Denzil describes the wonders of animals in a village in tropical Sri Lanka in the sixties and the early seventies.
Rat Snake (ගැරඩියා)
Itwas past lunch, around two in the afternoon. I was at home, in the lounge, and I looked up. I was stunned to see a rat snake (ගැරඩියා) on a rafter on our tiled roof. It was pale brown, about two meters long, and moving fast up high. I was afraid that it would come down where I was. I yelled out. Kadayamma, my grandmother, came out of her room after hearing my racket. She calmed me, saying it was harmless and only looking for rats. The rat snake vanished shortly afterwards.
Honestly, I did not know how I slept that night. In the middle of the night, I kept looking up on our roof to see whether the rat snake was still there.
Rat snakes were a common feature now and then on our roof. With no ceilings where wooden rafters held the top together, they were bloody visible to us below. They never came after young boys like me despite my fear. They were harmless. After a short while, I started ignoring them.
Roosters and hens
Kadayamma was great with animal husbandry. She had a natural flair for animals and loved it. It was a stress buster for her.
Kadayamma raised an army of hens, roosters, and chicks. Eggs for the family came from her tiny farm. She made a cage on a treetop with the help of a labourer for her flock. The hens, pullets, roosters, and tiny chicks were all over our property, devouring the little worms and other bits from the ground. Chicks and their hens roamed in convoys making squeaky sounds.
Roosters and hens came down from the cage using a wooden ladder. By sunset, they voluntarily got into the cage to rest. Kadayamma trained them these two routines.
The roosters woke me up early morning with their crows. My early lessons in sex education came from observing these colourful roosters. They aimed for passive hens and ran to them super-fast, bedding the succumbed victims standing on top of them. Then, in a few seconds, the action was over. It was hardly any show.
Occasionally two roosters fought it out, perhaps for a hen both wanted. They fought fiercely, feathers and wings up full with their might with beaks and wings.
A rooster was slaughtered for our meal for Christmas, new year, and the church feast. My father was tasked to cut off the captured bird’s neck. I never wanted to witness the slaughter. So when I ate, I tried to forget the live rooster that paid the ultimate sacrifice for us.
That was the only time three times a year, only during a family feast.
Kadayamma was great at growing her chicken farm. She protected selected eggs, saving them for a broody hen she identified from her flock. She was careful with her broody, setting a separate space for it to hatch in a covered area on the ground away from the cage. During the incubation period, Kadayamma proudly showcased how it was all done to her grandson, me. She raised an army of chicks every six months of the year using her favourite broody hen.
The broody hen kept her eggs warm for about three weeks. At the end of the three weeks, little chicks were born. My siblings and I watched the whole turn of new life with excitement. We were fascinated with little chicks. We took turns picking one among the tiny chicks as our favourites and gave them pet names.
Then there were the predators out to devour the hens. They came in the night, racoons and hawks. Every few months, Kadayamma lost a bird or two to them. In the mornings, one could see the feathers of the lost birds on the ground, a sign of a deadly fight. The losses distressed her. Kadayamma had a roving dog, Rover, whom she had trained to protect her beloved flock during the day. I will get onto Rover later in this story.
Piggies
Kadayamma brought a little piglet and raised it with care. She made a wooden enclosure for it in our backyard. When the black piglet was little, she ordered the local handyman, Jeremias, to desex the tiny piglet. Dark, bare-chested Jeremias came with knives and instruments and held the tiny piglet in his strong arms. Without any thought, he castrated the little screaming piglet. No anaesthetics back in the day. Blood was everywhere, making it a ghastly sight. The whole neighbourhood heard the massive screeching yell from the innocent piglet. It was cruel, but that was the norm. Kadayamma then nursed the tiny piglet until it could get better.
Kadayamma fed the piglet daily with coconut punnakku, a mixture of used coconut cake high in protein. In a few months, the piglet grew into a giant fat pig, hovering in size. When it was big enough, it was sold to a butcher, who took the pig away. Then another tiny piglet would arrive to take its place.
