Redbuttons never crowed again...

MR Anand

No household in our street reared chicken. That was why I was surprised when one Sunday morning I heard a cock-a-doodle-doo from our backyard. When I went down to investigate, there stood on the compound wall a rooster. Never before had I seen a smaller rooster. His red-button eyes were bold and full of self-confidence. He had plumes which shone with all sunset hues. He appeared to be fully conscious of his masculine beauty. When I went close to this winged visitor to say ‘How do you do my dear cock-a-doodle-doo’, he took off with an angry flapping of his wings, issuing a gurgling note of protest from his throat.

My thoughts went back 50 years to my boyhood, when I had a rooster that hated the very sight of me and chased me like a feathered missile. He never accepted my overtures and remained my foe. That old failure to strike a friendship with a rooster made me now think of befriending this small fellow. Strangely, he reminded me of that short actor, Red Buttons of John Wayne’s movie Hatari. So, I named him Redbuttons. The thing I loved most about the rooster was the way he crowed his cock-a-doodle-doo from his very bellybutton, stretching his neck to the breaking point. I started throwing some grains in front of him, which he gladly accepted. It was interesting to watch him trot here and there, like a soldier ruffling with his bayonet-paws the brown, dry leaves the ground was carpeted with, in search of insects.

My friendship with Redbuttons stabilised in a week’s time. Of course, I did not expect a rooster to eat from my hand like a dove. If I could earn a little bit of his trust that was enough for me. This I achieved without much ado. As I sat in the garden bench and read, he would come within 2 feet of my feet to pick up grains I kept for him in a bowl. 

While even the basic question as to where Redbuttons was coming from remained a mystery, he failed to turn up one morning. When I enquired about him, our maid had shocking news for me. ‘Sir, he belongs to the owner of the non-veg eatery on the main road behind our house. If he has not come today, it means he has become a plate of biryani,’ she laughed. 

Feeling very sorry, sad and apprehensive, I started my scooter and proceeded to take a look at the non-veg hotel. There, I saw to my horror a see-through oven in which kept impaled horizontally on a rotating rod were three dressed chickens. One of them was small, and that small one, I knew instinctively, was my Redbuttons. While I was staring at the roasting mortal remains of my rooster-friend, there came and stood beside me a policeman. ‘It is a mouth-watering sight! Is it not?’ he said. 

Perhaps his mouth was watering on seeing the roasting chickens. But in my case, it was my eyes that watered, not my mouth.