The Little Sparrow

Cooling in the elixir of postmodernist afterglow?  There are deft strokes, steely lines and spools of songs about our achievements. There are shadowy poles that beat the fog with their pale, penetrating light. But then angelic, sacred balance and natural laws have been violated and warped. Something basically wrong has happened with nature during the present scandalous times.

Have you ever seen a sparrow couple fighting out with another, the latter having set up its nest, mated, laid eggs and waiting for hatching under the mother’s warm fur and father’s protective gaze? It does happen now. The force of human touch is too strong on nature. Everything is getting humanised. And with due respect to the pardonable—beyond the realm of sin and pity—non-judgemental fight among the innocently instinct-led lives in the animal and bird kingdoms, we can still brand it as the most gruesome attack on somebody’s home and hearth to fulfil the basest of a selfish motive.

They were furiously screeching, chirping, pecking their beaks into the rivals’ fur mercilessly; their little claws trying to gouge out the opponents’ eyes. Mind you, it had all human connotations. Their rumpled feathers and crumpled fur had all the elements of a bloody street fight among we humans. And what was it for? To grab the nest!

Possibly the fact that the nest had the smell of human hand in making it had something to do with the things going nasty like among the supreme species of the earth. It was a barn roof made of wooden rafters and stone slabs. The box made of plywood was attached to one of the rafters. It hung there with a broad look of TO LET for free at the uncemented, brick-laid floor below.

Earlier this transgressing couple never ever cared to look at the abandoned nest, vacant after the previous hatching, waiting for some laborious sparrow couple to sort out things for another cycle of home-making by the new entrants. And a diligent couple arrived looking for a secure home. Finding the odour of long-left nestlings inimical to their pure, non-short-cutting instinct to procreate and preserve, they worked to bring it into order for a new homely start. Old bird-drop smitten sinews were thrown down piece by piece and new ones fixed for a brand new cosy interior. Then eggs were laid and the expectant moments for hatching started.

Now there was a fight at hand. Perhaps, it’s the modern day norm to destroy before getting on to the next step in the journey. The way they—the attacking couple, led by their hissing instinct which easily overpowered the much mellowed down parental defence—beat out the parents waiting for the fluid in their tiny eggs to form and shape into nestlings, made them condemnable as the rogue, brutish couple. Broken shells and scattered fluid on the ground for ant-feed provided testimony to the charge against them.

The winners knew that the mourning couple will take one more day to keep fussing around the site, so unashamedly they mated on a nearby tree, fully sure of their possession of the nest. The next day, they started flitting in and out of the sinewed shelter, with spring in their flight and much mirth in their dives; making minor adjustments to the grabbed property to satisfy that primordial birdy instinct to make a nest before drawing out procreative self’s best. Very cleverly they made those minor adjustments; gave themselves a clean chit and life started again in the nest.

Why have even birds started taking short-cuts like the humans, stepping over others’ toes in the selfish stampede, crushing others’ dreams to fulfil personal motives? Very intelligently the birds around the human world have also picked out a few paying lessons from our book of practicality.

******

I, a little sparrow, just out of the nest, and not even baptised, have been a witness to this happening that took place in the neighbouring man-made nest-box attached to the wood and stone slab ceiling. Quite surprisingly, I’ve a wonderful memory to narrate the sayings of Mother almost as she did.

Now, since I’m sitting freely on a branch, I can narrate the whole story without being constantly chirped, pecked and haggled to take first lessons in a birdie flight. Mama and Papa aren’t with me for the simple reason that both of them couldn’t withstand that hit by the ceiling fan (within a couple of days—Papa on the previous day and Mama the following day, that is yesterday) circling in air to make air out of air—and draw blood as well, if chance suited it—over, above, around, beneath the buffalos and calves in this rectangular barn with three wall sides and one side open fronting the courtyard.

Well, as soon as we were hatched and could make out the meaning of her chirp, nestling anecdotes started. For weeks, we were just parting our tiny beaks to this someone who remained with the ugly, hairless, soft piece of purplish offspring. Amidst intervals in their frantic, beakful cargoeing to cater to our unceasing hunger she had some moments of respite:

“Your Papa and I were one day frantically scratching our beaks against the plastered walls and the ceiling of this open-fronted barn. Nowadays, it’s rare to have unplastered walls having nooks, holes and crevices for us to sneak in and make nest. It’s after all a sound, solid, smooth world of modern-day man. And there are still lesser trees with holes in their trunks. So we were desperately trying to undo the smooth plasterwork with our little beaks. But beaks are no chisels. Though by the look of it, we felt sure to do with a hole in the walls just below the ceiling, around the rafter-ends.

