Nursing an injured butterfly

The night showers have turned this summer morning cool and breezy. Playing badminton under the sky’s fatherly muse carries extra fun. The air also gets a chance to play with the swirling shuttle. All this adds to the playfulness, the basic essence of all games, even though we have smothered it down on the anvil of competitiveness and caged playfulness in the iron equation of winning and losing. So the sky too plays through its airy racket, me and my brother have our own poor humanly ones. 

The China made shuttle is surprisingly holding up wear and tear even after a few weeks of enthusiastic play by amateurs like us. Possibly it has drawn inspiration from Corona which is also pretty durable unlike the rest of use and throw substandard Chinese consumer goods. The shuttle has ruffled plastic panels, a mark of the gamesters’ brattish gusto. A champion of orderliness would have thrown it away, but a disciple of disorderliness like me finds many more games in it, just because its ruffled, spiked look of an ungainly youth adds to the swerving dynamics and hence the playfulness, which is basically what I look for.

The summer sun is playing hide and seek through the big flakes of white clouds floating in the sky. A pair of Pieris rapae, a white butterfly with couple of black dots on each wing, floats with nature’s best playfulness. The nearby kari patta tree has little cream flowers. It must be delicious to the sucklers because usually a lot of honeybees and butterflies hover around. In majestic combo, the delicate feathered beauties take sips of juice from the plant and swirl full of love and bonhomie in the eddies of cool morning air. The manmade plastic butterfly, the shuttle, is also going this way and that way, marking the trajectory of the happy spirits of we brothers.

It has been a juicy breakfast for the butterflies. One of them takes a fancy for the flying man-made butterfly being beaten between two ends. It swirls around it as the shuttle glides without much force midway through its course. We find it quite playful. The butterfly is too agile and mischievously flirtatious to get harmed by the poor slow moving shuttle. Many times, it pleasantly glides past with amazing sleekness and show of agility.

Bad things are as distant or near as the good ones. To our horror, the butterfly—the innocent participant in our playfulness—tumbles down during one of its maneuvers. It has not been hit visibly, at least to our eyes. Some grazing may be. But we shouldn’t forget the softness of a butterfly. What appears a harmless graze to us might be fatal to them. It flutters on the ground and can’t take off. I hold it as delicately as it is possible and place it among the leaves of the nearby flowerbed. A sort of fragrant hearse for her! I have almost given up hope of its survival. Again a proof, how easily we fall into the pit of dejection and disbelief.

Its wings,, antennae and legs appear unbroken as I inspect. But the poor thing can’t take off as it tries its best to fly. In their dimension, flying is life; any extended stay is sure a harbinger of death. Here the only pause comes with death. Aren’t we humans blessed to have awareness to choose such reinvigorating pauses? I leave it to rest and repose keeping a keen eye on it. Meanwhile, unaware of the human-born fatalities, its partner is flying over the little tree. Its movements but lack that freedom born of unspoken support which a butterfly couple gives to each other without speaking about it. It too takes a fancy for the shuttle. Possibly it must have thought that its partner has become bigger. We stop playing to avoid committing double fatalities on the butterfly kingdom.

It’s a sad sight. A butterfly is made for flirtatious flights in the air. I touch its wings with the end of my little finger. There is life. It saddens me to be the cause of all this. Not that I am too sentimental to become self-injurious. Just that I see a glimpse of god in this tiny creature. If one cannot see godliness in such beautiful little winged creatures, I am sure he will be missing it somewhere among humans also. There is hardly any qualitative difference when it comes to having empathy for an injured butterfly or an injured human being.

I have heard that a bit of water can save lives. I decide to try the same formula that I applied to a house sparrow that had been hit by a vehicle on the road. Three decades back, as I walked to the farm-side, a bamboozling truck took a sparrow into its furious eddies and I found it collapsed by the road. I picked it up and went to a water puddle and put some water into its open beak. Its eyes were closed. Lost in my innocent concern I went cursing the driver. Holding it in my palm, I walked like a little birdie doctor. A few minutes later it opened its eyes and was in a position to sit on my open palm. I walked so proudly to have saved a sparrow’s life that will definitely become my pet without a cage out of gratitude. I completely believed in this possibility. To break all this childish belief, the sparrow flew almost perfectly one fine moment, may be after 10 minutes in my hand. I felt hurt and a bit irritated at that time. I am so happy now at the memories. Letting go is ultimately for the benefit of all of us.

So now I try my water solution. Only that the winged life is too delicate and tiny this time. I take a bit of water in the palm of my hand and moisten my fingers of the other hand to target littlest water drops around its mouth and the leaves around it. I cannot choke her to death with water. It is minute job, like a watch repairer does. I creep on all fours to accomplish the water dosage. Finally, I see the tiniest of a star just around its mouth. I see it fluttering a bit more lifefully. Definitely it has regained a bit of strength. The place is reasonably secure from predators, so it can bide its time. I go off the scene for some time. As I come back to check after a few minutes, it is not to be seen. I have a right to assume that it took off like the sparrow did. To confirm my faith, I see a solitary butterfly flying lowly on the opposite side of the bed where I had placed the injured one.

Never bind your care and concern in the quantitative scale. The sweet essence of a drop is as good as the entire sea.