"Now, Rann the Kite brings home the night,
That Mang, the bat sets free"
Now this is a law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky—that the day belongs to the keen eye and the soaring wing, but the night is the kingdom of the leather-wings, whose ears are their eyes and whose flight is as quiet as falling dust.
High on the crest of the red-clay plateau, where the roots of the ancient Great Banyan gripped the rocks like the gnarled fingers of an old priest, sat three Brown Kites. They were of the brown brood—the Pariah-folk of the upper air—with plumage the color of sun-dried teakwood and breasts dappled like the light through jungle leaves.
Below them, the earth was folding itself to sleep. The great gorge, cut deep into the sandstone by the brown waters of the Wainganga, was already filled with purple shadow. To the north, the endless woods of the Dandakaranya stretched away, dark and brooding, full of the murmur of wild things coming awake; to the south, the river slipped smoothly on its long journey toward the Godavari, shining like a cast-off cobra-skin in the last amber light of the sun.
Rann, the eldest brother, sat upon the highest bare branch of the banyan, his head turned into the faint evening breeze. His long, hooked beak was tucked slightly against his breast, and his tail-feathers flared now and again to keep his balance against the rising thermal drafts of the gorge. On the lower bough sat his brother, Chil, and his sister, Ko.
"The sun has dropped behind the Mahadeo Hills," muttered Chil, shifting his yellow talons upon the smooth bark. "My crop is half-empty, Rann. The wind was bad today. It blew the locusts into the thorn-scrub, where only the crows can hop."
"Patience, Little Brother," Rann answered, his sharp, yellow eyes scanning the darkening canopy below. "A kite who complains of his crop before the stars are bright is like the Jackal who cries 'Famine!' when he has only missed his breakfast. Look to the shadows. It is time for the changing of the watch."
"It is too cold," whined Ko, shivering and fluffing her neck-feathers until she looked like a ball of brown wool. "The daylight is gone, and with it goes the strength of the air. Why must we sit here while the darkness grows? The roost in the sal-forest is warm, and the young ones are already asleep."
"We sit because we are the eyes of the day," said Rann softly, "and until Mang sets free the night, the jungle is not yet given over to the shadows. Look yonder—over the round belly of the lotus-pond."
Down in the dip between the plateau and the gorge lay the pond, its water as still and black as polished basalt. The blue water-lilies were closing their petals for the night, and a faint mist, cool and smelling of wet mud and rotting weeds, began to curl along its edges.
Suddenly, from the hollow trunk of a dead saj tree near the water’s edge, a small, dark shape slipped out into the gray air. It did not drop like a stone, nor did it flap with the noisy, heavy stroke of the heron. It pitched and tumbled, darted and wheeled, its thin leather wings snapping softly against the cool air.
"There he goes," Rann whispered, a flicker of pride in his fierce eyes. "Mang the Bat. The Night-bringer."
"He is a small thing to make such a fuss over," Chil scoffed, tilting his head to watch the jagged flight. "He has no feathers. He flies like a dried leaf caught in a whirlwind. A single stroke of my wing would break him."
"A single stroke of your wing would miss him by three tail-feathers, foolish one," replied Rann with a dry click of his beak. "The Law of the Jungle gave us the sun, Chil, but to Mang it gave the silent air of the twilight. Listen! Can you hear him?"
They tilted their heads, listening with all the sharp intensity of the bird-folk. From the darkness of the pond came no sound that a man could hear, but to the kites, high in the banyan, came the tiny, needle-fine squeak—kik-kik-kik—that was the hunting-cry of the bat-people.
Out from the hollow saj came four more shadows, tumbling one after the other like soot-flakes blown from a furnace. They were Mang’s brothers—the four Leather-Wings of the Wainganga—and they spread out over the quiet surface of the pond in a rhythmic, dancing pattern.
"See how they hunt!" Ko murmured, her grievance forgotten for a moment as she leaned forward to watch. "They skitter over the black water like water-striders."
"They hunt the foolish things," Rann said. "The gnats that hatch in the mud, the fat night-moths that drop from the teak-leaves, and the hard-backed beetles that buzz like small drums in the dark. Watch the second one—the one with the notched wing-tip. That is Mang’s brother, the fast one. He flies so low his belly-fur leaves a ripple on the water."
Down on the pond, the five bats were performing the ancient dance of the twilight. They skimmed within an inch of the lily-pads, turning on a feather-edge, dipping, rising, and looping with a speed no creature of the day could match. One would drop from the sky like a falling acorn, snap a fat beetle from the air right above the nose of a lurking bullfrog, and be ten yards away before the water had ceased to ripple.
"They do not hunt by sight as we do," Chil mused, his curiosity getting the better of his pride. "How is it they do not strike the branches of the dhak trees when they dance so fast?"
"They see with their ears, Little Brother," Rann answered, tilting his head as he watched Mang swoop low over the reeds. "The air tells them where the wood ends and where the leaf begins. To Mang, every twig utters a small cry when his wings pass by, warning him to turn. It is the gift of the Night-Sellers."
"It is a queer gift," Ko said with a shudder. "To fly in the dark, where the Great Owls sit like white stones in the fork of the mango-trees... I would rather have the bright sun on my back and the wide sky beneath my chest."
"Every creature to his own trail," Rann said quietly. "The sun is our mother, Ko, but the night is Mang’s bride. Look now! The sun is truly dead."
Far to the west, the last orange strip of light behind the Mahadeo Hills snapped shut like a folding fan. The stars—the bright, cold stars of the Central Provinces—began to prick through the velvet blue overhead, one by one.
Down on the lotus-pond, the five bats turned as one body, their jagged wings silhouetted against the faint sheen of the water. Mang led them now, rising in a spiral up from the damp hollow, higher and higher, until they swept past the very crown of the Great Banyan, their leathery wings making a tiny whir-whir-whir sound in the quiet air.
For a moment, as Mang passed the high branch where Rann sat, the big kite bowed his head slightly—an ancient, formal greeting of the Jungle-folk who share the same sky.
"The day is folded, Brother," Rann called out softly into the dusk.
From the dark air above came the faint, sharp answer: "The night is free, Brother! Good hunting to your roost!"
The five bats swept over the ridge of the plateau and disappeared into the vast, whispering depths of the Dandakaranya forest, where the deer were beginning to move toward the salt-licks and the panther was stretching his legs after the long day's sleep.
Rann turned his head and settled his feathers down smooth and tight against the evening chill.
"Come," he said to Chil and Ko, his voice deep and full of the quiet peace of the wild places. "Mang has opened the gate. The sky belongs to the night-people now. Let us go down to the thicket before the Great Horned Owl leaves his tree."
With three soft, simultaneous pushes of their powerful thighs, the brown kites dropped from the banyan bough, spreading their wide wings to catch the cool, falling air, and glided down into the dark safety of the valley below.
(c) Dr. Bharat Bhushan, August 14, 2026
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