“It is, as you can see with some care not to fall down, a stone slab and wood-beamed roof, so we smelt our chance here. There are two iron cross-beams. The one that you see just ahead and the other you can’t—but will see later as you come out to enjoy this big world. These run along the width and the small wooden rafters supported on the beams along the length across the three sections bearing the stone slabs make our roof. Well, that’s our roof. It’s better to know ones roof. It’s as good as knowing the root.

“All of us need the holes of our sizes. But just for utilitarian purpose, we can’t become ants to lay eggs. Harder and harder we worked. Our wings smeared with sweat. We could disturb spider-webs, plaster and lime whitewash only. There was little to show, except some dents in the lime-wash, in lieu of our efforts. It’s so hard to make a home inside some bigger one’s home!

“This farmer that you can steal a glance from above, tending the buffalos, cutting the grass, working on the chaff-cutter over there, and grinding wheat in that chakki—the way I do for you in my beak on a tiny scale—in that flour machine there in the opposite left hand corner, is very kind and understanding. We birds for make a big noise our little demands. It’s disproportionate to our worth and feathery stature. But quite paradoxically our noise does appear a song to the bigger world having bigger brains. So most often, even our mourning for the dead goes on to be interpreted as a song of celebration, as if in some nest the prince of the whole birdie kingdom has been born.

“There are good people, simply like there are bad people. Are they really good, or they have to put up the pretention of being good through supposedly good acts, we don’t know. Is goodness the first flash received in reaction to circumstances; or they have to labour for it? Well, these questions shouldn’t rob us of our thankfulness we should feel for this farmer boy. God bless him with all good things in life, a nice harvest, good wife and long life and a longer trail of children! He knew it was no song of ecstasy and love. It was a noise of desperation. So he thought of helping us.

“Then there are various categories of people. Some don’t listen even if they see it; some listen but don’t act; some act in a bad way; and some act positively. And God bless him with more happiness than any other human being. He not only listened but acted well also. He nailed plywood boards into this beam here in the safe corner. He made this box fixed to the wood rafter away from all storms and dangers.

“There are but many takers for such safe house-letting. So a rival couple, in the same position as we, arrived just as we had staked our claim to the wooden little box by ferrying the foundational sinews. To defend this fact and to save a position of being held culpable on account of not defending our right, and thus add to the lawlessness, we maintained and secured our foothold.

“Now there are some people who can even repeat an act of kindness even twice; who don’t turn their ears deaf and eyes blind, hands crippled, legs numb, mind not seized with clapping for the already opened account of goodness, and heart not basking and drawing moral solace from that sole deed for days on end. Defying all these simply affordable luxuries, he took another bitter swig of practicality (or maybe it was really a sweet pill to him), he made another one over there just to the other side of the iron cross-beam, where you can see the lower ends of the dangling sinews from its opening. Ours, however, is more favourably placed. Here you have this big swing they playfully turn on, and sometimes it gets turned off by itself; sometimes it starts again by itself and sometimes they have to put their index finger over that board!”

Well, you might complain that I, a young sparrow just out of the nest for the first time, my funny purplish body bearing a funny coat of grey-brown tufts yet to cover the whole of me, have ended up telling a whole epical story from the book of birdie mythology. But it isn’t so. It’s a simple narrative Mother told me and my little sister.

I take the onus and burden of being the elder sibling for the mere fact of my male gender, her relatively slow development, pathetic shrill cries as well as my outmanoeuvring her to grab most of the beakfuls Mama and Papa managed to get from somewhere. Where did they go, I was never able to know. To me the world meant this roof and the barn floor below; society means the vague indication of hustling and bustling in the neighbouring nest.

I don’t know why there are so many different types of birds. Well, there must have been some pattern and reason behind all this; otherwise all bird parents will make their offsprings look the same. In that case, it will turn really funny. Elders would feed wrong kids, mistaking others’ children as their own.

To some physical requirements and convenience come first and the moral, material duties required to support the former come later. I don’t exactly understand the real meaning of it. I’ve sort of crammed it up for the sake of my all-knowing Papa, as he told me on that stormy night while the big noise from where my parents fetched grains kept we nestlings awake.