Our huge garden was a home habitat for many animals kinds. Frogs lived under our flowerpots. A tiny green frog would surprise me on a rainy day, leaping far. Tortoises from the paddy fields behind our home roamed our garden at will, using it as a passageway.
Monitor lizards (කබරගොයා)
Giant water monitor lizards (කබරගොයා) that looked like huge crocodiles could appear from nowhere in our front garden. I was terrified of them and ran into the house when I saw them. That I was the closest I have been to a crocodile lookalike.
A giant land monitor lizard turned up and rested near our backyard toilet. It became a hazard, for the lizard never moved from where it decided to rest. Nobody in our home could go to the toilet, which caused a significant inconvenience in our household. My father tried to chase it away, but the huge lizard did not move. Eventually, the neighbours came to the rescue. They got together and tried to chase it away en masse. Again, the lizard did not move.
Then the inevitable happened, when the neighbours brought their sticks and mamoties, hit it trying to move it. Again, the monitor lizard did not move; possibly, it had come to die there due to old age. But the problem of no access to the family toilet had to be solved. Neighbours got together, using their weaponry, and killed it. The lizard did not fight back and died shortly afterwards. The neighbours dug a massive hole in our backyard and buried it. It required a tremendous amount of manpower to do it.
The monitor lizard (තලගොයා) was another common lizard. These harmless creatures came from their hiding places during the hot sun. Neighbourhood dogs chased them in packs. Some locals killed them for their meat, who considered it a delicacy.
The cat (පූසා)
Behind the kitchen in the backyard, where coconut shells were stored, were wild rats, small and big. I chased them with sticks and often was successful in hitting them to their death. Often, our cat could be seen with dead rats as if to show me that he, too, was the prey for them.
Now about the cat, its name was Pusa, light in colour with light brown spots and long whiskers. It was my sister’s favourite pet. Pusa was a bit wild and never liked me; possibly, I was too rough with it. It took a while for Pusa to become a homie. Rats hated him because he was a fearful predator. Every morning Pusa could be seen with a dead rat playing with it. My favourite was Rover, our family dog. Pusa was not my friend. He avoided me and never came near me.
Birds
With a vast collection of coconut and fruit trees, many a bird found nesting places in our large garden. There was a constant noise of birds throughout the day. Flocks of mynas, parrots many other tropical birds abounded. Black crows could appear from nowhere, looking for food in convoys. One could see hawks in the sky, many hundreds of meters high, circling a prey that they had identified on the ground, possibly on the paddy field behind our home. Then, there was the pleasing call by an Asian koel bird (කොහා) in the morning. A sound that makes me nostalgic even today.
In the mornings, bats could be seen hanging on to our trees. They were dark black and scary. They slept on these tall trees during the day, hanging on their paws en masse. The occasional sight of an owl on the top of our Jambu (ජම්බු) tree by the house in the mornings was a lesson in bird studies. The ugly-looking owl flew away if I climbed the Jambu tree to eat its fruits.
Inside the house were geckos that were not afraid of humans. The fear was wise versa. Kids were not scared of them either. Geckos climbed our walls vertically at will, a marvel to watch. They mostly came out at night. Occasionally they fell and broke their tail. Leaving the tail behind, they ran away, climbing the walls again. Fortunately for them, their tails grew again. In the seventh grade, I learnt that the giant monitor lizards and these little geckos are of the same geological family.
Tiny creatures
Among the flower beds, many a snail could be found, brown. They ate my mother’s much-loved flower plants. To chase them, I poured salt water on them.
In our garden were tiny millipedes. These dark brown creatures emerged from nowhere inside the house occasionally. When prodded, it curled its cylindrical body to protect itself. Then, after a short while, they continued their aimless journey.
Termites were dreaded insects. If left unattended, many books and newspapers were subject to their attack.
