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In addition to its greed and guile, the Indian Crow is also capable of naked aggression when it suits it.
When I was a boy of 10 in Muthukur, we were playing what we called Bazaar Ball. We take a bald tennis ball and draw lots. And the thief was handed the ball while everyone else runs away. Then the thief had to run with the ball and aim it at anyone he finds within his reach. If he succeeds in hitting his back, he is freed from his theifdom which is transferred to the guy who was hit. If he fails, he has to run and recover the ball and try again and again till he aims well at his target.
And I happened to be the thief that day and aimed and threw the ball but missed...the ball ran away under the neem tree. And as I was walking to recover the ball, I found that my head was squarely hit by what turned out to be the sharp claws of a resident crow...oh, it was so painful I thought I was bleeding.
When I lifted my head, I found that the pugnacious crow that attacked me had built its ugly sticky nest on a low branch of the neem tree and was guarding it from thieves...this was the limit of needless aggression, for, which boy of 10 would be interested in stealing a crow's eggs?
But with all its wile and guile, the Indian Crow is roundly cheated repeatedly by the Indian Cuckoo that is metaphorically 'cuckoo'...an epitome of foolishness and imbecility. Our cuckoo slyly lays its eggs in the nearest crow's nest and our crow is totally unaware of the skullduggery and raises the young of the imposter at the expense of its own brood.
There is a moral there...cleverness goes only so far and no further...it meets its nemesis by and by...the D.P. cuckoos are snooping to listen in to our betting and fixing deals.
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Ishani is back from her summer vacation in Singapore...and brought the soothing Indian Monsoon with her...and much else besides...
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In addition to its greed and guile, the Indian Crow is also capable of naked aggression when it suits it.
When I was a boy of 10 in Muthukur, we were playing what we called Bazaar Ball. We take a bald tennis ball and draw lots. And the thief was handed the ball while everyone else runs away. Then the thief had to run with the ball and aim it at anyone he finds within his reach. If he succeeds in hitting his back, he is freed from his theifdom which is transferred to the guy who was hit. If he fails, he has to run and recover the ball and try again and again till he aims well at his target.
And I happened to be the thief that day and aimed and threw the ball but missed...the ball ran away under the neem tree. And as I was walking to recover the ball, I found that my head was squarely hit by what turned out to be the sharp claws of a resident crow...oh, it was so painful I thought I was bleeding.
When I lifted my head, I found that the pugnacious crow that attacked me had built its ugly sticky nest on a low branch of the neem tree and was guarding it from thieves...this was the limit of needless aggression, for, which boy of 10 would be interested in stealing a crow's eggs?
But with all its wile and guile, the Indian Crow is roundly cheated repeatedly by the Indian Cuckoo that is metaphorically 'cuckoo'...an epitome of foolishness and imbecility. Our cuckoo slyly lays its eggs in the nearest crow's nest and our crow is totally unaware of the skullduggery and raises the young of the imposter at the expense of its own brood.
There is a moral there...cleverness goes only so far and no further...it meets its nemesis by and by...the D.P. cuckoos are snooping to listen in to our betting and fixing deals.
We had few cuckoos in Muthukur...once in a while we would hear its song but never could spot it. It was like a creepy singing Siren...indeed there was a belief that cuckoos hide themselves so well in the spring-greenery that they could be heard but not seen...like the Banshee of Jim Corbett.
I first saw cuckoos...dozens of them in the campus of IIT KGP. They outnumbered the crows in our backyard which was replete with trees...guava, mango, neem, silk cotton and many others with thick foliage.
It was at KGP that I could guess why a cuckoo is 'cuckoo'...
It starts its song in a feeble note with gurgling sounds...and then slowly builds it up in volume and tone...and goes on and on and on in increasing decibels till it strains its vocal chords and can sing no more...till half an hour when it repeats its performance....much like a Hindustani Classical Vocalist who starts slowly with his alaap and builds it up to a terrific crescendo till something gives in his throat.
One day I was curious and counted our resident cuckoo's notes...the total came to 46.
Of bats I only heard in my boyhood and could meet them only at KGP. They are nocturnal like owls. And their echo-sonar is much overvalued. As soon as a bat strayed into the hall of our Qrs. B-140, we would switch off all the ceiling fans. For, we had the bitter experience of bats being hit by the fast rotating fan blades...and what a mess it is! When the fan was at rest, the bats could easily dodge its blades by looping the loops till they get tired of their fun and fly out...for there is no reason why a bat should enter our home...there was nothing there that it could eat or mate.
'As blind as a bat' is what Lord Emsworth was when he mislaid his specs.
'Flew away like a bat out of hell' was what I did from my Research Scholar Position at AU in 1965 to land at the IIT KGP heaven.
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Ishani is back from her summer vacation in Singapore...and brought the soothing Indian Monsoon with her...and much else besides...
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