A Sunday afternoon of early summer.
I woke up after having a deep afternoon sleep, walked through the corridor to reach our common sitting place where my Mom announced with playful smile, “today pigeons have had enough to their fill.”
Receiving these words in my ears, sleepy me strove to awake fully to take notice of what she meant. Meanwhile she went on explaining further, “Pigeons today freely enjoyed the wheat grains spread in the Sun, before them, unattended for long hours.”
Though the information given by the mother was about the loss, these birds had caused to us, but also inherent in her voice was the satisfaction that the pigeons enjoyed much and had a lot of fun while picking this vast spread of wheat grains.
From time immemorial, these birds are co-sharers of the human food grains, without caring for the economics behind it.
I remember my childhood days , when our house campus had enough free space. There my Grandmother used to sow Maize plants during the season along with other seasonal vegetable shrubs and creepers.
When the Maize plants bore new corn wrapped inside the multilayer green husk, the Parrots soaring across the airspace, caught the glimpse of these corn ears. Though I had seen many parrots in cage, but watching the flocks of parrots alighting on the maize ears of my garden, tear away the green husk cover, and then pecking at the sweet corn grains inside, was like something extraterrestrial for me! Beautiful parrots with myriad shades of green, yellowish green, and in between; their bright red curved beaks, and the ocean blue ring like formation around their smooth velvety neck left me spell bound!
Despite my granny’s strict instructions to prevent these parrots from damaging the corn, I gladly would late it happen, and, noticed the activities of these innocent beautiful parrots from a distance without disturbing them in their enterprise! The racing of these parrots across the garden was scene worth millions, for the child that I was.
Today when most of the free space of my campus has been lost to commercial use, I wish I had a mobile phone at that time, so that I could capture those glimpses of beautiful parrots to revisit them now. Today the house campus has concrete construction all over, sparing a patch of land, occupied by two lovely Mango trees, one Parijat tree, extensive Rose bed and lawn grass.
Until 15-20 years back, Sparrows were very common to our courtyard near kitchen windows, where they could find eatables. These small tiny lives would always alight in folk and their chirping sounds filled the air with energy and bustle.
My sister Guria, had special affinity for Gauraiyaas ( Name for Sparrows in Hindi). She would sprinkle rice on the floor of courtyard and would wait for their arrival. She used to say , “these Gauraiyaas (Sparrows) are my sisters. Just see how letters in their name resemble with that of mine!”
Once we got a chance to watch and see a Nightingale couple raising their family in our house. Our house had a big hall which was not properly complete yet, and was meant for renting it out to some office in future.
The hall was on the first floor which opened to north with its four giant sized arched gates. six foot high windows were planned in its two walls to the east and to the west. The hall was almost a doorless shelter, through which birds moved across freely.
My mother was very quick to notice that a pair of Nightingale birds was frequently approaching the dark foliage of Dracaena plant, which we had grown in an earthen pot in this hall, and was surveying its surrounding. Soon they started the construction of a new nest amidst the branches of this plant. The two bird architects built a small but awesome dreamhouse for their coming little guests.
To our great surprise the nest was aerodynamically stable. It also dawned upon us that the selection of this dark hued plant was an strategic choice to provide camouflage against strangers and possible predators.
At some opportune time the female nightingale laid eggs in the nest which she and her partner had woven so meticulously with great perseverance. Within two or three days, new creatures came out of the shell. This was great news for us also. Everyone of us couldn’t wait to take glimpse inside the nest.
It was very fulfilling and surprising to see how these Nightingale birds with food for their newborns in their beaks took a sudden change of route and would sit and wait when they saw any of our family members coming in their way. Even we also were fully conscious to allow free and fearless passage to these parent birds impatient to feed their newborns. My father took special care for their protection from cats. I don’t remember exactly but he had improvised some arrangement with the help of old mosquito net to block the access of cats to this new family.
Gradually both humans and avians of this house developed harmony and cooperation with each other. We were putting to practice the learnt lessons of synergy, cooperation, giving space to each other, feeling happiness in happiness of others and feeling sad when our neighbourhood sinks in some problem.
Within 4 to 5 days these newborns had wings. Now the parents began their training for flying. First day they only became able to come out of the nest, fly up to 4 to 5 foot distance in one go, and then would sit on concrete shelf made in the wall and would relax. I was amazed to feel that how the Invisible Supreme, which we say God, was taking care of all the biochemistry, physical dynamics, psychological settings, and observation and response mechanism in these little new creatures! Here was the place and moment when I could realise that life with all its complexity and simplicity are set on auto pilot mode by that Almighty God, the supreme creator, protector and destroyer!
The next day parents brought them out under open sky, and in next few days they flew towards the bamboo thickets in our backyard, never to come in our notice again.
The new lives thus got well set and adjusted in this endless universe! Their left out nest often reminded us of those unique and special days. The joyful days in fact. We didn’t remove that nest till it got withered itself, lost, and got assimilated into nature, The Mother.
We humans have become too absorbed in ourselves and have grown insensitive to our surrounding. Sparrows and many other birds are now in the list of endangered species and are on the verge of extinction. Thanks to the pollution and radiation caused by mobile towers dotted every where.
Covid times proved great teacher for this human civilisation. Reduction in industrial and transportation activity saw the nature relaxing and reviving. Many children in metro cities experienced the darkness of night sky and cool of moonlit sky. People woke up in the morning to the sounds of chirping birds. For the first time, in these days, birds, butterflies, honeybees realised that this earth, this climate is theirs too!
In this market driven world, can we ever be considerate and generous enough to think about recreating and bringing back the past rich glory of our forests, rivers, and climate? Can we? If we could, we certainly would take steps to restore and rehabilitate our nature, and ofcourse the birds would chirp again !