Crazy Times with Uncle Ken

by Ruskin Bond

  I composed a new song for Ken’s benefit and sang it to him outside his window early next morning:

  I understand you want a crow

  To poison, shoot or smother;My fond salaams, but by your leave

  I’ll substitute another:

  Allow me then, to introduce

  My most respected brother.

  Although I was quite understanding about the whole tragic mix-up—I was, after all, the family’s very own house-crow—my fellow crows were outraged at what happened to Charm, and swore vengeance on Ken.

  ‘Corvus splendens!’ they shouted with great spirit, forgetting that this title had been bestowed on us by a human.

  In times of war, we forget how much we owe to our enemies.

  Ken had only to step into the garden, and several crows would sweep down on him, screeching and swearing and aiming lusty blows at his head and hands. He took to coming out wearing a sola-topee, and even then they knocked it off and drove him indoors. Once he tried lighting a cigarette on the veranda steps, when Slow swooped low across the porch and snatched it from his lips.

  Every now and then the memsahib would come out and shoo us off; and because she wasn’t an enemy, we obliged by retreating to the garden wall. After all, Slow and I depended on her for much of our board if not for our lodging. But Ken had only to show his face outside the house, and all the crows in the area would be after him like avenging furies.

  ‘It doesn’t look as though they are going to forgive you,’ said the memsahib.

  ‘Elephants never forget, and crows never forgive,’ said the sahib.

  ‘Would you like to borrow my catapult, Uncle?’ asked the boy. ‘Just for self-protection, you know.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ken and went to bed.

  One day he sneaked out of the back door and dashed across to the garage. A little later, the family’s old car, seldom used, came out of the garage with Ken at the wheel. He’d decided that if he couldn’t take a walk in safety, he’d go for a drive. All the windows were up.

  No sooner had the car turned into the driveway than about a dozen crows dived down on it, crowding the bonnet and flipping in front of the windscreen. Ken couldn’t see a thing. He swung the steering wheel left, right and centre, and the car went off the driveway, ripped through a hedge, crushed a bed of sweet peas and came to a stop against the trunk of a mango tree.

  Ken just sat there, afraid to open the door. The family had to come out of the house and rescue him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked the Bada sahib.

  ‘I’ve bruised my knees,’ said Ken.

  ‘Never mind your knees,’ said the memsahib, gazing around at the ruin of her garden. ‘What about my sweet peas?’

  ‘I think your uncle is going to have a nervous breakdown,’ I heard the Bada sahib saying.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the boy. ‘Is it the same as a car having a breakdown?’

  ‘Well—not exactly … But you could call it a mind breaking up.’

  Ken had been refusing to leave his room or take his meals. The family was worried about him. I was worried, too. Believe it or not, we crows are among the very few who sincerely desire the preservation of the human species.

  ‘He needs a change,’ said the memsahib.

  ‘A rest cure,’ said the Bada sahib sarcastically. ‘A rest from doing nothing.’

  ‘Send him to Switzerland,’ suggested the boy.

  ‘We can’t afford that. But we can take him up to a hill station.’

  The nearest hill station was some thirty miles as the human drives (only five as the crow flies). Many people went up during the summer months. It wasn’t fancied much by crows.

  For one thing, it was a tidy sort of place, and people lived in houses that were set fairly far apart. Opportunities for scavenging were limited. Also, it was rather cold and the trees were inconvenient and uncomfortable. A friend of mine who had spent a night in a pine tree said he hadn’t been able to sleep because of prickly pine needles and the wind howling through the branches.

  ‘Let’s all go up for a holiday,’ said the memsahib. ‘We can spend a week in a boarding house. All of us need a change.’

  A few days later the house was locked up, and the family piled into the old car and drove off to the hills.

  I had the grounds to myself.

  The dog had gone too, and the gardener spent all day dozing in his hammock. There was no one around to trouble me.

  ‘We’ve got the whole place to ourselves,’ I told Slow.

  ‘Yes, but what good is that? With everyone gone, there are no throwaways, give-aways and takeaways!’

  ‘We’ll have to try the house next door.’