With a mischievous glint of pride, Mama and Papa bragged that day that the other couple was just the same; while they were the opposite. Here again I just reproduce the words—for I’ve been born with a keen memory—chirped by Mama about the meaning of ‘opposite’:

“To us the duty comes first. The duty to support the pleasure; otherwise today’s pleasure becomes tomorrow’s pain. So before deciding to bring you two to this nest, we worked on this opening in the box. It was a bit big and risky for you little ones. We almost sewed up the opening with grass sinews to avoid a fall, leaving this nice peephole for you and a door for us. It took us weeks before we finally entered the marital life. But she, the lady in that other couple, already had eggs in her furred belly when they came to fight us.

“Hadn’t it been for the farmer boy, she would have been forced to lay eggs in open much to the shame of motherhood. So they had no time to secure their box’s opening. While the nature’s call or miscall struck at her belly and father’s head, they scampered for a couple of days to get a famished bed for the eggs and the flimsiest of a grass wall around the opening.

“Thank God you didn’t see the consequences to the nestlings because then you were mere eggs. The day their scurrying for food started to shake the nest’s sinew wall, their future seemed almost lost. More so because the farmer’s son has a domesticated cat. A cat eats the likes of us! So always be scared of them. Now we hate cats for this fact. But we can pity her as well for we have wings. A cat can’t fly. So unless and until we become too careless to allow the cat’s earthly crawling beat our sky-high winged flight, we need not have fear at the cat front. So as youngsters, I’ll not teach you both to get crazy about the cat’s claws and make little, ineffective, hateful noise of the predator. Strengthen your wings. That is my advice.                    

“Now, before you both start hating this farmer boy for petting a cat, let me tell you that there are rats as well. And rats do a great harm to a farmer’s harvest and interests. So they have to bear with the nuisance of even a cat. You must have seen her prowling below from the strong parapet of your nest, gazing with the patience of a sage at our box. Whenever the cat had time from the rats and its mean mewing at the stray ones of her type, it stood below our neighbouring nest. It saw a chance there. The opening was too big. Its mouth brimming with water as it listened to the meaty sounds coming from behind that thin curtain of sinews and grass specks at the box’s opening. The nestlings were growing rapidly, as you were very slowly coming into shape inside your shells. The farmer boy knew the cat’s intentions, so not to rob him of the credit for his good deed, many a time he shooed her away from the spot. But he couldn’t beat her out of the house for the simple reason that there were many rats.

“The nestlings—three of them—had grown fat as the parents had been feeding them quite well. Whimpering to eat more and more, they now hit against the grassy protection around the opening. It finally gave away and two of them dropped like little meaty dumplings in the form of reward for the cat’s patience. Before the farmer boy could run to their help, she, more agile, gathered up the freebies and ran towards the courtyard wall. She wouldn’t let go off the prize even as a stick landed on its back while it cleared the fence. Now, you might say that he must have forsaken the criminal. To be fair to him, he must have even thought about doing the same, for I saw him chasing the offender for a couple of days. He must have started to become oblivious to the fact that there are rats if not for his mother’s stern chiding. Even the rats came out of their holes. Since there were rats, so there had to be a cat. They are still hidden around. Beware of them! Rats are even bigger enemies because they cause the cat to exist in the house.

“Well, to leave the cat and return to the tragedy-stricken parents, we can’t add wordings to their grief. The grassy facade had fallen. It now appeared a gaping hole of death in the far corner of which cowered the lone survivor. I saw it in the maker’s eyes as he pitifully looked at the nest from below. We don’t speak but our chirps make us understand our own chirping—that helps in telling you the story. But for the unspoken feelings of the humans! They are strange, so I cannot tell you anything about them. But I found him full of guilt for his design. His eyes conveyed that feeling to me. O yes, humans’ eyes tell a lot about the things that aren’t spoken. ‘I should have put up a support along the opening,’ I guessed him to rue sullenly. But somebody’s good intentions can’t match the perfection of design required to bring the full fructification of those kind wishes...”

Here again I’m just repeating the words, for the meaning gets lost to me. I must reproduce the crammed words. I feel more confident of my memory than of my wings. Anyway to carry on with my mother’s story:

“So as a result of the bird couple’s mismanagement, his deficiency of design and the cat’s simple validation of the fact that ‘cats not only eat rats, they eat birds with even more relish’ he blamed himself.

