect would be trapped between soft jaws of the lizard. It would still try to buzz and attempt to fly away, but the lizard would move its head left and right, opening the mouth at appropriate intervals and slowly swallow the still buzzing fly. Once the fly completely vanishes inside, with a bulging body, the lizard would walk back with a swaying gait to its hiding place among the tiles to savor its meal.

Bats – Sinners in the Temple of Shiva

Among nature’s creation, Bats are one of the most complex creatures that go unnoticed by busy humans. Dogs are everywhere, cats are beloved companions, and snakes are powerful demi-gods worshiped in temples. Bats on the other hand have an ill reputation of dirty creatures. No one seems to wonder at this amazing creation other than the scary caricatures of bats during Halloween or as a symbol like in the movie Batman. I loved to gaze at the amazing flight path a bat takes as it moves around. Sometimes, they appear to almost crash into a building or a tree trunk, but change direction in the blink of an eye just before you think they would crash. When they rest on a tree or a ceiling, they would be hanging upside down watching everything going on below. Our home had an open courtyard and long corridors that open on one side to the road, and other side to the backyard. Sometimes, I have seen bats flying through our home from one end to the other. It was very hard to follow them as they would fly fast and in an instant, it would be out up on the trees in the backyard.

My mother would always say that having bats come inside the house is bad omen. It is even a worse omen if the bat lived inside the house. We had many attic spaces that were dusty and had lots of junk. One time we noticed a bat living in such a cluttered old attic in a room that often acts as our dining area, very close to the back door that leads to our backyard. Apparently, it strayed from the tree, flew inside, and found this attic space a cozy home. It took us a great effort to lodge the bat out of this creepy space and chase it out. In fact, in order to make the bat not to come back, we had to scare it with a burning flame. My father’s elder brother, my uncle, took a long stick, wrapped one end with a rag cloth, dipped it in kerosene, and lighted it. Using this lighted stick, we scared and chased the bat out. According another family lore, once a bat sees fire, it will remember the location and will never come back to the same place. Finally, the bat was forever, banished from our home.

Another time, our entire family went to visit my elder brother’s wife, my sister-in-law’s parent’s house about fifty miles north of our home. Her father used to work in a match factory, which made the famous Cheetah Fight matchboxes. In that rural neighborhood, there was a very old Shiva temple. This temple was almost near the ocean and from inside, you could hear the sound of the waves crashing on the rocky shores. In Hindu culture, Shiva is one of the trinities, the destroyer. This temple is so old that many esoteric myths lived among the folks inhabiting this village. There is a legend that the Shiva Lingam (the phallic rock representation of Shiva) grows every day. If it grows large enough such that it rises above the height of temple walls, the Lingam can then see the ocean. If the Lingam sees the ocean beyond, a great catastrophic event will happen and destroy the world. The corridors surrounding the sanctum sanctorum of the temple were damp, dark, and dimly lit. Large, square, intricately carved granite pillars towered from ground and touched the roof that was over thirty feet above. Floor was also granite, and along the outside walls, stood stone sculptures of the disciples of Shiva and various gods, demi-gods and goddesses. Inside the dark and dimly lit corridors of the temple, thousands of bats lived and hung upside down from the dark roofs above. Sometimes they made such blood curdling noise and will sweep down from the ceiling, go from one end of the corridor to another and swing back up to hang upside down again. My mother always reminded that anyone who commits a sin, and that too a sin that would disrespect Lord Shiva or any of his disciples or devotes, would be born again as a bat in their next life and hang upside down in a Shiva temple. As I left, I felt bad for those thousands of sinners who have to spend their life inside the Shiva temple. I hope they would accumulate enough good deeds from being in the presence of Shiva the destroyer and be born again as humans in their soul’s next journey.