Gay-Neck

by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

However, one day long before the end of May, his father undertook the task. This particular day a brisk north wind, that had been sweeping about and cooling the atmosphere of the city, had just died down. The sky was clear as a limpid sapphire. The spaces were so clear that you could see the house-tops of our town, then the fields and arbours of the country in the farthest distance. About three o'clock in the afternoon Gay-Neck was sunning himself on the concrete wall of the roof. His father, who had been flying about in the air, came down and perched next to him. He looked at his son with a queer glance, as much as to say: "Here, lazy-bones, you are nearly three months old, yet you do not dare to fly. Are you a pigeon or an earthworm?" But Gay-Neck, the soul of dignity, made no answer. That exasperated his father who began to coo and boom at him in pigeon-language. In order to get away from that volubility Gay-Neck moved, but his father followed cooing, booming and banging his wings. Gay-Neck went on removing himself farther and farther, and the old fellow, instead of relenting, redoubled his talk and pursued. At last the father pushed him so close to the edge that Gay-neck had only one alternative, that is, to slip off the roof. Suddenly his father thrust upon his young body all the weight of his old frame. Gay-Neck slipped. Hardly had he fallen half a foot when he opened his wings and flew. Oh, what an exhilarating moment for all concerned! His mother, who was downstairs dipping herself in the water and performing her afternoon toilet, came up through the staircase and flew to keep her son company. They circled above the roof for at least ten minutes before they came down to perch. When they reached the roof the mother folded her wings as a matter of course and sat still. Not so the son: he was in a panic, like a boy walking into cold and deep water. His whole body shook, and his feet trod the roof gingerly as he alighted, skating over it furiously and flapping his wings in order to balance himself. At last he stopped, as his chest struck the side of the wall, and he folded his wings as swiftly as we shut a fan. Gay-Neck was panting with excitement, while his mother rubbed him and placed her chest against him as if he were a mere baby who badly needed brooding. Seeing that his task had been done successfully, Gay-Neck's father went down to take his bath.

CHAPTER III

TRAINING IN DIRECTION

ow that, like a newly trained diver, he had overcome his fear of plunging into the air, Gay-Neck ventured on longer and higher flights. In a week's time he was able to fly steadily for half an hour, and when he came home to the roof, he swooped down as gracefully as his parents. There was no more of that panicky beating of wings in order to balance himself as his feet touched the roof.

His parents, who had accompanied Gay-Neck in his preliminary flights, now began to leave him behind, and to fly much higher above him. For a while I thought that they were trying to make him fly still higher; for the son always made an effort to reach the level of his parents. Perhaps his elders were setting the little fellow a superb example. But at last one day early in June, that explanation of mine was shaken by the following fateful incident. Gay-Neck was flying high: he looked half his usual size. Above him flew his parents almost as small as a man's fist. They were circling above him with the regularity of a merry-go-round. It looked monotonous and meaningless. I removed my gaze from them; after all it is not comfortable to look upward steadily for long. As I lowered my eyes toward the horizon they were held by a black spot moving swiftly and growing larger every second. I wondered what sort of a bird he was coming at such a speed in a straight line, for in India birds are named in the Sanskrit, Turyak, or "curve-tracers."

But this one was coming straight, like an arrow. In another two minutes my doubts were dispelled. It was a hawk making for little Gay-Neck. I looked up and beheld a miraculous sight. His father was tumbling steadily down in order to reach his level, while his mother, bent on the same purpose, was making swift downward curves. Ere the terrible hawk had come within ten yards of the innocent little fellow, both his flanks were covered. Now the three flew downwards at a right angle from the path of their enemy. Undeterred by such a move, the hawk charged. At once the three pigeons made a dip which frustrated him, but the force with which he had made the attack was so great that it carried him a long distance beyond them. The pigeons kept on circling in the air with an ever-increasing downward trend. In another minute they were half way to our roof. Now the hawk changed his mind. He went higher and higher into the sky: in fact he flew so high that the pigeons could not hear the wind whistling in the feathers of his wings; and as he was above them they could not see their foe. Feeling that they were safe, they relaxed. It was evident that they were not flying as fast as before. Just then I saw that above them, way up, the hawk was folding his wings: he was about to drop and in an instant he fell upon them like a stone. In desperation I put my fingers in my mouth and made a shrill whistle, a cry of warning. The pigeons dived like a falling sword, yet the hawk followed. Inch by inch, moment by moment he was gaining on them. Faster and faster he fell: now there was scarcely twenty feet between him and his prey. There was no doubt that he was aiming at Gay-Neck. I could see his sinister claws. "Won't those stupid pigeons do anything to save themselves?" I thought in an agony. He was so near him now—if they would only keep their heads and—Just then they made a vast upward circle. The hawk followed. Then they flew on an even but large elliptical path. If a bird flies in a circle he either tends to swing to the centre of that circle or away from it. Now the hawk missed their intention and tended toward the centre, making a small circle inside their big one. No sooner was his back turned to them than the three pigeons made another dive, almost to our roof, but the sinister one was not to be deterred. He followed like a tongue of black lightning. His prey made a curving dive on to the roof, where they were safe at last under my wide-spread arms! That instant I heard the shriek of the wind in the air; about a foot above my head flew by the hawk, his eyes blazing with yellow fire and his claws quivering like the tongue of a viper. As he passed I could hear the wind still whistling in his feathers.

After that narrow escape of my pet birds, I began to train Gay-Neck to a sense of direction. One day I took all three birds in a cage towards the east of our town. Exactly at nine in the morning I set them free. They came home safely. The next day I took them an equal distance to the west. Inside of a week they knew the way to our house from within a radius of at least fifteen miles in any direction.

Since nothing ends smoothly in this world, the training of Gay-Neck finally met with a check. I had taken him and his parents down the Ganges in a boat. When we started it was about six in the morning. The sky was littered with stray clouds, and a moderate wind was blowing from the south. Our boat was piled high with rice white as snow on whose top were heaped mangoes red and golden in colour, like a white peak afire with the sunset.

I should have foreseen that such auspicious weather might turn suddenly into a terrible storm, for after all, boy though I was, I knew something about the freaks of the monsoon in June.