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Journalism of Courage
It’s been a week since I got here and I cannot believe I haven’t been to any beach even once. Yes, Goa is emerald green at this time and very, very rainy. Rice fields that were normally straw-brown are now gorgeously green, velvety moss grows everywhere and leaves glisten as silver raindrops slide off them. And there have been happy surprises too. A lovely mushroom-coloured barn owl, which we had met early last year snoozing under a balcony awning over a couple of evenings, now seems to have, like so many Gurugramis, made that awning its permanent abode. He or she meditates there quietly all day and as evening approaches, checks and spruces up its plumage and flight feathers readying for the night’s hunt ahead. If it is not raining, it will take off silently: the big fruit bats that also fly around at this time emit hideous screeches as they flap around on leathery wings. Barn owls too are reputed for producing banshee-like screeches but our neighbour never has. Of course, complete silence will be maintained while it is actively hunting and the special fluff feathering on the leading edges of its wings will ensure the rat it has targeted knows nothing until the claws dig into its back. Barn owls, found the world over (and even on Gurugram high-rises), apparently have to dine on at least one owl or small rodents a night (three or four for a family). Rats incidentally may consume up to 20 per cent of our grain stocks so the owls perform a sterling pest control service. In return, in many parts of the country, they are killed and shredded and various body parts are used for mumbo-jumbo tantric rituals. So far, I haven’t heard the soft calls of the Scops owl — another regular during past visits. The white-throated kingfisher occasionally lets out its ringing cackle as it whizzes around. But again, I haven’t seen it perched on any prominent post declaiming its territory. Nesting should have been done and dusted by now for it – because the sandy tunnel nurseries it digs for its babies would have been washed away.
As for the fruit bats, they are truly enormous and I think hang out during the day on a nearby jackfruit tree. As yet, I haven’t seen them attack the guavas on the tree just outside the balcony. But their dark flapping shapes are amazing to behold and with a little imagination, can remind you of Count Dracula. They’ve earned a bit of notoriety for the unpleasant viruses they may spread (rabies and Nipah among them), but fruit bats are indispensable if you like your bananas, mangoes and dates.
There were other smaller surprises: on a curry patta plant, four fat green caterpillars, one of which had begun curling itself up (somewhat like prawns while being stir-fried), prior to forming a chrysalis. We took it and left the other three to complete their demolition of the curry patta tree. Sure enough, the caterpillar turned into a pupa and is now reposing on the top of a jar, as the magical metamorphosis goes on inside. It will (if not stricken by any virus) emerge as a splendid swallowtail of some kind I suspect. It’s astonishing to think of what’s probably going on inside that little hammock-like cocoon: orders being given for the fat caterpillar cells to self-destruct into a smoothie-like soup, orders for the dormant butterfly cells to proceed pronto towards developing into various parts of the insect, sustaining themselves on the readily available and nourishing soup. I again visited the curry patta tree to check on its sumo-wrestler companions — but they were gone! Probably, some tailor-bird or bulbul or magpie robin family has been feasting and is now dosing on Digene!
Last evening, I watched a small pale cream spider weave: working in a clockwise direction she went round and round, letting virtually invisible silk out behind her. Without binoculars, you couldn’t see the fine strands, but through the bins, they looked beautifully symmetrical. Finished, she settled herself in the centre of the web and waited. And before long, there was what looked like a tiny white cross (her husband?) spreadeagled in the middle of the web, on whom she pounced and that I guess was that. She was repairing her web this morning and swings happily in it as the breeze wafts it back and forth.
Another tiny gorgeous peppermint and green jumping spider hitched a lift on my jeans and got off on the floor — leapt and promptly vanished. As for my ant friends around the pool, this time there was a team of just two that hauled a huge dead black ant, all of 25 feet (I measured the distance), and then up two and a half feet to the entrance of their colony at top speed. They negotiated crevices with aplomb and occasionally one would take a break, run around madly and then dash back to help their partner.
As for birds, the magpie robin isn’t quite as disciplined as it used to be; it does sing and call as do the red-whiskered bulbuls but with less rigour. But I was happy to (briefly) glimpse the purple-rumped sunbird fleetingly visit the heliconia just beneath the balcony. The pair of black-rumped flamebacks (nee golden-backed woodpeckers) were back on the palm tree with their ringing clarion laughs, and the crow-pheasants continued to whoop ghoulishly from deep within the foliage.
Now, awaiting a break in the rain to see what the beaches have to offer…
