The “caw caw” of the crow is omenous. It hinders the
success of a journey and it brings diseases to the people who hear it. That is
exactly what she said. And with a conviction strong enough to shake the
foundation of the Statue of Liberty, or atleast it seemed so, for we really
don’t know whether she is a crow-eater as well.
Our house is more of a garden. My mother, an ardent lover
of trees and flowers, has filled up every available corner with plants. It
almost appears like there is a house in a garden rather than a garden in a
house. And the balcony hasn’t been spared of the shades of soothing green and
bright yellow clusters peeping through them. She waters them every morning and
afternoon. Today Fate had scripted an afternoon adventure with the “crow
killer”.
Mother was standing in the balcony, after having watered
the plants, and watching the labourers at work with bricks and cement on a
little construction above our garage. Our woman of the day arrives at this
precise hour to play out the script. A crow had committed the grave mistake of
cawing while she was on her way to a very important work. Immediately she took
out a gulti from her bag and aimed a
stone at the crow. She missed it. The crow flew away and perched on another electric
pole. As she was about to aim at it a second time, my mother called out, “Hey,
what are you up to?”. And our crow-hitter shouted back, “Killing this bloody
crow! Such an omen! Am on my way to attend to a very important business”. The
poor lady thought she had won over my mother’s confidence by enumerating such a
valuable fact about the cawing of crows. Her pupil, however, reacted quite
contrary to her expectations.
“What! You
better stop that nonsense right now!”
An aghast dispeller of omens, at first taken aback,
hadn’t yet accepted defeat at the hands of the lady in the balcony. She hadn’t
yet put her best foot forward.
“You
are such an ignorant woman! Do you know that the cawing of a crow brings
diseases to people residing in the area? Don’t you ahve children at home?”.
“And who has sent you to ward off diseases from our
neighbourhood? Everybody is quite healthy. We hear the crows everyday.”
The woman, still hurling angry accusations at my mother for
being ignorant, started walking away. At this moment, Bidisha’s mother makes
her entry from the corner stage. Standing at her balcomy she comments,
“Maybe
she eats crow meat. Many people have it.”.
She wouldn’t have uttered these words, had she realised
that our messiah wasn’t yet past hearing range.
“What! I eat
crows? People who eat crows live on railway platforms. I have a house. What do
you mean?”.
Aunty slipped inside the house as my mother continued
with her comments. She derives a sadistic pleasure from intimidating people
with sarcasm.
“Then
close all your doors and windows and stay in your house, and don’t come out.
There are crows everywhere.”.
By this time, a few neighbours had already peeped out of
their windows to have a clearer knowledge of the commotion. Some giggled. Our
flustered crow-killer took to the gully that leads to the adjoining
neighbourhood, shouting mad comments. Heads withdrew from windows. Mother came
in laughing and proposing that the lady would have made the perfect bride for
my father,
“Both would go on talking illogical stuff all day. Then your father
would have learnt his lesson.”.
( father thinks mother is illogical. My sister and I,
referees in every domestic fight, have concluded that they both get illogical
when quarrelling with each other.)
Meantime, I guess, the ‘lady with the gulti’ went hunting
omenous crows in the next neighbourhood. The cawing crow proved such a
hindrance to her crow-killing in our neighbourhood. I hope the crows keep cawing
to impede the success of the assassinator of their race. Caw! Caw!