“After mourning the loss of two hatchlings, they had to still work for the survivor. As we birds forget easily, the task at hand becomes the real cause for flying, chirping, peeking, etc., etc. They showered all paternal and maternal love upon the lone hatchling. The farmer boy knew that the last one was also doomed to fall, so he tried as many times to forget that there are rats and kicked the cat, followed by more and more lingering below the nest to catch the victim mid air.

“He is a very learned fellow, knows that a nestling—as soon as it gets onto its feet—tries to follow the parents after they have emptied their beaks into its greedy pout. So the moment the little one’s shriek of joy announcing the parent bird’s arrival signalled him, he rushed to the scene to avoid repetition of the gory incident of the past.

“The young bird flapped its yellowish wings, pecked with its yellow-cornered beak at the saggy, scattered tufts of feathering. Many a time, it came almost toppling down as it continued on its repetitive haggling for food as the parents left the nest. Finally, one day its childish greed found it toppling down. However thanks to its good stars, there was no cat but the boy who had forgotten or trying to forget that there are rats. He plays the game of ball really well. I’ve seen him catching the ball over there in the playground where we get the grains outside the village. He caught the terrified thing midair. The screechy little drop almost choked itself to death with fear.

“Its unthankful parents, quite ignorant of the home-maker’s latest deed of kindness, chirped obscenities from the branches of the neem tree swaying to gentle breeze in the courtyard. He knew that any effort to play the role of father-mother by him would still fall way short of the mark to save the little nestling—so repressing the urge to keep it—he flew it or rather threw up towards the hanging branches. It flapped its feathery resistance against a fall, thus fell less painfully, but cried as if had been shot. Anger and blame game touched a new high from the parents.

“However, a tree is a tree because it gives air, shadow and shelter to anyone looking for these. The fact that it was a tree was proved by another fact that there was another bird on it. It was but a crow! On the second throw, the wily crow plucked away the offering mid air and flew away with a thanksgiving cawing. In desperation the boy hit himself on the head and stoically bore all humiliations heaped by the stolen kid’s parents screeching, squeaking in pain.

“As penance, he boarded up half of the opening for a better future and clearer conscience. He came to our nest as well with the same suspicion about safety and the same set of resolution. However, both we parents chirped very confidently from our grassy fortress. He had to convince himself that at least we won’t add to his score of self-reproach. You were only eggs then dears; and he left us as we were!” 

Then we were hatched and grew at the cost of their parental labour. Then one day, I witnessed that genocide of egg-breaking by the rogue couple who sneaked into the other nest to set up their home by force. If not for that foul-smelling oddity life seemed birdie-small and infinitely enjoyable.

Mama and Papa were feverishly bent upon bringing each and everything available there in the outer world. The things and stuff that their beaks cut were easily lost in my gut. We thus grew bigger. I myself had a vague notion of this fact of growing stronger because now we made greater noise and ate more. But more was the look of desperation on the faces of Mama and Papa. We thought we did them a favour by nibbling down everything they brought. So in order to make them happy in their occupation, we continued making noises even while our little bellies were full. Getting irritated, papa sometimes gave us punishing preens. He always talked of future...when you will grow up...when you will catch a worm yourself...when you’ll fly. And we siblings wondered why he talked so much about something we didn’t even know about.

Papa would have been really happy to see a day when his inexplicable and unmeaningful words dawned on us with their clear meaning. But then something happened and he was no longer able to repeat those same words amidst beak-panting spells. It also meant that he no longer had to labour to and fro for beakfuls of cargo to feed us. Both the above stoppages and pluggings meant that Mama now had to work doubly hard and change her soft molly-coddling words into his guiding phrases. ‘The balance’ she said. The toy that produces air out of air had mothered all these new meanings of a changed reality.

We birds have this faculty of minding only the business we are engaged in. However, it is a handicap as well. Handicap—faculty...faculty—handicap...advantages—disadvantages...profit—loss...loss—profit...paradoxically these seem to have a peculiarly perverted, juxtaposed, interposed meaning to me. I can just draw a hazy meaning of what I just ended up telling you. Haa, haa but that makes me a philosopher.

From the grassy parapet we had a nice view of the swirling circle. We enjoyed its circular antics. It was so funny. Mama and Papa but warned each other while going out, looking at it apprehensively. However, coming in with a full beak is a totally different ball game. At that time possibly their mind doesn’t mind too much about the funny thing. And darting in with proud air, Papa was hit by the air- producing toy. His skull smattered; beak offloaded for the last time. Air catapulted him against the wall and then he slumped without air in his wings down the wall. For a few moments the air still seemed wobbling inside him at the foot of the wall, as if to play with the air from the airy toy.

