Monotony of Hornbills
Jyothi Vinod
The thin white tent wrinkles and flutters ever so lightly, microbes
dying under it this very instant. The heirloom brass coffee filter teases me
with laughing mirror images. Seventy to thirty is the ratio he swears by – coffee
beans from Coorg and chicory from … some root? It’s incredible how I’ve gone
about my life accumulating questions.
Milk from oxytocin injected cows or buffaloes – denied to hungry
calves. Piped water – now UV irradiated – from the river where people spread
ashes of dead kin. Trees and dinosaurs buried over millions of years ago – reborn
as blue LPG flames. Salem steel utensils scoured by maids for twenty-five years
with lemon-scented soaps. Cherry red ceramic cups bought off craftsmen at a
handicraft melas. Sulphur-free, bone char-free demerara sugar from the
pricey organic store. How can anyone drink a cup of coffee in peace?
The white tent billows, buffeted by an internal storm. Shekar’s
physics can, no doubt, provide equations for the square dimple forming on the
surface. A dome rushes up with a hiss, hovers a few micro seconds and tears
apart.
I fumble with the stove’s knob, grab the milk vessel with tongs, and
slam it on a wooden coaster. I snatch a kitchen towel, and a whole bunch of
them tumble out of the drawer. I staunch the milk dripping off the counter, and
the tongs drop on my foot. The velocity of hot milk is definitely higher than
that of cold milk.
‘Not again! Weren’t you watching?’ Shekar is at the kitchen door, with
a frown that goes well with his dark grey night suit. ‘I’ve lost count. Is this
the second time this week, or third? You might as well cut the milk packet into
the drain.’
With the care I’d reserved for experiments involving concentrated acids
in the laboratory years ago, I brew two cups of coffee. He arranges four Marie
biscuits on the tray beside the cups.
I remove two biscuits and my cup, and set them back on the counter. He
takes the tray to the teapoy between two old cane chairs in the balcony, and
shakes the Sunday newspaper open.
Five rinses and multiple wrings later, the kitchen towels still
release cloudy water. I mop the floor and wipe under the stove again. Burnt
milk is a nasty give-away; every time I use the stove today, everyone will
know.
I reheat the coffee, and carry my cup to the balcony. Shekar has
already left, dressed in his Sunday morning best: khaki pants, olive green
shirt, brown baseball cap—though most of us have no clue how baseball is
played, sneakers, and two pairs of binoculars. Last week, Diya, the single
mother who lives in the building across the road introduced herself at the
vegetable market and thanked me for the use of my pair. I’d no idea Shekar
takes them for her.
Three techie couples dressed in greens and browns greet Shekar at our
building gate with high fives. After sun-less weekdays of slog over their
laptops, these youngsters run or cycle – in fluorescent gear marketed by the
best in the world – on the fringes of busy roads. After Shekar’s passionate
speech during the New Year celebrations of our apartment complex, they armed
themselves with binoculars and Salim Ali’s, The
Book of Indian Birds, and joined him on Sunday mornings. I’ve given Sunday
morning walks a miss.
Call me naïve or stupid, but when Shekar asked me if he could join me
on my walks last January, I really believed we were rebuilding bridges. He
referred to the egret on the buffalo’s back as ‘duck,’ and was astonished to
learn the ‘parrots’ squawking in the guava tree were parakeets. Over the year
he learned the name of every bird I stopped to watch. Once home, he researched
and updated his new blog. My sister chanced upon it and called to ask, among
other things, if Shekar’s new hobby involved only birds of the feathered kind.
Afterwards she remembered to laugh and assure me she’d been joking. I’ve realised
in my twenty-five years of marriage there are myriad ways of framing that
question.
When Shekar refused to see how unwise it was to publicise the green
pocket, I resumed my walks alone, taking my old route through a goatherds’
settlement. Luckily, I’d never trusted the fragile friendship between us enough
to take him there. And so my secret remained – mine.
I’ve counted twelve adults in Shekar’s bird watching group, and there
are rumours he’ll start a winter camp for kids and teens. How much longer
before a signboard pops up, and hordes of noisy families descend to gawk at the
birds? The nests will empty, and the birds will remain only in blog posts and
the techies’ SD cards. But he’s resourceful; he has started reading about
butterflies and trees.
I promised my third year chemistry honours students I’d be back in a
few minutes when the peon interrupted my lecture on acyclic stereochemistry
that afternoon. I never returned. I reached Shekar’s room in the Physics
Department unsure what to make of his unusual summons. He had just put in his
resignation papers, and sat on short fuse. What was the point staying on, if
after twenty years of service, the management readily institutes an
investigation based on allegations by three girl students, and pointedly
suggest he resign? Shekar wanted to know. I resigned too. And for the first
time in my fifteen-year teaching career, I left a syllabus incomplete.
It took us only two months to wind up twenty-five years’ worth of
memories in Calcutta, and relocate to Mysore. Those months will remain the only
time in my life I was relieved that our son, Vikrant, lived so far away.
Vikrant claims he chose to study Japanese because ‘all through his
childhood we’d explained the principles of physics and chemistry in daily life
to puke point.’ Did mathematics, biology, statistics and law also bring about
nausea? Shekar had shouted. Vikrant replied he was thankful blinkered vision
wasn’t hereditary.
In the initial photos Vikrant e-mailed us, we saw cherry blossoms and
buildings in his university campus in Tokyo. Now we see him with his
girlfriend, Akiko, backpacking through Europe. Five years ago when I sent him
pictures of our new neighbourhood in Mysore, he gifted me a pair of binoculars
and wrote an encouraging note.
