Managerie

Rajeev lives with his wife and his daughter in a house swallowed-up by forest. A small path off the red road indicates " way to Rajeev's". If you miss this little off the road pathway, you never reach the man and his menagerie. You enter. Four dogs bark. But the sound comes off the ground level. So you look up. Up on the terrace, silhouetted against the rainy sky are four canine heads. You are safe! ENTER. A small shed suggests that you park your bike therein. Do it. Get in. Walk a few steps, in the direction of twittering of love birds. There are several love birds. Mostly green. And there is a pair of African love-birds. In the same cage there are two white rabbits, ruby-eyed and withceaseless activity of their noses. Towards your right you think you heard a pigeon call. So you look. Yes indeed! Pigeons- about fifteen in a roomy cage. They all are common pigeons with a dirty brown and white feathers. In the same cage there are rabbits. Black this time, and other colours. Rajeev is by your side by then. He lets you enjoy the animals and birds. Just as you become aware of his presence you hear a strange call. You almost know it is a wild fowl, though not exactly which kind. The call sounds like a "croullt..." It is very close to where you are standing. You swirl, alarmed, responding habitually, warned by the preconditioned caution about wild life. It is a turkey! A smart looking white old fellow with his mate in tow, strutting about with a peculiar and showy gait. And from time to time he sort of jerks forward with an almost inaudible hiss. And when you look at him he looks back. Not straight, frank look, but the uncertain look of a conman. But it is an effective look. It says,"don't mess with me." So you try not to be too impressed, but then Rajeev tells you that it is just a bluff. "He is very friendly actually" he says, going towards the turkey stroking him lovingly. The female is totally ignored. And she is thankful. There are ducks. Many ducks and some geese. Is that all? No way. Rajeev has fish tanks. There are many fishes, but you have seen more impressive aquariums elsewhere. The thing that made me linger there was that one of the pairs(I don't know what kind of fish it was, but it was flat silvery white, about three inches long)has spawned. Tiny brownish tadpole like babies shoal about their parents. Parents look vary of the other, bigger fish. Rajeev's wife notices. She tells him with her mother's instinct, to separate the bigger ones from the small fish. Rajeev goes about doing precisely that. Daughter goes in quietly brings the net Rajeev takes the big fish out and puts them in a green bucket. Then he shows a collection of snakes. Snakes are beautiful creatures. I wonder why we fear them. They are dry, and cold and smooth. They are beautiful. Rajeev has a kookri(?), and two wolf snakes just now. He catches them, keeps them with him for a few months and then releases them back into the wilderness. I remember, he had caught a cobra once. I had gone with him to release it in the canyons. I have recollections of Rajeev's body language as he was opening the mouth of the sac in which the serpent was. It said a lot about the venom, the deadly cobra bite, the danger! But today there was nothing to worry about. Wolf snakes don't bite. In fact they don't even tickle. About an hour plus has elapsed. Nature makes you lose track of time. Lunch is ready. It is delicious. The visit to my friend, the man with the menagerie has paid off. You feel you belong to the universe.