He seemed all the same except airless, flightless and a tiny patch of blood on the skull tufts and loss of few feathers. I wondered why Mama was making such a huge roar over such a minor difference in Papa’s status. Then I grew anxious perhaps the difference was bigger than I had initially presumed for he didn’t move. I got worried that the cat will arrive, but perhaps all rats had gone out of the house that day, so the cat luckily didn’t reach the spot. It must have gone where all the rats had gone, perhaps on some vacation.

I learnt a new thing that day: if a cat isn’t around then it gives enough time for the snaily ants to creep up in swarms up to the one who has danger at the hands of a cat. And I wondered and tried to calculate their number; whether they will be able to carry him or not. Before a cat he seemed so small, but before these ants he looked huge. However, someone still bigger came to lift him. Seeing my Papa on his palm, I wondered whether this change of status had brought a new friendship between the boy and him. It taught me a lesson that if you are a bird but don’t fly due to change of status, you then become friend to a boy. Mama was in crying fits and we too imitated her; grew hungry in the process and opened our pleading beaks to her. Forgetting all her change of mood from Papa’s change of status, she started with larger beakfuls with more frequency.

During resting intervals, she sat in the nest and looked sadly at the changed status of the airy toy; which perhaps had been punished for blowing out airs from Papa’s lungs. The boy also looked accusatively at it. However, there were mosquitoes and flies below and there was a buffalo as well who was being tormented by them. The insects, in dangerous droves, loved its blood. When the insects injected out the blood, it reacted furiously and that affected the milking process. So it was necessary to run the airy toy at least during the milking time for the black beauty, who had put so much of airs herself just because she gave milk to them to become fatter.

The next evening, when the barn was buzzing with so much of airs, Mama shrieked painfully and got her status changed exactly like that of father, except the presence of the milking boy on the scene. He ran and stopped the airing toy and picked up Mama with even sadder face. Before that he had run to somehow put air out of the toy. The toy and Mama went airless, but the buffalo had again too much airs about it. It kicked the bucket as a drone fly penetrated its skin. Instead of the cat and ants around, it was milk all over. I also know that if milk is not in the basket, but on the ground, then a beating follows, for the boy’s mother beat him away from the place. He had my Mama in his hand. I couldn’t see further where did they go, but I could hear his mother’s shouting.

Me and my sister were thus left alone. And how wonderful being left alone is! One can either choose to cry his guts out or chirp to the happiest hilt. However, we had our bellies empty so we chose the first option. Our new neighbours in the other nest suspiciously looked, lest our constant noise portended something accusatory against their transgression.

The grown-up brown-white bully, with a patch of black fur on its throat, even pecked at the grass protection about our nest’s opening to silence us. I remember Ma telling me that it was a male who looked like that and I instantly matched it with Pa. We cried more fiercely with wider beaks, thinking the good neighbour had come to feed us. But they had already split the future’s shapes in present’s semi-fluid, so expecting any help from them would have been asking too much. Still a kid sparrow doesn’t know the nitty-gritty of others’ and their own parents, so we cried to get some food, taking their reprimands as some caring, kind signals. Since I was bigger than my sis sparrow and ate more than her, I made more noise.

Our noise got the farmer boy’s attention. Since he was aware of the status of Mama and Papa, he must have derived our status as well from their status. I with my funny dark brown head gloated at him as the saviour. Though he had all the looks in his eyes of Mama and Papa, he couldn’t become Mama and Papa, because he had no wings to fly to the far place they visited and no beak to carry the food. So I forgave him on that account.

“You have a big noisy head. Necessity will force you to come out of the nest and become a sparrow from an orphan nestling!” he must have calculated in his big head, after all they seem to run this world with their big head buzzing with God knows what type of ideas.

I knew he had in all his kindness thought of saving us by playing a hardy role. But we were just nestlings. And he won’t be able to grow wings and beak to become Mama and Papa two-in-one. So it was hopeless from the beginning. He thus left us to face our lonely orphaned night.

If I could break these shells—I looked at the egg-shell fragments lying crushed around the grassy interior—while I was the tiniest of a thing to come out, I can still do the same. I tried to brace myself up quite funnily.

