No household in our street reared chicken. That was why I was surprised when one Sunday morning I heard a cock-a-doodle -do from our backyard. When I went down to investigate, there stood a rooster on the compound wall . I never before saw 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-do?”, he took off with an angry flapping of his wings issuing a gurgling note of protest from his throat.

My thoughts went back by 50 years to my boyhood when I had a rooster enemy which 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. I named him Redbuttons. The thing I loved most about Red buttons was the way he crowed his cock-a-doodle-do from the very depth of his belly, stretching his neck to the breaking point. From Day Two, 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. A few days after his first visit, he brought with him his hen-wife — a bird of beauty bigger than him.

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 on the garden bench and read, he would come within two 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 said laughing. Feeling very sorry, sad and apprehensive, I started my scooter and proceeded to take a look at the said eatery. 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! Isn’t it?” he said. Maybe, his mouth was watering on seeing the roasting chickens. But in my case, it was my eyes that watered, not my mouth.

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