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There were lots of kites in the skies of Muthukur in the early 1950s.
I think they were kites...I don't know...could be eagles, falcons or hawks...but surely not, as I now know, albatrosses (around the neck) or vultures (culture or otherwise)
It was my pastime once in a while on a midday to lie down on the stone platform in front of our home and watch the dozen or so kites swirling and making big circles far far overhead...they looked like tiny dots. And yet I could see that they were not fluttering their wings laboriously. They just glided, tilting their wings this side and that. I used to wonder how they could fly so effortlessly...I didn't know then about convective air currents.
I never actually watched a kite swooping down its prey and carrying it away in its talons. But once in a while there would be cries from neighbors and, as we ran to see what was happening, all we saw was a kite going up and up with its prey to the merriment of the crowd and curses of the owners of the poor chick.
So that was the origin of 'hawk-eyes'.
My mom used to call the kite: "Garutmanta", Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu. And when we were living in an old bungalow teeming with snakes, my mom would often pray to Garuda who was supposed to be fond of snakes and catches them and whisks them away.
And in our school text, we had this rather fearful story of Jimutavahana and how he offers himself as prey to Garuda in place of a young boy who was detailed for the day. And how Garuda carries away Jimutavahana to his perch on the rocks and how, coming to know of the self-sacrifice of the mighty king, releases him from his hold and revokes his daily ritual.
It is a wonder how I had forgotten all of physics and yet recall the stories read and told in my boyhood...imprinting.
Whenever we saw a boy with a prominent nose, we used to tease him as:
"Gadda Mukku" (Hawk's nose).
I have seen quite a few hawk-noses in my time....I learned that it has a special name:
"Aquiline Nose"
Aquila, I read, is Latin for an eagle and there is a constellation with that name.
Prof CLR (sadly no more) had a pronounced aquiline nose and he was very sportive about it. When he used to visit our Qrs with his wife, and settled down on the sofa, and my son watched his nose with interest, CLR would allow my son to touch his beak and twiddle it.
But, of course, CLR's nose is nothing compared to the prominent father-son duo's of UP who, I don't think, would let any small boy tweak their beaks...they may throw him into jail.
But I guess their beaks are more like parrots'...'caged' or wild.
None of my folks in our village ever kept parrots as pets. Of course they were used as prophetic-tools of itinerary fortune tellers.
I had to wait till 1965 to actually hear a parrot repeat what was said. That was when my friend took me to the Alipore Zoo in Calcutta, which was then a vast and verdant park.
And there was a lone parrot in a cage swung from the branch of a tree in front of which there gathered a tiny crowd. And they were teasing the bird, saying:
"Khana Khayega!"
And after a few rehearsals the parrot started shouting back:
"Khana Khayega!"
I was enchanted...perhaps that was the only phrase the bird ever learned.
IIT KGP campus was full of flocks of parrots descending on the guava trees in our backyard.
...And there were some in the department too that fitted the description...
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There were lots of kites in the skies of Muthukur in the early 1950s.
I think they were kites...I don't know...could be eagles, falcons or hawks...but surely not, as I now know, albatrosses (around the neck) or vultures (culture or otherwise)
It was my pastime once in a while on a midday to lie down on the stone platform in front of our home and watch the dozen or so kites swirling and making big circles far far overhead...they looked like tiny dots. And yet I could see that they were not fluttering their wings laboriously. They just glided, tilting their wings this side and that. I used to wonder how they could fly so effortlessly...I didn't know then about convective air currents.
I never actually watched a kite swooping down its prey and carrying it away in its talons. But once in a while there would be cries from neighbors and, as we ran to see what was happening, all we saw was a kite going up and up with its prey to the merriment of the crowd and curses of the owners of the poor chick.
So that was the origin of 'hawk-eyes'.
My mom used to call the kite: "Garutmanta", Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu. And when we were living in an old bungalow teeming with snakes, my mom would often pray to Garuda who was supposed to be fond of snakes and catches them and whisks them away.
And in our school text, we had this rather fearful story of Jimutavahana and how he offers himself as prey to Garuda in place of a young boy who was detailed for the day. And how Garuda carries away Jimutavahana to his perch on the rocks and how, coming to know of the self-sacrifice of the mighty king, releases him from his hold and revokes his daily ritual.
It is a wonder how I had forgotten all of physics and yet recall the stories read and told in my boyhood...imprinting.
Whenever we saw a boy with a prominent nose, we used to tease him as:
"Gadda Mukku" (Hawk's nose).
I have seen quite a few hawk-noses in my time....I learned that it has a special name:
"Aquiline Nose"
Aquila, I read, is Latin for an eagle and there is a constellation with that name.
Prof CLR (sadly no more) had a pronounced aquiline nose and he was very sportive about it. When he used to visit our Qrs with his wife, and settled down on the sofa, and my son watched his nose with interest, CLR would allow my son to touch his beak and twiddle it.
But, of course, CLR's nose is nothing compared to the prominent father-son duo's of UP who, I don't think, would let any small boy tweak their beaks...they may throw him into jail.
But I guess their beaks are more like parrots'...'caged' or wild.
None of my folks in our village ever kept parrots as pets. Of course they were used as prophetic-tools of itinerary fortune tellers.
I had to wait till 1965 to actually hear a parrot repeat what was said. That was when my friend took me to the Alipore Zoo in Calcutta, which was then a vast and verdant park.
And there was a lone parrot in a cage swung from the branch of a tree in front of which there gathered a tiny crowd. And they were teasing the bird, saying:
"Khana Khayega!"
And after a few rehearsals the parrot started shouting back:
"Khana Khayega!"
I was enchanted...perhaps that was the only phrase the bird ever learned.
IIT KGP campus was full of flocks of parrots descending on the guava trees in our backyard.
...And there were some in the department too that fitted the description...
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