All the day’s bulbs dangling unseen outside were put out by turns and darkness crept up in the barn below. Though the boy lit up a feeble reddish thing on the wall opposite, perhaps to remove darkness from our scared minds and nest, in addition to the daily purpose of helping the buffalo see what was what and save her from conjecturing phantoms. But this was the darkest night we had ever faced. Nothing can be darker than being parentless. We both kept crying late into the night and when sleep could no longer wait for the stoppage of our sad songs, it somehow smothered us down.

When our eyes opened, the light bulb in the barn had been turned off and the bigger one somewhere outside had been turned on. Right from the word go, we started our day with a spell of fearful and heart-rending chirping in all its suffering connotations. Somebody must have said it pretty well that we must not cry out our sorrows too loudly, for in that case these tend to perpetuate themselves.

A sparrow sat to our side of the iron cross-beam and looked attentively, hopefully into the nest. I thought it was Mama who on account of her changed status now looked a bit different. But these little shards of hope were dispelled when she suddenly darted into the opening. Shorn of all our past sorrows, we gave a shrill cry of triumph, gave her a happy look for her new smarter, sleeker—for Mama had pretty worn-out herself before her last status—appearance and parted our beaks a bit accusatively and complainingly.

However, instead of love-cuddling pecks, she gave a painful bite at the yellow, soft edge of my beak. Still hopeful, I thought maybe she is reprimanding me for some silly mistake I might have committed during her absence. But a harsher peck at little sis’s softer and almost tuftless violet body convinced me that either it wasn’t Mama or if it was she indeed, then in this new avatar as the beholder of a new status she didn’t need us or at least won’t feed and love us.

She was later joined by another one. It was a young, strong male. I couldn’t help appreciating this new look of Papa. However, he was even harsher in his mistreatment. Maybe, he was angry that we hadn’t changed like them. But then I became sure they were not Mama and Papa, but some nest-grabbers like I had seen in my neighbourhood.

As the stronger elder sibling, I tried to protect the property, lest Mama and Papa returned to chide me for not protecting the home and hearth properly in their absence. Little sis cowered in a corner, while I fought them peck for peck. But I was just a kid sparrow who hadn’t taken a single flight, hadn’t taken a single beakful of my own. So inevitably I was finally dislodged from my precarious perch on the sinew rampart.

I knew there are rats, so making the presence of a cat quite logical. The floor below seemed an open jaw of a cat. So I flapped my wings with all my hungry belly’s might. I just beat them like I had been flapping inside the nest purposelessly. But then there was ground beneath my little paws and now I needed to avoid getting grounded. So naturally my feeble, famished flapping was bound to follow. To my surprise, it came naturally. A sparrow is destined to fly some day, I think. But then flying isn’t the only thing in life.

Life stuck up in my chirpy throat, I just flapped dizzily without knowing the path or direction. Much to my first shriek of joy for the last many-many hours—now it had started to appear like I hadn’t chirped happily even once since that doomed rupture in the shell brought me into this world of sorrows—I found myself landing on the wings of the air-maker which fortunately wasn’t making air at that time—perhaps it had stopped to witness my first flight—otherwise my status too would have changed like that of my parents.

Now I cried for my little sis to come out. They were having a good time pecking at her soft, half-furred body. I myself was disappointed with my look in the new light. I appeared quite funny. A muddy greyish cast. My almost fully furred body carried the striking vulgarity of a yet-to-take-flight nestling. But then I remembered I had taken my first flight and that too quite successfully. So I convinced myself that in the department of looks also I will perform better after my consequent flights.

They then threw out my little sis also. From the first moment, I cried words of encouragement. But she was too small, soft and feeble. Her first flight was surely going to be a failure. She wasn’t that mature to know that she had wings with a purpose to fly.

However, knowing the wings and putting desperate efforts to use them don’t mean a successful first flight, which in majority of the cases robs further chances of a retry. Why? Because there are rats and that means there are cats also. She struggled harder than I could have ever expected. Just a few more morsels daily for the last weeks and she definitely would have made it with her will power!

Now I held myself guilty for eating her share and thus robbing her of that extra power which would have ensured success in the first flight itself. That is, in reaching a destination, safe from the cat, even if it means to land on this airy toy that takes air out of sparrows to give air to the buffalo.

Alas, she fell! Not vertically straight that would have been humiliation. She flew slantingly, plummeting down dangerously, out of the barn’s all-open front except for the two supporting columns. She almost hit the middle of the neem trunk in the courtyard.

“Clutch at the bark...clutch at the bark...dig your little claws into it!” I cried at the top of my voice.

