Thereby hangs a (goose) tale!

Walking with Meherwan yesterday, we were talking about farm animals and birds.  I was mentioning how there was a goose pen on the road to Meherazad and that resident westerners had wondered if the birds were for sale and if so, for how much.  Tallking about geese, I was saying how these birds make excellent watchdogs (or watchbirds, to be precise) and he said, "Oh yes, we used to have geese at Mary Lodge (in Nagpur, where Baba first went to stay at the Jessawalas).  They were really very good, in fact they were scary.  Did you know that one chased Eruch and almost pecked him very badly?"  I said I had never heard this story, so Meherwan proceeded to tell it to me.

"The geese at Mary Lodge had been brought there by Pappa, who enjoyed having different birds and animals around.  We even had an aviary with some exotic birds, in our garden.  Anyway, these geese were very ferocious.  In those early days, houses didn't have indoor toilets, so we had to go outside for our morning visit.  We didn't even have outside toilets, at first.  Pappa built two outside toilets later on.  So, we were going for our daily jobs to a nalla (small canal) that ran past the end of the garden.  One very early morning Eruch, who was quite small at that time, maybe only 12 or 13, had to go.  So he got out of bed and started to walk towards the nalla, when suddenly, he was attacked by a goose.  This large bird chased after him, but he out-ran it and hurrying to the nalla, squatted down to evacuate his bowels.  Suddenly, from behind, this goose came at him and started to attack!  Poor Eruch was terrified, and hurriedly stood up and tried to pull on his pyjamas, but the goose was still hot on his heels.  It managed to get the seat of his pyjamas in its beak and held on.  So there was Eruch running back, shouting loudly because he had this goose hanging on to his backside!!  

Baba was later told this story and enjoyed it very much.  When the Jessawalas came to stay with Baba in 1938, they brought a few clothes and personal items...and the geese!  Baba had them bring the geese to Meherabad, where they stayed for quite some years.  So you see, geese are really very good  watchdogs."  

The story so amused me that I thought I'd share it with you all.  Jai Baba.