Maybe I should set the facts right. This is no bird sanctuary.
Sparrows, robins, rollers, kingfishers, bulbuls, bee-eaters, babblers, tailor
birds, mynahs, parakeets, and a whole variety of tiny birds have fled the city
to the woody expanse near our apartment block.
The doorbell rings, and I let the maid in. While she works, I bathe
and get dressed. I eat a bowl of cornflakes. Shekar breakfasts with his disciples
every Sunday. When she leaves, I step out with her and lock the apartment. I’ve
three missed calls from the Senior Citizen Day Care Centre where I
volunteer from 11 am to 5 pm every day. My cellphone rings again. The
centre is closed today. One of the patrons has organised a day trip to
Brindavan Gardens, and I’m invited too. I mumble excuses.
I unlock the door, and let it bang open. I throw my handbag and hear
it strike the plastic water jug on the dining table. It’s childish, but I don’t
want to stay home. I kick off my sandals and put on my walking shoes. I take my
sling bag with my note book, and stuff a bottle of water inside it. I lock the
door again, and walk briskly in the direction of the woody area.
Life at the goatherds’ hamlet has the permanence of a picture
postcard. Ten huts are huddled together. An old man sits outside his hut
smoking a beedi. He stopped making conversation and grew resentful
after he realised I had no influence of any kind to secure government jobs for
his sons. The women are always busy with chores. Some smile, while others
probably envy an older woman the luxury of sitting under a tree, writing or
gazing into the distance. Sprightly chocolate brown goats leave trails of
pebbly droppings everywhere.
I sit under the Peepal tree with my notebook and pen. The goatherd’s
dog shakes off sand and ambles to sit at my feet. I pluck a blade of grass,
tickle his nose, and watch it twitch. Two goats bleat, and engage in playful
head-butting. Eucalyptus scented smoke swirls out of chimneys.
I crane my neck to look up when I hear raucous cackling, ‘Kyah,
kyah, kyah.’ He’s there, right amongst the shiny heart-shaped leaves, preening
his grey wings. Soon he’ll pop figs into his long orange beak and fly into the
thicket. On a page in my notebook I’ve written ‘Monogamy of Hornbills,’ under
‘Malabar Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros griseus).’ I stare at the words till they
blur. I’ve grown dafter with age: I envy the female hornbill imprisoned in the
cavity of the Gulmohar tree with her chicks, secure in the knowledge her mate
will be back. She shed her feathers to make a bed for her chicks; if he doesn’t
return, they’ll all die. How does he know that?
Initially I’d followed the hornbill into the thicket with my
binoculars. He’d perch outside a walled cavity in the Gulmohar tree, and
regurgitate food into a slit in the wall he helped make with droppings and
mud. He has probably never missed a day since the beginning of
April. I dread coming here one morning and finding them all gone.
Is fidelity hard-wired in the genes, or in the brain? And how do
experts confirm the identity of the hornbill pair?
It can’t be! That’s Shekar’s voice when he’s having a good time. I
watch him lead his group towards the huts. They must be stopping by for a drink
of water. The old man stubs his beedi and rises to meet them. I
stand quickly and sidle behind the wide trunk.
‘Kyah, kyah, kyah,’ chuckles the hornbill as if sensing my dismay. The
bird watchers exclaim when they train their binoculars to the tree. The
treacherous goatherd talks volubly, gesturing in the direction of the thicket.
Shekar strolls casually towards the Peepal tree and looks up. He picks my red
notebook lying on the grass and reads the page where the ballpoint pen is
clipped. He doesn’t look around for me. He tosses the book back on the grass
and strides back to his friends.
‘It’s our lucky day. We can see the monogamy, sorry, the monotony of
hornbills.’ Amidst loud guffaws, he repeats the sentence. They exclaim over the
absence of the casque on the hornbill’s orange beak. The female has a yellow
beak, somebody reads aloud. Can’t we see her, asks another. She won’t be around
now because she’ll be doing her duty, Shekar replies.
Much like a goatherd’s herd, they follow Shekar into the thicket. I
take my book and leave. I mustn’t worry. It’s now the last week of May, and the
nest will be cramped with the grown chicks. If her feathers have come back,
she’ll peck away at the wall, and fly to her freedom before the next weekend.
Last year, for weeks the couple had held insects to entice the hesitant chicks
out of the nest.
The couple stayed together even after the chicks flew away. Why? Why
not?
Are there anomalies in the hornbill world?
What drives her to stay without wind and sunshine for sixty days when
she knows the wall was never invincible – only made of mud and poop?
What will she do if he finds another mate? Eat figs and be merry, or
find herself another too?
It’s time to face my answers.
I call the Senior Citizen Centre to inform them I’m sorry, but I’ve
changed my mind. It’s no problem, really. I can reach the Brindavan Gardens on
my own.
***
Jyothi Vinod is a writer of short
fiction and creative non-fiction. A post-graduate in Electronics and
Communication Engineering, she taught undergraduates in Jaipur, Chennai, and
Bangalore for about ten years. During a break in 2013, she chased her childhood
dream of becoming a published writer, quit her job, and hasn't looked back
since.
In the annual Katha
short story contests conducted by India Currents, she won second place in 2015
and third in 2016. Three of her stories were selected for anthologies in 2017. Several
'middles', humour and travel articles have been published in Deccan Herald. Her short stories have
appeared in Good Housekeeping India, Femina, Woman’s Era, Spark, Reading Hour, Open Road Review, DWL-Papercuts,
and India Currents.
Jyothi lives in
Bangalore with her family, and likes books, travelling, birds, and trees.
Beautifully written! Enjoyed every moment of this read!
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