However, it required a few more ounces of strength. But her long flight, longer than mine and I felt beaten on this account even though she ate lesser, had sapped her of the tiny reservoir of her power. She just slumped along the rough, dark-brown surface of the main trunk. There she sat on the ground by the trunk; her beak panting like the world outside was airless.

Some rat must have played truant in some corner of the house for it created ripples in the cat’s catty self and she ran towards the scene. Screeching a warning, I threw myself out from my perch. But instead of landing on the cat’s cursed head, I found myself clinging from the upper part of the trunk, where it branched off into many other parts to allow we birds some shelter and airy swings.

She proved that she was a true, unerring and unsparing cat. Much to my consternation even the farmer boy wasn’t there to punish the culprit with a hit at its bum while it leapt over the fence. Enjoying the regal spectacle of the cat hunting a prey, my neighbours were chirping meticulously from the branches above. I don’t know whether they were throwing obscenities or were just playfully chirping.

My initiation into the outer world had been quite an ordeal. I knew this new world required one more effort to reach higher in the foliage and from there watch out for the new prospects that might exist for a tiny sparrow like me. So drawing out the last ounces of strength from my hungry belly and bracing up my aching wings, I put up my third effort.

This time but I almost failed. I came hurtling and crashing down the branches to anchor my little paws into some support. I had almost given up but then luckily found myself clinging from a low hanging branch. After panting and resting for long minutes, I decided to give another try. This time I was satisfied as I found myself perched on a bough in the middle of the canopy. And from my dear place, away from the cat’s reach, I gathered my wits to collect some thoughts about this new world.

“So this is the new world Mama and Papa ferried food from!” I thought about their trials and tribulations.

The tree wasn’t as big as I had supposed it to be. It didn’t look as interesting and mysterious as I had imagined it to be. The neem just appeared a bigger nest on a larger scale. There were high-low zigzagging walls of the houses, where there were more people like our own farmer boy. Maybe, there were rats and many more cats also. And there was this dull-bluish ceiling—like our very own roof—seemingly very high overhead. I suppose it wasn’t as high as it seemed, for it appeared to be supported by the upper edges of the walls at the farthest corner this bigger nest.

I mustered up my wings, thinking that maybe I’ll be able to take flights long enough to take a peek around this larger—though not as big as I had thought earlier—nest to find Mama and Papa in their changed status. But the earlier efforts had been too daunting and tiresome. So I completely abandoned the idea and put all my faith in my vocal cords. Quite surprisingly, even with my hungry belly, I could cry quite noisily. This I banked upon to carry my chirping message to my parents. Sitting there in the branches of the neem tree I cried:

“Mama and Papa, do you hear? I have successfully taken my first flight as you wished me to. But the bad thing is that the little sis failed. Weak and small as she was. Her failure meant that the cat took flight with her!”

I was loudly chirping all that had happened in the course of the time since their change of status.

I was fully confident that this newer bigger world wasn’t big enough to stop my voice from reaching their ears. But it didn’t change my status or position in any way. Quite unlike the bulb on the barn wall, this bigger bluish roof had its bigger, far brighter bulb. Quite surprisingly, it changed its position since the time I had started to cry my guts out. Still more interestingly, the shades of its light also changed colours.

My constant screaming did attract some attention. The way they were cawing they must be crows, I thought. I recalled a story Mama had told me one day about them. I immediately knew it didn’t portend well, for like cats they too are enemies with the added faculty of flying. A sparrow has to outmanoeuvre them in variously agile flying pattern. However my options were so few that I decided to wait and watch.

The crows then started quarrelling for me, as if none of them had a son of theirs and they wanted to adopt me. The black monsters made it a virtual battlefield on the tree. Now I realised that there still was a bigger world beyond what I saw, for the farmer boy surely must not have been there because he didn’t rush to the noisy scene in his courtyard. Had he been somewhere in the bigger nest, he was sure to come out to inquire. And that would have saved me.

“Maybe he is chasing the cat—completely forgetting that there are rats—with little sis in its mouth!” I thought.

“Am I so dear to these darkies that they are fighting it out among themselves to lay claim on me?” now I got some little traces of pride.

Then a bigger claimant with a larger instinct to patronise me hovered over the tree. In contrast to the blacks, its colour was brown-greyish. Its size was also bigger than the crows. But those murderously searing, searching eyes looked at me with such force that I felt attracted, exalted and scared at the same time. 

