On the strip of solace

 

Here I’m on my strip of solace between the two canals going side-by-side. There is water, plenty of it. There are well-watered reeds bordering the streams. Here at least the mankind is not at war to grab more and more land. This has allowed mother nature to bloom a thin ribbon of scrub jungle consisting of some trees, coarse grass and thorn bushes—a scrub and grass ribbon going like a natural lifeline among the pesticide and fertilizer smeared cropped fields on both sides. Walking on the little footpath, and looking at the red disk of the sun slowly melting into the silvery mist of the horizon augments silence and solitude to such proportions as would be sufficient to heal the scars on one’s soul.

The bushes and the reeds have plenty of prinias of various types. The dusky grey, rust brown and rufous earthy brown denizens of the bushy world suspiciously peep at this encroacher from the outside world. They flick their graduated tail up and down and jerkily go hopping across their home bushes to ensure that the enemy has safely crossed over to the other side. Some bushes have conversational, lively twittering that changes to a plaintive, sharp tee-tee-tee, asking me to go away. Little do they realize that I’m also looking for a bush to hide from the bigger, bad world of humans.

One particular prinia, ashy prinia, gives a kit-kit-kit call on being startled by my arrival. Maybe it snaps its bill in irritation to produce the sound. Another type of little prinia gives brr-brr-brr notes with its wings as it angrily hops among the tall grass to make sure the enemy has passed his home bush. They have woven with grass fibers (strengthened with cobwebs) domed or oval pouches in grass tussocks and weed stems. Theirs is a little world centered around a few clumps of grass and bushes. But there are plenty of caterpillars, small beetles, ants, larva to supply calories for their agile flip-flops among the bushes. And when they decide to have a veg supper, there is nectar from tiny wild flowers like Butea, Erythrina and Salamalia. But they have to be very careful till the end of the day when the last streaks of purple light are dying from the clouds in the west after the twilight. Greater coucal, a beautiful dark handsome birdie prince with rust brown wings, loves stalking them across the bushes even till the last rays of the day. He is hunting for their eggs and even the grownups if they get lazy. While most of the birds have started for their host trees and bushes, the coucal still lingers among the bushes. Maybe it stays just nearby to start hunting again with the next dawn.