Turkey travels from train to table

‘Gobble, gobble’ they cried while, seemingly in tandem, their sagging neck flesh went wobble, wobble. We, a bunch of cousins on vacation nearly 70 years ago at our grandparents’ home in Bengaluru, teased the turkeys, provoking them to rush at us as we scattered like terrified chickens. The same was true with the gaggle of geese.

Back then, we were young and foolhardy! Ducks were thankfully tame in comparison as they waddled along, and we left them alone. Additionally, the homestead housed cows, fowl, perhaps a pig, and lots more to feed their brood of 17 children and progeny, either resident or on visits there. I remember a diminutive man nicknamed ‘Cow John’ maintaining the animal welfare at Oorgaum House, supervising them and sheltering them in their respective sheds at night. 

When my family descended on Oorgaum House one Diwali vacation during the mid-1950s, it was a thrill for us when Granny Rose insisted on gifting a turkey to take back to (then) Bombay. Mum, their eldest child, was hesitant to accept the offer, but we seven children, aged 21 to 6, persuaded our parents. We last three offered to do ‘Turkey caregiving’ until Christmas, when the roast turkey would be the main culinary offering at the festival meal.

This, of course, was farthest from our minds, as both excitement and apprehension gripped us at the forthcoming journey by train and imagining what would follow thereafter in our spacious apartment in Bombay. Dad was a railway officer, so the additional passenger on board with us proved no hassle in the six-berth compartment, with the turkey tucked safely within the bathroom. The journey was trouble-free, as the turkey must’ve been in a daze, and we were doing our best to befriend it.

On reaching home, a place was located to house the turkey. Next morning, eager to show off our new-found companion to the children in the neighbourhood, we led it, roped around its neck, down to the triangular garden in a corner of the building. Eager to view this novel entrant into our arena, our friends in the building, Imperial Mansions, rushed down to join the ‘turkey walkers’ club.

The turkey immediately stole centre stage and ‘gobbled’ up the adulation as much as we did for affording our pals this unique experience in the metropolis. Clamours to walk the turkey were in abundance as my two elder brothers bossed us all. Morning and evening, this ritual went on for a month, while turkey, oblivious to its impending fate, ate well, exercised well, enchanted and entertained all well, going ‘gobble, gobble, gobble’ at will!

Come Christmas, we were probably devoid of an appetite to devour the turkey roast on the platter.