Woji to the Rescue

It was a rainy morning in the forest. Mother Owl had flown back with only one old rat the night before. She had to share it among the three babies she had in her nest inside the hole in the old tree. Woji, the eldest of the babies, thought that their mother not eaten anything. So he asked her to eat his share, saying he was not hungry.

“Shut up and eat,” said Mother Owl irritably. “I have eaten and then brought for the three of you. I am full.”

Woji understood that she was not telling the truth. He knew that their mother never ate before feeding her children. She always carried back the first prey and then, after the babies had eaten, she would hunt for herself. She always carried her food back to the nest and ate there. And, finally, she was never angry if her belly was full.But he did not want to argue with her. He ate what she gave him, and was soon fast asleep with his brother and sister. Mother Owl went out of the hole and sat on the bough, preparing to sleep. It was still raining, but the leaves of this tree, especially over her head were so thick that she remained almost dry. While her babies slept inside the nest, she liked to remain on guard outside. The baby owls were still not able to fly, but they were growing up quickly – they would soon be able to fly and hunt by themselves.

Mother Owl closed her eyes and went to sleep.

The forest was not very big, nor was it very dense. One could walk through it in less than an hour. The villagers believed that the forest was the home of their gods. They believed that the gods lived as trees in the day time, and they came out at night to wander in the world, especially in their village, and protect people from harm from demons and evil eyes. The villagers guarded the wood very carefully, so that people from other places, who did not believe in their gods, did not come and cut the trees and disturb their gods. They were happy that their god-forest was very close to their village, because it made it easy for them to protect the trees.

Big and fierce animals did not live in those woods. There were a few deer and a few jackals. People could come and go without fear of tigers and leopards. And they did. They entered the cool forests to rest in the shade when they were tired, children played among the thick and heavy branches of the ancient trees, and every year, several times, the whole village would come to offer prayers or puja to one of the gods. They brought flowers and coloured powder, sacred strings and many fruits for their gods.

A few days had gone by after the rainy night. The sun had risen behind a curtain of clouds. Mother Owl was teaching her children to fly. Woji, the eldest, was also the largest. He could flap a few feet and hop to the next branch with difficulty. Blog, the next, was also flying a little, but falling often. Guli, the girl, and the smallest, was the best. Mother Owl remembered that she was also the first to fly among their four brothers and sisters who had grown up in that same tree. She showed Guli how to fly from one tree to another and asked her to practice. Then she turned her attention to Woji and Blog.

As he learnt to fly, Woji also learnt how to hunt. Mother Owl taught them how to look for small animals in the dark, and how to fly silently and catch mice, frogs and other tiny creatures that owls eat. Woji became a strong flier. He often flew to the village.

“Don’t go that far,” his mother warned him.

“I don’t go too far, Ma,” said Woji. “I fly to the village. There are many rats and mice in the village. It is easy to catch them.”

“Make sure the village owls don’t chase you...” warned Mother Owl.

“The owls don’t mind,” said Woji. “The dogs of the village are the guards. If any strange animal comes, they bark and wake up the villagers. But they don’t bother about me.”

One day Woji flew back in a hurry.

“What happened?” asked his mother.

“There are strange people in the village,” said Woji. “There is a meeting going on – with the villagers and the strangers.”

Strangers! Mother Owl was surprised, and worried. “Men don’t move around in the darkness, they usually come in the daytime. Night is for owls and jackals, and other creatures of the darkness.”

“They are sitting around a fire,” said Woji. “They are talking loudly – about trees.”

This got Mother Owl so interested that she flew to the village. The children also followed: Guli flew with Mother, Blog and Woji followed close behind.The village was just outside the forest, but there were many trees in and around the huts in which the people lived. So it was easy for the owls to fly close to the open place in the middle of the village where the people were. There was a large fire in the centre. People were sitting around it and talking loudly. Woji was surprised to see many birds and animals hiding in the trees and listening. The Old Owl of the village saw Mother Owl and softly hooted to call her closer.

“What is happening?” asked Mother Owl.

“These men have come to the village to buy the sweet smelling trees in the forest.”

Some of the people were dressed very differently from the villagers Woji was used to seeing. Instead of the folded cloth around the waist, and loose long clothes on top, they wore tight clothing. Woji was wondering about them, when his mother asked the Old Owl.

“They are really dressed strangely, are they not?” she asked.

“That is the way they dress in cities,” said the Old Owl who knew a lot. “They are wearing shirts and trousers.”

“Why do they want the sweet smelling trees from our forests?” asked Woji.

“Because they are very costly,” said his mother. “The wood of these trees can be cut and men make paste from them, and put them on their bodies, and on their gods.”

“They are called sandalwood trees,” added Old Owl. “Men even try to steal them from forests for money.”

Steal? Woji was surprised.