After a heavy rain, a fish about six inches long was found in our front yard. It would have been sucked into a cloud from the deep sea and fallen into our land during the hard rain.
Poisonous creatures
Then these feared creatures, centipedes among them. Its multiple legs and body were like a train. Their bites were feared, particularly at night, in case they turn up on your bed among the bedsheets. So everyone dusted their beds before getting into it. I was scared of them, imagining them, waiting to devour me in the night.
The scorpion was also feared. You’d find them in your garden and occasionally inside the house. Their bites were even more painful than the centipedes and were also poisonous — creatures to be avoided.
Rover, the beloved star of this story
Then there was Rover, our family dog — and dark black. Rover was a cross-labrador. Kadayamma brought him home when I was little. Rover was this cute black puppy.
Rover grew up fast. He was fierce but loyal. Nobody dared to enter our property because of Rover. He was uber-protective of his territory, our land. Everybody feared him. He was our guard dog. Rover watched over our hens but lived in the open garden like many a dog did back in the day. Rover did not like to be petted. He hated to bathe, and only my father could wash him without distressing him. With my father in control, I helped to clean Rover, soaping him at our open water well on the weekends. Rover was the ultimate dog, strong and fearless despite being medium size.
Many wild dogs were living on the streets. Rabies infection, a fatal disease, was common in rabid dogs in Sri Lanka.
Occasionally neighbours shouted warnings when a rabies-infected dog was on its way through our street. Everyone ran into their homes, securing their dogs inside the houses to prevent the mad dog from attacking them. The daring men in the neighbourhood took up arms, poles, sticks and sharp garden tools and went after the mad dog. Kids had a great fear of mad dogs. We made sure we were inside the house.
One day, a warning came, and everybody went into action. Men in our neighbourhood were at work, including my father. The rest of us at home managed to secure ourselves, but there needed to be more time to secure Rover. I was the only one resembling a man in the house at that critical moment of danger. Rover was left outside, and there was nothing we could do to secure him.
Rover did not like to go unchallenged by any dog. So he ran out of our land and entered the main abies-infected dog passed. I did not see the dogfight, but some of our neighbours had seen both dogs attacking each other.
Eventually, Rover returned home, but poor Rover was bloody and bruised. Unfortunately, it meant Rover would be infected with rabies in a few days. This was a difficult moment for everyone at home. But, painful that it was, we had to ensure no risk to our neighbours and us from Rover.
The only choice we had was to put him down immediately without delay. It was a severe family crisis — a distressing one for a boy.
William, my father’s friend, the brave soul he was, always came to the rescue of his neighbours in their difficulties. This challenge, too, he did not pass. William, our next-door neighbour, took over the painful task of putting Rover down. Back then, there was no ethical way to put down a dog. Either it was going to be a gunshot or something else more violent. Nobody owned a gun in our neighbourhood.
Breaking our hearts, William took Rover away to the far back of our property and killed him away from our anxious looks. William buried Rover at the back of our property. I could not forget his gravesite, visiting it after returning from school for months. William later told me that Rover died instantly with a single shot from a sharp garden tool. Rover’s end and loss were traumatic. It was my grief to deal with.
Rover grew up with me and was part of our family — how he had to go distressed me horribly. I often thought of the pain he had endured during his last minutes. I felt I was not brave enough to secure him from the crazy rabid dog. So I grew up with Rover. I mourned for him.
No other dog has since replaced Rover as my special dog. I helped to bathe him, and he always listened to me. He was my beloved guard dog. I was proud of Rover.
Kadayamma quickly found another puppy, a white and brown puppy. He was a small dog, and Kadayamma named him Beagle. Beagle was my kid brother’s favourite. When I left Sri Lanka for good, Beagle was a full-grown dog but timid compared to Rover.
Despite the sad episode of Rover, these memories ended up being many of the beautiful animal wonders I cherish from my village in my birth country, Sri Lanka.
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