Missing You..... [Dadaji]

4. His Nature Love [Part ~ 2]

Our Unfettered Pet Peacock

I don't know since when but as far back my memories go, a peacock had been living with us only. An accident left him lame for life. I heard from Dadaji that once on Makar Sankranti [An Indian festival celebrated on 14th of January, on which people fly kites and do maximum charities.] He got tangled with kite string and was struggling badly wounded, to which Dadaji cured but he couldn't save his one leg.

Actually Peepal, being a shelter for different kind of birds was residence for that peacock as well. Moreover he was injured, that's why that peacock was staying at our home itself in the open garden. It took a few weeks for him to be recovered. Meanwhile he became familiar to us.

When I grew up to an age since when I can remember, it was our daily routine to scatter some grains on ground for him periodically. Whenever we missed it, he himself would reach out to the cask where he was used to given food from. It used to be a good scenario for us to see him eating directly from there, that's why sometimes we delebtately skipped to give him food.

Dadaji taught me to feed him directly from hands. He used to do so often. He advised me to stay calm and to keep my hand, in which I kept his meal, steady. If I was holding Chapati roll, I was to keep it tightly or else it would fall down. And whenever I kept grains onto my palm, I was instructed to keep my hand steady and to avoid the ticklish feeling which would occurred due to the direct contact of his beak and my palm. At beginning it was a struggle for me but later on I started enjoying it.

Despite being lame he was strongest among all peacocks in our village with comparatively longer iridescent train feathers. The interesting thing was that he honestly used to shed his train's all in all quill feathers at our very house.

Being treated special by us made some serious rivals of him. The one I still remember was jealous of him and sometimes fought with him. Also he used to pretend standing up with one leg to get us mistaken him with our pet one. But it was not a big issue to differentiate between them for our peacock having larger train than the rest. That bad peacock bothered our peacock very much that we had to fly him away but Dadaji still did feed him saying that he was doing so to get our attention and to be fed as well.