Ducking for Cover

As I sat in the porch, a cockfight broke out a few feet from me. A black and a white cock contested for territory or mating rights or whatever else, I could not figure just then.

It proceeded at an even keel as they traded beak-jabs and then picked-up pace. Black went all guns blazing, lacking a fighter’s economy, betraying an aggression suggestive of inexperience while Whitey used his feet, shuffled around, even jumped over Black, manipulating the engagement-symmetry to his advantage.

Soon the fight was tipping in favor of Whitey, his foxiness quickly transforming to venomous vengeance, ala Ali, ‘I move like a butterfly and sting like a bee.’ From the ring-side vantage, I noticed that the beak-jab was not a mere poke but an attempted pluck of feathers from the victim’s head and neck. Certainly not the mark of a friendly spar!

Just then, the heavens opened up, making the whole affair quite dramatic. I wondered if a Karan Johar among poultry would appear from nowhere to shoot this climactic sequence for an Agneepath for poultry.

Rain made the feathers stick together, making them easier to latch on to as Whitey made a go for it. The pain ensuing from a pluck stunned Black long enough to be a sitting duck for the next assault. It was a slippery slope from there and the floor was soon littered with wet clumps of black feathers.

Black looked an adrenalin-suffused dazed, its bald patches conspicuous. Its strategic slips and weaves giving way to desperate ducks for cover under Whitey’s wings. The fear of pain, bodily-harm and abject humiliation fought a damning loss of pride in capitulating or retreating.

Only animals would heap such indignity upon another; animals or Americans. Not ordinary American men and women but the American imagination, its asininely myopic American dream, their cocaine-sniffing Presidents, CEOs and the hell’s-angels foreign secretaries, epitomized by Kissinger,
His take-away for committing horrendous genocide and ecocide in South-east Asia? 
The Nobel Peace Prize. That calls for a toast!

Like a voyeur, I watched, not allowing Black any privacy in this stripped to bare-bone moment of vulnerability. As fine motor skills deteriorated, the jabs did not land their mark and no new tufts came off. And as gross muscles neared endurance threshold, the cocks stumbled about, leaning into each other, Whitey still more in-control of proceedings and Black often seeking cover.

In this stupor they ran into the house-lady’s legs who kicked them away in a mild chastise. And rather unceremoniously, it was all over. No title belts, victory laps, national anthems or such.

*

The Black & Whitey contest reminded me of the Feb ‘89 heavyweight title bout that Bruno challenged Tyson to. Bruno stood at a prime 6’-4’’ & 234 lbs. Given his combined weight, height and an 11’’ reach advantage, one commentator felt he’d be a lion going against a zebra. To call a 35-0-31 boxer who fights with a ferocity that a Hellen Keller wouldn't miss, a zebra! I hope they never allowed the man ringside again.

Sure Bruno was a messy fighter. 31 of his 32 wins had come by way of KOs. With a musculature seemingly finished with a hammer and chisel, he looked akin a beefy gazelle. But gazelle don’t mess with the bison.

After a semblance of protest in the first round against Tyson charging like a rabid dog, Bruno reduced the bout to a grapple, clinching Tyson whole hog. It was unsportsmanlike, even shameful.

Tyson patiently bid time, nursing his vengeance and got a break in Round 5, setting-up the kill after a couple of flush body-shots. Left hooks and right upper-cuts rained, a few connected squarely. Punches that could have taken ones’ head off. It was a matter of seconds before the referee had to intervene, Bruno left slung on the ropes.

In the last shots of the bout, Tyson was seen surgically dismantling Bruno’s match-stick defense, brushing flailing arms aside, before launching powerful blows to the face and head. It was a corrupting, dehumanizing spectacle.

Like the Allied Forces’ assault on Iraq V.2003. After lying to the world about WMDs, after a decade of sanctions that killed 500,000 infants and children (described by Madeline Albright as ‘a price that was worth it’), after decimating all civilian infrastructure, water supplies, electricity substations and communication lines.

Woo hoo..!! God bless America!!

Can we unwatch a sight after having witnessed it? Can we etch away malignant neural pathways? Would evolution allow it? Can innocence ever be reinstated, never mind regime Saddam or regime Bush or are neurotic pretensions our only recourse?

*

This is the first essay in a series of short writings based on my experiences during recent travel to the villages and forests of Niyaam Giri in Rayagarh district, south Orissa. The tour was kindly facilitated by Living Farms, an NGO doing stellar work with local Kondh aadivaasis on food-sovereignty and farming related issues. Food-sovereignty is not the same as food-security, which for the most part is a Govt-purported farce.

The Niyaam Giri are home to the Kondh deity, Niyaam Raja and to extremely rich bauxite reserves that, some commentators believe, have already been sold on the global commodity futures market through hundreds of MoUs signed by the Govt. with large mining conglomerates, Indian and foreign.

*