Days went by. The villagers had sent the men from city away without giving them anything – they did not want to give away their valuable sandalwood trees to the city people. Everyone talked about it for a few days. Whenever Woji went to the village, he saw the animals and birds in the village discussing it. So were the people. However, after a few days, they stopped. More important things came up. Winter was coming. Soon, many of the trees would shed their leaves. Many would stop producing fruit and flowers. Food would be difficult to get. Some of the animals and birds would go away to warmer lands.

The trees became bare soon. They could not hide amongst the leaves while they rested. Prey was getting more difficult to find. Rats and mice did not come out in the dark cold nights, and insects and frogs were scarce too.

Woji, Blog and Guli had left their mother’s nest by then. They met each other in the forest often, and talked, but each lived alone. Woji had found a tree near the village, with a nice little hole to hide in during the day – so he was not bothered that the tree had shed all its leaves and there was none to hide behind. He would fly into the village every night to hunt. Men had fire, and their homes were warmer than the forest. More mice and rats moved about there.

Days became short. The evenings came early – and a fog started covering the trees at dusk. On some days the fog would remain till late in the morning and the sun would come up looking weak and white behind it. In the dark and cold nights, even the dogs slept comfortably beside the glowing wood fires in the village.

On one such night, Woji had been hunting for some time in the village without any success. It was so cold that the rats and mice had gone deep into their burrows to eat the rice and wheat they had collected for this time of the year. For the last few days Woji had been able to find some small animal like a mouse on most days, but today, he realised that he was not going to get any. He remembered that his mother had taught him to catch small birds for this kind of a night. He knew where to go for birds that slept during the night and so he turned and flew back to the forest.

After some time, Woji managed to catch a tiny sparrow for his dinner. He was far from his tree and hole, and it was the dead of the night. He cleaned his beak and shook his feathers to fluff them – to protect against the cold, and then, just as he was going to crouch to leap off the branch to fly, he heard a strange noise.

Woji knew all the noises of the forest. Not only did he know the calls of the various animals and birds, but he could also make out soft sounds like the plop of a frog jumping into the pool, or the scrabble of the jackal’s paws as it dug for a root or a rat. He could make out when a snake slithered among dry leaves and when the first rain pattered on the dry, dusty earth.

This sounded different, though. It was a scrape that he seldom heard in the forest. It was like cloth. Woji stiffened. Cloth? Only people wore clothes. Why would people come into the forest at the dead of the night? Woji had never seen people in the forest at night.

Before he could think any further, the man who had made the noise spoke too. Woji froze. This was no villager’s voice! Another man answered. They were talking in a low voice, quite unlike the villagers who came every now and then to worship the trees. The villagers sang and laughed and prayed loudly. And, they came in the daytime.

Silently, Woji spread his wings and flew towards the voices. Soon he sat down on the branch of a tall tree and looked down at the men.

“This is one,” said one of the men softly, and another man took a brush with black paint and put a big black mark on the tree. Then they moved on.

Soon they stopped at another tree. “This one, too,” said the same man.

They marked that tree too, and walked on. They were trying to be silent, but they were not used to walking in the forest and were making enough noise to wake up the entire forest.

By the time the men had marked the sixth or seventh tree, Woji had understood what they were doing. He also knew what he would have to do. He left the men there, and flew back to the village.

On the large banyan tree at the centre of the village, the Old Owl sat patiently. He saw Woji fly in and stared at him for a while.

“Something wrong?” he asked quietly.

“Those men from the city,” said Woji breathlessly. “Those men with the strange clothes – they are back. They are in the forest. They are marking the sweet smelling trees with black paint.”

Old Owl sat quietly for a while. Then he sighed.

“I was afraid of this,” he said. “When people decide to get anything, they get it anyhow. If they cannot get it naturally, they want it unnaturally.”

“What are they going to do?” asked Woji, nervously.

“They will mark the trees and go away for now,” said Old Owl. “Then, later, maybe tomorrow night, they will come with axes. They will cut the sandalwood trees in the dark of the night and take them away. They will steal the trees.”

“That is not right,” said Woji angrily. “The trees belong to the forest.”

“True,” said Old Owl. “But we cannot do anything about it – people don’t understand our language, we cannot tell them anything.”

“I can,” said Woji. “At least, I can try.”

“You?” asked Old Owl, surprised. “What can you do?”

“I will make the dogs do the work,” said Woji.

“How?” asked Old Owl. “Even they don’t understand what we say.”

Woji flew down to where the dogs were sleeping. “Whoo-whoo,” he called. “You call yourselves guard dogs! Sleepy-heads, do you know what is happening to the forest?”

The big leader of the village pack opened one eye. He could not understand what the owl was saying, but he did not like him disturbing him in the middle of the night.

“Grrr...” he said, hoping that would scare the owl, but Woji only flew closer, hooting loudly.

By this time the other dogs had woken up. One by one they came closer. As Woji had hoped, they got agitated.

“Woof, woof,” they barked as they snapped and lunged at Woji. Woji flew out of their reach and kept on telling them how useless they were as guards to the village. The dogs understood nothing, they only heard an owl going “Whoo-whoo,” and flying away whenever they tried to catch him.