  ‘And be driven off by the other crows? That’s not our territory, you know. We can go across to help them, or to ask for their help, but we’re not supposed to take their pickings. It just isn’t cricket, old boy.’

  We could have tried the bazaar or the railway station, where there is always a lot of rubbish to be found, but there is also a lot of competition in those places. The station crows are gangsters. The bazaar crows are bullies. Slow and I had grown soft. We’d have been no match for the bad boys.

  ‘I’ve just realized how much we depend on humans,’ I said.

  ‘We could go back to living in the jungle,’ said Slow.

  ‘No, that would be too much like hard work. We’d be living on wild fruit most of the time. Besides, the jungle crows won’t have anything to do with us now. Ever since we took up with humans, we became the outcastes of the bird world.’

  ‘That means we’re almost human.’

  ‘You might say we have all their vices and none of their virtues.’

  ‘Just a different set of values, old boy.’

  ‘Like eating hens’ eggs instead of crows’ eggs. That’s something in their favour. And while you’re hanging around here waiting for the mangoes to fall, I’m off to locate our humans.’

  Slow’s beak fell open. He looked like—well, a hungry crow.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to follow them up to the hill station? You don’t even know where they are staying.’

  ‘I’ll soon find out,’ I said, and took off for the hills.

  You’d be surprised at how simple it is to be a good detective, if only you put your mind to it. Of course, if Ellery Queen had been able to fly, he wouldn’t have required fifteen chapters and his father’s assistance to crack a case.

  Swooping low over the hill station, it wasn’t long before I spotted my humans’ old car. It was parked outside a boarding house called the Climber’s Rest. I hadn’t seen anyone climbing, but, dozing in an armchair in the garden, was my favourite human.

  I perched on top of a colourful umbrella and waited for Ken to wake up. I decided it would be rather inconsiderate of me to disturb his sleep, so I waited patiently on the brolly, looking at him with one eye and keeping one eye on the house. He stirred uneasily, as though he’d suddenly had a bad dream; then he opened his eyes. I must have been the first thing he saw.

  ‘Good morning,’ I cawed, in a friendly tone—always ready to forgive and forget, that’s Speedy!

  He leapt out of the armchair and ran into the house, hollering at the top of his voice.

  I supposed he hadn’t been able to contain his delight at seeing me again. Humans can be funny that way. They’ll hate you one day and love you the next.

  Well, Ken ran all over the boarding house, screaming, ‘It’s that crow, it’s that crow! He’s following me everywhere!’

  Various people, including the family, ran outside to see what the commotion was about, and I thought it would be better to make myself scarce. So I flew to the top of a spruce tree and stayed very still and quiet.

  ‘Crow! What crow?’ said the Bada sahib.

  ‘Our crow!’ cried Ken. ‘The one that persecutes me. I was dreaming of it just now, and when I opened my eyes, there it was, on the garden umbrella!’

  ‘There’s nothing there now,’ said the me
msahib. ‘You probably hadn’t woken up completely.’

  ‘He is having illusions again,’ said the boy.

  ‘Delusions,’ corrected the Bada sahib.

  ‘Now look here,’ said the memsahib. ‘You’ll have to pull yourself together. You’ll take leave of your senses if you don’t.’

  ‘I tell you, it’s here!’ sobbed Ken. ‘It’s following me everywhere.’

  ‘It’s grown fond of Uncle,’ said the boy. ‘And it seems Uncle can’t live without crows.’

  Ken looked up with a wild glint in his eye.

  ‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘I can’t live without them. That’s the answer to my problem. I don’t hate crows—I love them!’

  Everyone just stood around, goggling at Ken.

  ‘I’m feeling fine now,’ he carried on. ‘What a difference it makes if you can just do the opposite to what you’ve been doing before!’ And flapping his arms, and trying to caw like a crow, he went prancing about the garden.

  ‘Now he thinks he’s a crow,’ said the boy. ‘Is he still having delusions?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the memsahib. ‘Delusions of grandeur.’

