Every day I take a particular road to my residence in Hyderabad.
This is as busy a road as any in a metropolitan city of India. There is a big hustle- bustle. The traffic viz buses, trucks, scooters, motorbikes, rickshaws & bicycles whizz past in every conceivable direction.
Motorcyclists & scooterists need a special mention. You can come across many of them carrying 2 to 4 pillion riders (may be more sometimes with ladies precariously tucking on to their children in their arms) speeding past the policemen with only the driver wearing a crash helmet that, most of the time , remains unbuckled under the chin.
On my way home there is a shop with a curios name, Classic Fish World Chicken Point, that has a coop of broiler chickens outside. Inside are the slaughtered sheep or may be goats for mutton hung on big metallic hooks. Mutton is cut with a loud thud…. thud…. thud sound, weighed & passed on to the waiting customers.
Outside the shop there is another person, belonging to the same establishment, who is frying fish on a metal plate (tawwa) placed on a big LPG fuelled stove that in turn is placed on a metallic table. Though small, the outlet is quite busy especially on holidays. Hygiene here is at a premium.
People throng this place for chicken which are pulled out of their coop. They flutter their wings violently in the ‘fear of the end’ & create a noise that seems to be bring the heavens down. They are put to ‘an end’ just there in presence of the living ones watching the happenings from the coup. I am not sure about the sense the living ones must be making out of the scene unfolding in front of their eyes.
Thankfully the animals, for mutton, are not slaughtered on the road.
But what caught my eye once was a very unusual scene.
One evening while I was passing by the same outlet I watched the usual burly man frying fish on his big steel plate – “tawwa”. Some of his customers were standing around him waiting for their turn to get a plate of the fried & spiced up fish. Some others already had their plates in their hands & their mouths were full of the delicacy. Rounds of cold drinks & water were also on.
On one side of the gathering was a litter of four little puppies, brothers & sisters I presume, expectantly looking at the motion & movements of the people for crumbs & moving their small heads in complete synchronism with the moment of the people. The people were unmindful of these puppies or the chicken in the coop & enjoying their fried fish, while the puppies & the chicken looked on.
Suddenly a ‘desi cock’ surfaced from nowhere under the table of the man, on which he had placed his ‘tawwa’ for frying the fish & started taking quick rounds thereunder, picking at the remnants of the fish or whatever was thrown out, under the watchful eyes of the burly man & his customers.
Now there was quite a gathering around the Classic Fish World Chicken Point Shop. A litter of four puppies, a desi cock & humans (men & women) all enjoying the same delicacies, with a few broiler chickens bolted in their coop, nervously shifting their body load from one leg to another & finally settling down for their time to come. What the ‘desi cock’ must be having in his mind while running around the small space, picking at the floor, is anyone’s guess.
The scene left me wondering.
This, I thought, was the unexplainable & yet unfolding drama of life. There couldn’t have been anything better.
On one hand there was the fish, the chicken, the desi cock, mutton, litter of puppies & on the other hand there were men & women (us, humans) enjoying their spiced up delicious fish.
The take away of the scene is that all creatures on this earth have a purpose & all live their own lives, as dictated by a Power that is Supreme.
And this is what is called a ‘maaya-jaal’.