Suddenly three more owls flew out of the forest into the village and sat beside Old Owl in the tree. Mother Owl, Blog and Guli. “It is no use going to chase them now,” said Mother Owl. “They are gone.”

Woji flew up to the tree beside Old Owl and Mother Owl. The dogs, satisfied that the tormenting owl had gone, went back to sleep.

“If I can keep them at me for some more time, I will be able to make them chase me to the forest,” he said.

“That was a very smart idea,” said Old Owl.

The five owls planned for a long time. As dawn broke, they went away to their perches, to sleep.

The city people did not come back the night after. Woji, Blog and two other owls of the forest took it in turns to patrol the forest for the thieves. Guli and her friends were given the task of carrying the news of the robbers to other parts of the forest if the thieves should come.

“They will come tonight,” said Old Owl the next morning. “There will be no moon, so the night will be dark.”

So they did. Blog had just finished keeping watch and Woji was flying to join him when they heard the sound of the engines. One car and a truck came in the darkness and stopped just outside the forest. A group of six people hopped out from the truck – they were carrying axes. Two city people got off the car – they had torches in their hands. They slunk into the dark forest, as silently as they could, and then they split into two groups and went in search of the marked trees.

Woji flew as fast as he could towards the village, hooting loudly for the owls of the forest: “Whoo-whoo, wake up, wake up, thieves have come to the forest.”

Blog flew behind the thieves, hooting loudly, “Whoo-whoo, come here, come here,” so that the forest animals and birds could also find where the thieves were. Guli and her friends heard the noise and flew away to different parts of the forest, warning all the owls about the men. The men did not understand what was going on – they only thought some bird was hooting in the night.

As Woji flew into the village, he found the dogs had already heard him and were ready and growling at his hooting. As Blog flew down at them, the dogs rushed at him, barking furiously.

“Those dogs are howling too much,” said a man in the village. “What’s up?”

Woji flew around the dogs a few times. That made the dogs even more angry. They went round and round and made such a noise that a few doors opened in the village and people came out. As soon as Woji saw that happening, he flew off towards the forest, with the dogs chasing him.

“That’s a funny thing,” said the man who had come out first. “Did you see that? The dogs chased an owl into the forest!”

“Was there an owl?” asked the others, who had come out later. “We only saw the dogs rushing off into the forest.”

They agreed that it was strange, and they were just going to go back to bed, when the village headman stopped them.

“Wait,” he said. “Let us remain awake for a while. Why would the dogs rush off suddenly into the forest? That too, while chasing an owl? We should stay up and listen for a while.”

Inside the forest, the dogs were surprised to see more than one owl flying ahead of them, and coming back often to excite them further. They raced on, barking. Woji led them, following the calls of Blog. Inside the forest, the men heard the dogs barking and stopped, scared.

“What is that noise? Are dogs barking?” asked one of the men with an axe. “Do the villagers keep guard dogs to protect these trees?”

The city people had heard the dogs too and were surprised.

“They don’t have guard dogs,” they said. “We have been to the village and we were here just two nights ago. There was no guard dog, only village mongrels. Let us get to work.”

But that did not happen. The dogs burst forth and the owls flew up into the trees. The dogs saw the strangers who looked and smelled like bad people and leapt at them instead, barking furiously.

If they had looked carefully, the men would have seen that they were small village dogs, not dangerous at all. But the night was dark, the dogs were many and they made so much noise that the axe-carrying workers scattered and ran towards the truck, and seeing them run, the men from the city  ran after them too.

The dogs gave chase.

The villagers heard the barking of the dogs increase and the screams of unknown men.

“Come,” ordered the headman. They armed themselves with sticks and axes and ran to where the noise was coming from. They found the men trying to get into the car and truck, and getting bitten by the village dogs. They surrounded the thieves, and took away their axes. They tied them to the trees and scolded them.

“You have no respect for our gods, and so you will be punished,” said the headman. “You will remain locked in the village tonight. Tomorrow, the police will come and take you away.”

“Why should we keep them in the warmth of our huts?” asked the villagers. “They are thieves. Let them remain tied to the trees tonight.”

“These people are greedy and bad,” said the headman. “But we are not. It is a cold winter night. We should not leave them under the open sky.”

So the villagers took them to their village and kept them locked inside a hut and guarded them all night.

The Police came the next morning in a jeep.

“Aha,” said the Officer, when he saw the thieves. “They are the famous sandalwood robber gang. Thank you for capturing them for us. You villagers will get a special prize from the government.”

On the day the villagers were given the prize from the government, the owls of the village and the forest gave a special prize to Woji. There were two parties: one in the village and the other in the forest. The dogs of the village attended the party of the villagers, the animals and birds of the forest attended the party of the owls – they all ate great food and told each other how Woji bravely led them to the rescue!

Pic. of Woji by Paramita Dasgupta Majumdar