Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan: The Brahminy Kite : The Sunday Statesman : 16-March-2014
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BRAHMINY KITE

"AN elderly gentleman from the borders of Hyderabad (Deccan) who has lived as a gentleman should, spending his ample leisure in open-air pursuits, assures me that he has known the Brahminy Kite successfully used in falconry, that, properly trained, the bird can bring down middle-sized quarry both in the air and bush.

Now, the Brahminy Kite is powerfully built, more like an Eagle than a Kite, and if the size is the criterion, it is large enough to bring down a pigeon or a partridge. Moreover I went into the matter not only with my landed informant but also with his equally elderly, equally sporting tenants and there was good evidence that at least one local falconer has trained the bird successfully for hawking. Falconry is no longer practised in those parts, for the landlords are now preoccupied with deprriving legislation and their camp followers with that hateful thing, working for a living.

But in my many talks with these old-timers I felt satisfied that the sport has flourished there only 20 years ago. The country is ideal for it, being dead-flat and bush-clad Red-headed Merlins,, Kestrels, Shikaras, Tawny Eagles, Short-toed Eagles, Harriers, a buzzard or two and an occasional passing laggar represent the local raptors, but I was told that in the old days Peregrines were imported, and a big, bold, peafowl-killing bird which, to judge from hearsay, was nothing less than the Bonelli's Eagle.

I am no falconer. In fact, my acquaintance with birds of prey from the other side entirely, that of a man who kept racing pigeons for years and so had to watch the skies anxiously and to get to know their killers. But thinking it over, it seems to me that heavily built as the Brahminy Kite is, it lacks the dash and speed of wing to provide anything more than novelty to the sport of falconry, especially when there are many nobler birds available.

Mind, I do not say it lacks the heart. The Brahminy has been called a coward by many ornithologists, a chicken-raider that will not face the mother hen, a snatcher of small fry from the basket of the fishwife. That opinion, I feel, is not scientifically sound. We rarely make allowance for avian values and individual variations in judging a bird's "character". Many of the eagles, which this kite resembles in miniature in build and flight, also live mainly by scavenging and piracy. Moreover, the Brahminy Kite may be quite aggressive on occasion.

Once, feeling curious about contents of their nest and trying to get a closer look, I was attacked with such determination and persistence by a pair of these birds that I had to beat a hasty and undignified retreat, though I knew I was critically watched by three small boys. Though it is true that this kite gets its living picking fish and other things off the surface of the water and by robbing successful but smaller hunters, it can and does kill snakes.I have seen one with a four-foot rat snake in its clutches, but it could be that the snake was killed by some villager and later picked up by the bird.

That brings to the question: Is this the Garuda (omit the terminal "a" for most North Indian languages and add "n" after the terminal "a" for Tamil), according to mythology, is the most feared enemy of the snake tribe, the bird whose very name strikes terror in the hearts of the denizens of the subterranean Nagaland. Throughout South India the Brahminy Kite is called "Garudan" and even in paintings (paintings of no great antiquity, say about a century or two in age) this bird is shown in depictions of mythological description of the Garuda. However, the Crested Serpent-Eagle, the Short-toed Eagle and some hawk-eagles are much more given to snake-slaying than this kite, and are much nearer iconographic descriptions of the Garuda.

Be that as it might, I find an unforced occasion for quoting here an old Sanskrit verse that has always appealed powerfully to me (in spite of my comprehensive ignorance of Sanskrit!), so tellingly does it expound the power of circumstances:

'Do not associate with the lowly;
If you must with the mighty, make
friends.
For the cobra, having Vishnu's
protection,
Inquired fondly after the Garuda's
health!' "

-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 11 March 1956 in The Sunday Statesman)

# A painting of the bird in flight with its nice wingspread not reproduced here.