The Chicken Rustlers
(A revised version of a story previously told here)
There was no proper wall between us and the Hindu family next door but a massive badamier (wild almond) and some pieces of wood from old boxes unconvincingly nailed together served as one. Nearest to us, with a window opening on our yard were a recently married couple, Bola, a bread seller and his wife Shanti who was expecting their first baby. Mother was quite fond of Bola, because, as she said, When Bola talks to us ladies he looks at his shoes. There were two wings to their house, and in the other one lived either his old parents, or hers, we never knew whose.
In the badamier, or Indian almond tree, there lived the Ministre Prince, also known as Marday Virin. He was some Madrasi spirit who meant no good to us, a good Muslim family. We were happy to call him a “devil”. We never knew who the tree belonged to, them or us, a moot point really as both houses were rented from the same proprietor, and it was near enough barren, with the difference that, as we were reminded by the landlord, “Those Hindus paid their loyer (rent) regularly.” We owed two years’ rent. Every afternoon, the moment the Cathédrale St Louis began tolling six o’clock, Ministre Prince would come down his tree and walk over the doctor’s wall towards the third neighbour. He was invisible to most people, but there were some folks to whom he showed himself, blood red eyes, monkey body and face and a massive tail. I was obviously one of the privileged few, but he will not feature in this story, as this is about chicken.
We have always had a basse-cour, a yard where we raised mainly chickens although we sometimes had a goat or two, which we used to tie to our barren pomegranate tree.
Papa earned our living by trading with the islands of Rodriguez, Réunion or Madagascar. Rodriguez, although over 600 kilometres away was a dependency of Mauritius, and as such, depended on us, whilst we ourselves were a British colony governed by an English governor, receiving instructions from London. Three or four times a year an 800-tonner, the Zambezia would do the 3 day-crossing, Port-Louis- Port Mathurin, with Mauritian traders like my father and his cargo of whatever the islanders of our dependency had a need for, mainly clothing and building materials. They would come back with whatever the Rodrigans produced. They were almost all subsistence farmers. Chicken, cattle, goats, salt-fish, onions, crabs, honey, lemons etc. That’s how most Rodrigans made a living. After every trip Papa came back with three crates of chicken and after discarding those who had died during the punitive crossing, when no one fed or watered the livestock in the holds, the sale of the fowls was one important revenue for the family.
When the crates were almost empty, the remaining chickens were allowed to roam in the yard or roost on the jambloon or jambolan tree, and we would benefit from their eggs, and occasionally eat one ourselves. Usually in a biryani, or a Kalia.
There was no way of restricting the movement of the chickens which would often find their way into the street as there were gaps in the fences, but no one was unduly worried about this as they would always come back at dusk.
Except when they did not!
Once or twice a year one would be crushed by a lorry, but that was not the only way thy disappeared.
Sometimes one mother hen would go awol, and after we had given her up for lost or stolen, she would emerge a few weeks later with five or six poussins.
Sadly some were permanently unaccounted for, because there were chicken rustlers. Who they were? We did not immediately find out. One day we lost our prized layer, and no amount of searching helped, however, a week later, I saw a bird which had the same size and gait as our lost one, but she was no longer dirty white, her feathers were brown. Brownish. To me the brown of hens had a typical reddish rusty tinge, but this bird scratching in the street outside our neighbour’s house had a brown which I had never seen on a feathered creature. I rushed home and loudly told the family that the neighbours had stolen our hen and disguised her by colouring her. Everybody laughed. That boy, they said, don’t know his times table, but when it comes to making things up he has no equal. Nevertheless the two big brothers were given the task to investigate, after Papa told them to be courteous and not to upset the neighbours, with whom we had a good enough rapport. Their mission accomplished, they reported that it was an altogether different bird.
But I was not convinced. With the help of my friend Hamid who lived round the corner, we caught the hen one morning, rushed to his house, and carried out some tests. We plucked a few feathers from the unfortunate thing, and examined them, soaked them in water, and to our joy the water turned brown, and the feather became the colour of our lost bird, proving that my suspicions were right all the time.
The brothers were given the task of confronting Shanti, who said that the hen was a gift from her mother who had bought her from a poultry seller only a week before. The older lady became quite indignant and started weeping. We may be poor, but we’re not thieves.
When they came back and told us, Papa used his stock phrase: Jané dé. He was a man of peace, a conciliator who always avoided conflict. Jané dé, in urdu meant leave it.
This was not the end of the thieving. A few weeks later, one of our roosters went missing, but a few days, with our roving eyes, we easily picked him in the neighbour’s courtyard, in the company of two or three other birds. This ten-year old took the initiative to rescue the family’s property, and I pushed their gate open and rushed into their yard where I had seen our proud rooster scratching, but he had disappeared, I only saw his two or three erstwhile companions. But I was determined that I was not going back empty-handed. Everybody came out to watch me, and I decided to force my way into their bedrooms, to search for what belonged to us. To my surprise and delight, in a bedroom, I heard clucking under a bed, and behind a small soap box, was our very own rooster. I grabbed him and proudly walked out, leaving everybody stunned.
When challenged, Shanti’s mother, or mother-in-law explained that they could not be held responsible if our hens walked into their house. It was up to us to stop them going into other people’s homes, where they shat all over the place.
Hindus, Maman, who usually told us to respect other people’s beliefs, declared, are worshippers of stone idols, and have no morals like us Muslims, what did anybody expect? Big brother suggested we went to the police, but Papa again said, Jané dé. It was not worth creating a conflict with neighbours over a chicken.
The thieving did not stop.
The Champ de Mars was an important landmark in our lives. It is a large open space in which stands a race-course_ “the most famous south of the equator”, our countrymen maintained_ and within the perimeter there were a large number of football fields, some tennis courts and cricket clubs. Youngsters could go and use whatever space was available for their games, and I often went there with Hamid and other young friends to run or play football. We often played near the Taher Bagh, less than a mile away from our house, which was once a lavish garden with a mansion, which was now in a state of disrepair, and to all intents and purposes abandoned. There were ordinary dwellings on either side, and we knew that in one of them, lived an uncle and aunt of Shanti, or Bola. We also knew a family who lived nearby, and accidentally they mentioned that had been losing their chickens. Hamid and I added two and two: They pilfered the chickens of their neighbours, whilst Shanti’s relatives pilfered ours. And they did what one would expect they would do. They stole and exchanged with each other.
One day, after football practice, Hamid and I espied a mother hen of ours which had recently gone missing. She was of the type called St Brandon, with speckled black and white feathers. My friend did not need to be persuaded. Almost wordlessly we started chasing her, and caught her.
Clutching her like a trophy we went home expecting a hero’s welcome, but everybody agreed that although she was a St Brandon, ours was older and plumper. But those Hindus let her starve, I argued unconvincingly. So what do we do? I asked.
Papa was in Rodriguez, so we did not need to hear him say Jané dé. But what would Maman say? Big brother said that the Hindus of Taher Bagh probably knew who grabbed their hen and would not hesitate to go to the police, that there would be a search and then we’d be in trouble.
‘Not if we cooked her right away,’ said Maman
