A story about why the cuckoo cries all summer in Himachal Pradesh.

We all know the cuckoo and in Himachal it is called the chataka. The cuckoo uses the south west summer monsoon to propel it across the Arabian sea from Africa to India. With the cuckoo, arrives the rain, the monsoon. Since it takes such a long flight, it is a symbol of patience, resilience and longing.

In Himachal one hears a different version. One summer day when the sun was radiating heat and all the animals were thirsty and exhausted with the heat. There was a very selfish and cruel woman who overworked her buffaloes. She made them plough the land all day in the searing heat and then left them without giving them water or food.

In the evening, she went off to attend a village fair. The buffalo pair died of exhaustion and thirst, bitterly cursing her. She was reborn as a chataka doomed to suffer and crying constantly through out the summer for water. Her thirst would only be quenched, when the monsoons arrived.

Dear ones, this is the last story and do you see that we are always the cruel and unkind persons. These stories are ancient and even then, we are described as self-serving and greedy. We can change ourselves by being kind to all beings as Swami Sivananda said.

Aim Hrim Klim

Tale 1 – About trees
Tale 2 – Two rivers in love
Tale 3 – The Peacock from Meghalaya
Tale 4 – The tears from Arunachal Pradesh
Tale 5 – A bird and a hot chilli
Tale 6 – The mermaid’s song from Puducherry
Tale 7 – Tigers are family
Tale 8 – The Hornbill’s curse
Tale 9 – Coconut palm

By Vogelartinfo – Own work, GFDL 1.2, Link