I have just returned from a short, one-week trip to the hill station of Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh, where we have our ancestral home. For the first couple of days inclement weather hounded us with continuous rain and thunderstorms. Then the weather gods blessed us and for the rest of the week we had gorgeous clear blue skies accompanied by bright sunshine. Among my best moments in Dalhousie was sitting out in the garden with my father (whom I had gone to spend time with) and watching the natural world at work.
We grow lots of fruit and vegetables in our garden in Dalhousie. Bhutta (corn), potato, beans and lauki (gourd) were ready to be harvested. Our daily meals had something or the other sourced from our garden. Part of my daily routine was to have a bhutta (corn) with salt and lime while sitting in the garden. The bhutta was not meant just for our consumption, and lots of wild creatures gorged on them too.
The bhutta was a favourite with the birds. Grey bushchats, long-billed crows, streaked laughingthrushes, black-headed and Eurasian jays among many other species feasted regularly on the corn. Some of these birds, such the bushchats and laughingthrushes, are mainly insectivores, but apparently they could not pass up an easy, tasty meal of corn!
While the birds feeding on the bhutta were fun to watch frequent visits by the Kashmir grey langur (Semnopithecus ajax) were frowned upon. A strict vigil had to be maintained so that the resident troop of langurs did not maul the corn.
We managed to maintain a daily vigil until one day, for a few hours, everyone in the household was out. I returned to find a solitary male langur gorging on bhutta. I chased the langur away, and he climbed up to a nearby deodar tree from where he glared down at me!
The langur had left a trail of destruction. He had almost decimated the cornfield. I counted twelve corncobs on the ground. The langur had plucked all of them, and most of them had only been partially eaten. Langurs, like most other primates, waste as much as they eat.
Everyone in the house was despondent that a single langur had virtually destroyed the cornfield. We decided to harvest whatever little corn remained. The corn stalks in the field were also chopped down, and the cornfield cleared. The stalks are used as fodder for the cattle.
The next morning a black-headed jay visited and was aghast to find the cornfield cleared. It sat on the empty field and complained with loud squawks and screeches, “Where’s my bhutta? What have you done with my bhutta?”
I attempted to explain to the jay that it should ask the langur, but for ten minutes the jay complained loudly to anyone who was ready to listen that its bhutta stock had disappeared!
Go Green
The joy of eating home garden grown fruit and vegetables is enormous. Not only are these tasty but they are also healthy and eco-friendly as they are free of pesticides and fertilisers. So start your own home garden today!
(Feedback and queries are welcome at sanjay.sondhi1@gmail.com)