  After that, the family decided that there was no point in staying on in the hill station any longer. Ken had completed his rest cure. And even if he was the only one who believed himself cured, that was all right, because after all he was the one who mattered … If you’re feeling fine, can there be anything wrong with you?

  No sooner was everyone back in the bungalow than Ken took to hopping barefoot on the grass early every morning, all the time scattering food about for the crows. Bread, chapatties, cooked rice, curried eggplants, the memsahib’s home-made toffee—you name it, we got it!

  Slow and I were the first to help ourselves to these dawn offerings, and soon the other crows had joined us on the lawn. We didn’t mind. Ken brought enough for everyone.

  ‘We ought to honour him in some way,’ said Slow.

  ‘Yes, why not?’ said I. ‘There was someone else, hundreds of years ago, who fed the birds. They followed him wherever he went.’

  ‘That’s right. They made him a saint, Saint Francis. But as far as I know, he didn’t feed any crows. At least, you don’t see any crows in the pictures—just sparrows and robins and wagtails.’

  ‘Small fry. Our human is dedicated exclusively to crows. Do you realize that, Slow?’

  ‘Sure. We ought to make him the patron saint of crows. What do you say, fellows?’

  ‘Caw, caw, caw!’ All the crows were in agreement.

  ‘St. Corvus!’ said Slow, as Ken emerged from the house, laden with good things to eat.

  ‘Corvus, corvus, corvus!’ we cried.

  And what a pretty picture he made—a crow eating from his hand, another perched on his shoulder, and about a dozen of us on the grass, forming a respectful ring around him.

  From persecutor to protector; from beastliness to saintliness. And sometimes it can be the other way round: you never know with humans!

  Uncle Ken Goes Birdwatching

  ‘Where have all the birds gone?’ asked Uncle Ken, on a sunny December morning.

  At first I thought he was on the subject of a local beauty contest, and I answered: ‘To Hollywood, of course, to see Gregory Peck.’

  Not being a movie-goer, Uncle Ken missed out on the pun, but he corrected himself and said, ‘No, I mean the sparrows. Where have all the sparrows gone?’

  This had me baffled. I knew nothing about the sparrows going anywhere, but then, I had never paid much attention to their comings and goings. One is inclined to take sparrows for granted.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I’ve heard they’re disappearing. How can we have a world without sparrows?’

  ‘You’re thinking of the mountain quail,’ I said. ‘Sparrows aren’t going extinct.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen any for a long time. And they used to be all over the place. On the veranda steps, at the kitchen window, in the backyard … once, they even made a nest in one of my old hats.’

  Uncle Ken had a collection of hats—felt hats, bowler hats, straw hats, floppy hats, pith helmets—and they would lie about in different places and occasionally be forgotten. Three baby mice were discovered in an old bowler hat, a squirrel stored nuts in an old sun-helmet; and a small bat made its home in a felt hat that had been hanging too long on the veranda wall.

  Uncle Ken seldom went out without a hat of sorts. He did not have much hair or his head and he was afraid of getting sunstroke.

  On this particular morning he was wearing a peaked hunting-cap, rather like the one used by Sherlock Holmes. It seemed to go with his new-found interest in birds.

  ‘Sparrows,’ he repeated. ‘What would life be like without sparrows?’

  I gave it some thought and said, ‘Not very different, I suppose. There would still be other birds.’

  ‘Ah, but would there? If the sparrows go, will the rest be far behind?’

  Uncle Ken had a point.

  ‘I would hate to see all the chickens fly away,’ I said.

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because I like chicken curry.’

  ‘You’re just a hedonist, Ruskin. Have you no soul? Imagine a world without beautiful peacocks, swans, nightingales, parakeets, geese, ducks …’

  ‘Granny makes a good duck curry,’ I interjected.

  ‘Kingfishers, cranes, seagulls,’ continued Uncle Ken.

  ‘We don’t get seagulls here,’ I said. ‘Go back to Pondicherry.’

  ‘All right, then, partridges, cormorants, turkeys …’

  ‘Roast turkey for Christmas. We’ll ask Grandfather to get one. And what about crows, Uncle Ken? You’ve forgotten the crows. You are very popular with them.’

