Hunters’ trail

The gun is out. As we toy with the empty weapon, Binu, the hunter, comes out of the estate house attired in a camouflage jacket and shorts and mounted with a headlamp. He opens the shell pack and ritualistically puts it in the gun. The hunt is on.

We follow Binu and Sellathurai to the tea estate. Binu continuously scans the bushes for a glitter of the eye caught in the light. Sellam has a long knife to hack down the wounded game. We struggle to keep pace with the duo. Even on the tarred road, we hesitate to put a foot down. Darkness rules.

The first hitch comes in the form of a jeep, which might have frightened away all the creatures on the road we were supposed to hunt on. Sellam quickly changes route. He is our guide. Binu, who has eaten all kinds of animals including elephant, is hunting in this estate for the first time.

The headlamp’s beam travels to hills and valleys, roads and ditches between rows of tea plants. No eye reflects the light. Rabbits and porcupines would be hiding in their holes.

The first time I went on rabbit hunt was scarier. Scores of glittering eyes watched us from the rubber estate that turned a forest in the darkness. Strange shrieks frightened us. Kunjubaby Uncle looked for the familiar glitter of the rabbit eye. Suddenly Sanju and I were alone in the wilderness, unable to see each other.

We stood there in the midst of the rubber trees, only a few yards away from the mud road where we played cricket in the day. We had to stand this test of courage. But we were scared to death. Suddenly, a shot. Ruffles followed. We were waiting for some wounded animals to charge towards us.

A few minutes later, uncle appeared with a rabbit in his hand. In the light of the lamp, we were disappointed to see the wild rabbit, grey and ugly. We thought the creature would be more magnificent than its caged country cousins. But this one was shattered and shapeless.

Kunjubaby Uncle’s single-barrel gun was an object of admiration for us kids. On every train journey to Bheemandi during vacations, we would look forward to handling the cold steel as much as caressing the crown of the dead deer on the wall. Valiant tales were associated with the weapon which stood guard on a corner of the bedroom.

Equally intriguing was a scar that stretched from his right knee to ankle. He has told us the tale of a pig hunt. The animal had already chewed a crude bomb planted by a protective farmer when Kunjubaby uncle pumped two rounds of splinters into it from the safety of a treetop. Wild boars, like elephants, keep a vengeful memory even after they lose half the face. When the animal was a few metres away facing a group of men armed with clubs and spears, the shooter left his vantage position. The next thing he remembers is the tiny eyes turning to him and he flying over bamboo clusters. His calf was torn up by the deadly horn. The beast struck again and collapsed.

Being the only gun-owner in the settler's village bordering an unforgiving forest, Kunjubaby uncle was essential in all confrontations. Though the deer trophy was a gift to his father from another hunter, the sharp winding horns of a boar tucked below the roof tiles were earned by him. His loyal dog always guarded him from the edgy prey until it was split open by a boar one night when there was no hunt.

Boars dig out tuber at night. Some drink the cashew wash, fermented to be distilled into a fiery drink, and leave the villagers with a story to tell. It was a Good Friday. The jar of wort was to be distilled the next day and guzzled down god-fearing mouths that had gone dry for 40 days. Since boars don't respect Lent, one of them dug out the ferment. The two-ton tipsy animal hit the town, which is dont called a city despite having a church, a clinic, a toddy shop, a clothe shop and half a dozen provision stores. Villagers who had gone home after a ritualistic enactment of Crusifixion were back in action.

The boar got into the shallow river, beside the ford that leads to Kunjubaby uncle's house. It was not long before a spray of iron balls cut through its barrel neck. But the shell couldn’t breach the thick layers of fat . It turned around and chased the hunters. Uncle fired twice again but the beast refused to die. It just kept going upstream. Everyone had given up hope of a feast when the local madman confronted the boar. He hacked the tired animal's heel. Hunters shared the booty and went home to tell the tale to future generations.

Binu suddenly left the tarred road and turned left into the dark sea of tea bushes. We followed him at close range through the slush. We crossed a couple of barbwires with the help of Sellam’s warning and Hari’s failing torch. We halted for a quick smoke. Not even one animal, Binu murmured.

The party resumed the operation. We walked under a starry night as the hunter looked for a glitter on the ground. The winding narrow path and protruding rocks intimidated us. The hunter and the guide had to slow down a couple of times to let us catch up. We sure made hopeless hunters. We were returning to the bungalow through a tougher path.

I thought we returned to the main road once when the team leader again took a detour. Suddenly, a white rabbit leapt out of the light beam. We chased it. I was chasing the hunters, scared of being left out. Binu scanned under the bush for any movement. Clearly, it was the rabbit’s day.

Frustration gave way to fear when we realised that the other three members were not following us. No whistle, no light, no signal. They were stranded in the alien terrain. I recognised the small church near the workers’ colony that I saw in the morning. We were so close to our shelter. But our comrades were missing.

The rabbit hunt turned into a manhunt. Binu left us near the church and went after the trailing trio. No animal ventured out on these rainy nights, said Sellam, a second generation Tamil migrant who helped at the bungalow. Boars were an exemption. They had hunted down a pig somewhere around a few days ago.

Then we saw light atop the hillock. Binu was leading the lost men. The hunting expedition was almost over. We will have to be contended with the chicken waiting for us at the bungalow. We decided to return home before the others drained the stock of brandy.

Midway, we were atop a rocky expanse. We didn’t know where it was, but halted to admire the setting under the stars. We could have made this our joint…a shot and its echoes broke the chat. We saw Binu’s silhouette against a spark and smokescreen. Sellam ran forward. Binu joined him.

