Fighting for a nest

 

A tiny mud nest on the verandah ceiling in a simple village house. Twice a year swallow couples raise their chicks here. One of the two annual hatchings must be that of the couple which built the nest.

This time a little group of house sparrows quarreled with the swallow couple. The noisy skirmishes lasted over two-three days. Finally, the sparrows, on account of their numerical superiority, captured the property.

Then the sparrows fought among themselves to be the first occupants of the swallow nest. The most quarrelsome among them won the rights. They moved in but it was no sparrow nest. The interior had to be done in the sparrow style. So they started ferrying wisps of dry grass from dawn to dusk to cover the tiny mud cup attached to the two-inch ledge of the iron girder.

There was hardly any space for the dry grass to stay and give it some slight semblance of a sparrow nest. The grass kept falling, they kept depositing. The floor would be a mess, needing cleaning at least four times in a day to maintain the least sense of a human house.

It went on for ten days. The sparrows but won’t give up. After all, the prices in the nesting real estate have sky rocketed because of the scarcity of nesting sites. The poetic house owner felt very sad for them. They just kept on ferrying dry grass, cotton strips, rolls of thread and wool to make a cozy sparrow home—out of sheer momentum of memory and habits in the cells.

The more easily the grass fell down, the harder they worked with panting beaks in June heat. The loose grassy assortment would hang like a bushy tail, acquire weight and fall down. After ten days or so they started losing their enthusiasm. There was not enough wind in their wings anymore. They flew with lackadaisical spirits.

Some other sparrow couple—coveting the property—took advantage of the situation and beat them away after a short fight. Now they started repeating the same futile exercise. They too lost their willpower after a week. Their sagging spirit was stabbed by a third couple who beat them away and started with the mission.

It was getting stretched too far. The floor in a mess for one month. The farmer’s genes in the poetic man showed their colors to settle the issue. His patience met an end. He took a long stick and gave a tap at the mud cup bringing it down.

I think we humans have been doing the same, coveting what others possess, beating them in competition, failing like them and getting beaten by someone else till the great stick holder loses his patience at the repetitive futile game and breaks the mud nest with a gentle tap—death.