  ‘Plenty of crows about. They are in no danger of extinction. But we have to do something about the sparrows. Where have all the sparrows gone?’

  ‘They’ve gone next door,’ I told him. ‘Hadn’t you noticed?’ And I led him across the garden to the boundary wall, which gave us a clear view of our neighbour’s side veranda. There we saw Colonel Mehandru (retired) scattering grain on the veranda steps, while hundreds of sparrows crowded round him, pecking away at the Colonel’s largesse.

  ‘A few bread crumbs won’t do,’ I told Uncle Ken. ‘Buckets of birdseed is what they want. Get some bajra and see the difference!’

  So off went Uncle Ken, determined to outdo the Colonel’s popularity with the sparrow fraternity. He returned from the bazaar with a sackful of bajra, and began scattering the seeds all over the compound. The squirrels were delighted and so were the hens, but it took some time for the sparrows to reconvert to their former allegiance. Some of them did come over, but as there was plenty of birdseed to be had on the Colonel’s side of the wall, there was no great rush to return to our side.

  ‘Is the Colonel’s bajra superior to ours?’ asked Uncle Ken.

  ‘I’ll find out,’ I said, and in the afternoon, while the Colonel was taking his siesta, I climbed over the wall, walked up to the veranda steps, and filled my pockets with some of the grain that had been strewn around the place. When I got back to our place, we examined the grain, but were none the wiser; so we consulted Granny.

  ‘It’s not bajra,’ said Granny. ‘That’s kangni—it’s a smaller seed, easier for small birds to pick up and ingest.’

  So off went Uncle Ken again but he had a hard time finding kangni; the grain merchants did not bother to stock it, as it was strictly for the birds! Apparently Colonel Mehandru had a secret supply.

  Not to be discouraged, Uncle Ken continued to scatter bajra in all directions, and soon had a faithful following of pigeons. And this was to lead to his taking up birdwatching in a more ambitious manner.

  ‘These pigeons are all very well,’ said Uncle Ken one day. ‘But I want to see a green pigeon.’

  ‘Well, I can paint one of these green, if you like,’ I offered. ‘I’m sure the pigeon won’t mind.’

  ‘Don�
��t be an idiot,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘I want to see the real thing.’

  ‘Are green pigeons very rare, then?’

  ‘Not really. But they are not city birds, like these. They live in trees and don’t come down to the ground.’

  ‘What do they live on then?’

  ‘Wild fruit, of course. Berries etc.’

  He’d been reading up Salim Ali’s and Whistler’s bird books and was showing off his new-found knowledge.

  Dhuki, Granny’s old gardener, had mentioned that green pigeons could sometimes be seen in a big banyan tree that grew near Rajpur, at the base of the foothills. It was about five miles from our house.

  ‘Be up early tomorrow,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘We’re going birdwatching. Green pigeons!’

  ‘I was going to play cricket tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Cricket! Such a waste of time. The forest beckons, nature is calling, the wide open spaces are yours to explore—and all you can think of is hitting a ball around the maidaan.’

  ‘Actually, I’m a bowler, not a batsman.’

  ‘What could be worse. All that energy spent in flinging a ball at someone who’s going to hit it for six anyway!’

  It was no use arguing with Uncle Ken—not when he was in the grip of one of his sudden enthusiasms. This was the year of the Bird, as far as he was concerned, and nothing else mattered.

  He produced an old pair of binoculars which he had found in the storeroom.

  ‘What are those for?’ I asked

  ‘Watching birds, what else?’

  I took the binoculars from him and looked them over. ‘There’s a date stamped here. 1914. Grandfather must have used them in World War I.’

  ‘Well, that shouldn’t stop us from using them now.’

  I raised them to my eyes and looked out across the garden to where Dhuki was weeding the flower beds. He was just a blur.

  ‘Out of focus,’ I said. ‘You’ll see better without them.’

  ‘We’ll take them along anyway. To look more professional.’

  Uncle Ken was normally a late riser, but such was his enthusiasm for his new vocation that he was up at the crack of dawn, whistling cheerfully as he turned me out of my bed.