After a few anxious moments, they returned empty handed. We had let our prey escape. Our conversation chased away the rabbit out of firing range. The creature must be thanking the naïve visitors for a fresh lease of life. We thanked god for not letting Binu shoot us.

Call of the wild

Scooby is still whining as I open the gate. I look over the wall, but can’t spot her inside the dark hutch. She calms when I call her by the comical name. The poor girl is afraid to be alone. She misses her mother. Every two-month-old mammal would miss his/her mother when darkness falls. I have read somewhere that dachshunds whine till they find company. Does the rule apply to Dobermans too?

Bruno the dachshund is man enough not to whine. But he seems to be offended by my unexpected concern for the neighbour’s dog. Leaning against my right knee, locking his nails on my jeans, he demands an explanation. We were never on talking terms. He left his teeth mark on my feet when he was hardly a year old. I suspected that the “son of a bitch” was bought with a plan to make me come home early.

I instinctively patted his head and instinctively feared that he would instinctively bite me again. I never believed that the domestication of dogs was successful enough. Its wild instincts were forever at work. Like Jack London’s Buck, any civilized dog was pulled between the security of kennel and the liberty of jungle. But the dog went on all fours expecting me to caress his silky black back.

I always blamed my brother Shawn for bringing home a dog. But I too had a pet. Duka mesmerized me from his stinking cage at the pet shop. I brought him home a Sunday morning, when I was coming back from the church. The little white dog was easily mistaken for a Pomeranian. But he was Australian pedigree, I was told. Someone asked me if the dog planned to go to the UK for a degree.

Duka was an unlikely canine name in a land where people named their dogs Caesar, Kaiser, Bush and so on. Normally people name their dogs in honour of their enemies. Aamir Khan named his dog Shah Rukh and Shah Rukh Khan planned to name his dog Aamir. But I chose a historical name for the dog. Michael Dukakis was the Democratic candidate against George Bush in 1988. For some apolitical reason, I wanted Dukakis to be the US President and honoured my dog with the name Duka.

He proved his pedigree but never graduated to get a degree certificate. He grew beyond a Pomeranian. He was my constant companion until he fought a pack of street dogs one night. He bled to death the next day. Then came Bruno, years later.

All these days, Bruno made sure that I became sober by the time I got past him to the house. But today, he remained non-enthusiastic. All he wanted was a pat on the back. He left me and resigned to his lonely life. A straying cat or an unguarded rat would give him company in the night. Dog is man’s best friend. But does the dog have a friend? Bruno is a prisoner. His easily available friend is a prisoner too, just beyond the wall. Then Scooby is just two months old.

Diagnosing the little dog’s aggressiveness, Shawn had made plans for him. Bruno was taken on a date. But his girlfriend happened to be a bit on the fatty side. Poor Bruno was frightened by her size and ran for his life. He cursed the vet who advised against overfeeding him. Obese dachshunds were prone to back problems. Their spinal discs frayed easily. So Bruno kept the spine and his virginity. He remained aggressive. Tom and Jerry went on cursing his breeders.

Bruno’s breeders preceded Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species is 150 years old. But dachshunds are much older. German breeders who manipulated natural selection bred and bred till they found a lowly dog, with a long spine and short ribs and shorter legs. The “design” was suitable for burrowing after badgers, but the short legs collapsed under the body’s weight. Its drooped ears added to the ‘cute’ look, but were intended to protect its ear canals when digging after game.

There’s no end to the game. Deaf Dalmatians and bowlegged dachshunds are the result. Darwin cites the example of the blue-eyed cats who are invariably deaf, hairless dogs with imperfect teeth, and pigeons with feathered feet who have skin between their outer toes. “If man goes on selecting, and augmenting, any peculiarity, he will almost certainly unconsciously modify other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of the correlation of growth,” he writes.

Men need dogs for hunting, guarding and adorning the ‘pet’ status, but seldom recognize their vital needs. Only breeders make matches (even they ignore the weaker ones). Maybe they should ‘design’ a variety who has forgotten his/her libido.

Meanwhile, Bruno and Scooby whine away their lives while their cousins in the streets find love when they want to, till the municipal noose catches up with them. It’s a dog’s life.

Paradise Lost, in favour of grilled chicken

The day mother boarded an aero plane, she made an important discovery: heaven was not a nice place to be. “How boring would heaven be if that’s the place in the clouds. All white and smoky and still. We would have nothing to do but wear white and go on praising the god, who too would be in white. No colour, no voice. I don’t want to be there,” she told me. Conversion was no way out. Every religion had its paradise built in the sky.

***

Choosing between heaven and hell, the application form would certainly contain a column asking for his/her food preference. Heaven would be a vegan’s paradise. Milk and honey, grapes and pomegranates, and of course, apples that could cause man to lose paradise again. Hell stands in contrast, with grills and barbecues and a few ovens. Despite its Prometheusian origin, fire seems to belong to hell. At least, you could cook your food.

***

The father continued solemnly with his head lowered. “When you talk to the man upstairs,” he said, “I want you to tell Him something for me. Tell Him it ain’t right for people to die when they’re young. I mean it. Tell Him if they got to die at all, they got to die when they’re old. I want you to tell Him that. I don’t think He knows it ain’t right, because He’s supposed to be good and it’s been going on for a long, long time. Okay?”

“And don’t let anybody up there push you around,” the brother advised. “You’ll be just good as anybody else in heaven, even though you are Italian.”

“Dress warm,” said the mother, who seemed to know.

Joseph Heller
Catch 22