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In childhood, I roamed in fields chasing crows
stole their eggs in mischief from nests in trees
received occasional hits of beaks on head
They sat on walls of our mud-cake country house
Having lost one pupil to Lord Rama’s arrow managed with one
pupil hopped from eye to eye
eying the food on my plate
They loved to scoop on to plate to snatch my food
and fly away swiftly
Flocks of them filled the sky
with their menacing kanw-kanw-kanw …
piercing membranes of ears
I often wished they would go away
They didn’t
I did
to far away land across the seas
Meaning of springs changed
meaning of autumns changed
meaning of everything changed
and in all that change
there were no crows
many springs passed
many summers many winters ….. passed
and passed
Then one day I returned to my old home
the land of crows
that now looked alien
but I still hoped to see the crows
Alas! No crows!!
“Where all the crows are gone?”
“They are gone no one knows where
crows are no more”
A melancholic shade covered my being
I missed the flocks of crows
their flickering necks
their pupils hopping from eye to eye
their kanw-kanw-kanw ….
Then I noticed a water tank atop a house
slowly being filled with water pumped into it
I just watched till the tank was full
and little water spilled out
Suddenly a crow scooped down on to it out of nowhere
as one used to scoop onto my plate
but now to drink the spilling water
My eyes glued to the scene
awe-struck
The pump stopped pumping
the crow flew away
This happened every morn about the same time
I went to the rooftop spurred by some interior urge
every morn
and watched with my eyes glued to the tank
till the water spilled
and the lone crow scooped down …
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