The Accidental Activist - Rain Song By Venita Coelho
Baby is finally old enough to understand weather. When the first rumblings of the monsoon began she would put up her head wonderingly and repeat after us 'Thunda. Thunda!' It was a wonder to her, those great roars that travelled across the sky and sent the dogs scampering under the bed. Then came the rain and she struggled to express her amazement in her limited vocabulary 'Big mum mum.. Mama very BIG mum mum.' To see the rain through the eyes of a two year old is to stand awe struck again. She would stick her hand out in it then jerk it back shrieking with excitement. Her next delight was her umbrella. A friend got her a whimsical one in orange that opened up to become a giraffe, horns, ears and all. With her umbrella she ventured out in the rain - but only the small rain, not the big one. The big one is to be stared at wide eyed, not to be ventured into. Puddles are another delight, since they are made to be splashed in no matter what mama says. I had tried to prepare her for the monsoons, telling her that there would be frogs all over the house, and at night she could hear them calling in the paddy fields. Every monsoon in Goa I have always had one additional duty - saving the frogs from the dogs and cats. They just can't resist playing with them. Biscuit the mongrel, will paw a frog then pretend to have forgotten it. Just as the poor fellow is trying to hop to freedom she will grab it again. The game goes on for hours, and it is only interrupted by me coming upon them, grabbing the exhausted frog and chucking it out into the garden. Baby asked 'Froggie? Where froggie gone?' It was a question I have been asking too. Every monsoon we have had platoons of frogs. Big ones and little ones. Dozens of tiny ones hopping in tandem across the floor. Big fat ones that usurp a favourite corner and refuse to move from there. One frog last year took up residence in a teacup, and no matter how many times he was ousted would always return. When he finally vanished at the end of the monsoon we were quite bereft. This year there hasn't been a single frog. In other years they have been so plentiful that I have literally had to take the broom and sweep scads of them off the porch so that we could walk around without danger of stepping on them. This year baby has asked 'froggie?' in vain. There just aren't any. Nor can you hear them any more. In front of my house are fields that get filled with monsoon water and become a mini lake. Frog song used to roll across them in great sheets. All night long you'd hear the racket. Croakers, singers, whistlers, beepers, peepers. all of them yelling for all they were worth. It used to be difficult to go to sleep. This year - nothing. I was away in Bombay when the first brief spell of rain fell. Mother tells me that the night was filled with frog song. Then the next morning the fields were full of people hunting frogs. And now the essential music of the rain is missing. The mature frogs come out with the first rains to mate. Killing them means no next generation of frogs. And no frogs means that every evening before Baby can go for a walk I have to coat her in mosquito repellent. With no frogs to feast on them the mosquito population has exploded and I am having to find ways and means to cope. The penalties are stringent. Rs 25,000 fine and three years imprisonment for killing endangered species. But these stay on paper without any means or will to implement them. 'Three years imprisonment? For killing frogs?! Chaah men!' I can hear my neighbours saying as they feast on monsoon chicken. But what they are killing is not just frogs. It is the delicate balance that sustains life in the fields, and eventually, us. I am wondering how to explain to my daughter what happened to them. How do you tell a child that somebody ate them up? That too humans, not other animals. Since she is vegetarian like me, it's going to be one heck of an explanation. Luckily she isn't old enough to ask as yet, or to understand. The loss of the frogs means one less melody in the Rain song. It means one more step towards unknitting the delicate web of life that we are part of. It means one less thing for Baby to wonder at. I have no idea how many more such small miracles will have vanished by the time she grows old enough to want to do something about it. (ENDS) =========================================================================== The above article appeared in the July 14, 2009 edition of the Herald, Goa