One other thing, it also made me sure that it wasn’t just a rogue, outcaste crow painted differently as a punishment and given bloodied eyes also due to beatings. It had razor-sharp, pointed, hooked beak. The closer it hovered, more differences struck me and my fear plummeted high into the blue roof. It had deadly claws which far out-sharpened the crows’. Now I realised that its claim on me was the strongest. What made the claim strongest? There was no likewise rival to blunt the sharp edges of its hooked beak and talons. I knew it had all the power to mould my status the way it wanted. I felt a strong surge of nostalgia for my parents’ memories.

“If he takes me then my status as my Mama’s and Papa’s kid will be changed!” I cried attention to all the cawing and fighting darkies.

My warning little chirps, but, went in vain. They, after all, were so busy in fighting it out among themselves. Their love for me was forcing them to give each other bloodied noses. And then, before I could vent out my next warning, those strong talons just snatched me away. It happened so swiftly that my little eyes couldn’t even smack their lids.

As he rose higher, with me squeezed in his talons, I cried fools at the blacks. My sound must have been stronger this time, for they got the message and followed us almost crying with tears in their eyes. They made all types of threatening cawing, flew swiftly with menacing agility. Even the great fiery bulb—it had changed its position, I got to know while squeezed in those claws—seemed cheering the new claimant’s ownership of me.

One of the sharp talons was curled around my neck restricting my verbosity; others were dug feebly but still tightly in my feathering, giving sharp pain. However, that thrill of bigger, longer flight was giving me such pleasure that I forgot even the pain. The passing cool air, cooler than I had ever felt it, sang in my ears. Clutched topsy-turvy, I had such an exciting vision of the fleeting panorama of this still bigger nest spread far and wide.

There was also that exalted feeling about beating the blacks with the help of this mighty bird. They were left behind and retreated to their smaller world. While travelling trapped in those claws, I imagined all types of fanciful things about the world he was taking me into. Although this world we were flying through seemed limited always up to that line of tree-tops with the blue roof supported on top of the branches. But surprisingly, we were never able to reach the end, so I just waited patiently to come to the front of a newer world.

But all my hopes were dashed as—even before crossing the threshold of this bigger (but not that big) world which seemed just a few paces away by that line of trees across the fields—he stopped in this very world. I was disappointed about the landing place as well. It was a huge strange tree. A dry, leafless tree of this new world, as if my carrier-friend had eaten away all the foliage. At its top was a thick nest of prickly twigs, rags and wood pieces. And mind you, it was stinking like hell. Into this he dumped me. I fell on a dried piece of meat and a little bone which hurt me.

Aawo...now I realised that the big bird needed a playmate for his lonesome, brooding nestling put up so high at this solitary place on this charmless tree. Instantly my new friend, almost as big as a crow but looking so funny in his shabby feathering, came to play with me. I also reciprocated his friendly welcoming leap of joy at me. However, his pecking was severe in comparison to my own caressing and harmless one. I but forgave him just on account of his inability to play softer, given his bigger size and talons to keep it down to my sparrow level.

He was really eager to play with me. His father—or was it mother, I doubted while playing—looked with parental glint of satisfaction from a nearby dead branch. Then I began to bleed at various points of my first coat of feathering. Still I tried to play, though with time, it became a struggle to defend myself from further cuts and bruises. My playmate was too big and almost toyed with me. I kept on complaining noisily. But he was all eager to play and didn’t listen to me at all.

Here we have to stop our narrative for I’m on the verge of fainting due to this bloody game of his...aye...aye...I am perhaps losing in the game!

Fighting sparrows and broken eggs

Cooling in the elixir of postmodernist afterglow?  There are deft strokes, steely lines and spools of songs about our achievements. There are shadowy poles that beat the fog with their pale, penetrating light. But then angelic, sacred balance and natural laws have been violated and warped. Something basically wrong has happened with nature during the present scandalous times.

Have you ever seen a sparrow couple fighting out with another, the latter having set up its nest, mated, laid eggs and waiting for hatching under the mother’s warm fur and father’s protective gaze? It does happen now. The force of human touch is too strong on nature. Everything is getting humanised. And with due respect to the pardonable—beyond the realm of sin and pity—non-judgemental fight among the innocently instinct-led lives in the animal and bird kingdoms, we can still brand it as the most gruesome attack on somebody’s home and hearth to fulfil the basest of a selfish motive.

They were furiously screeching, chirping, pecking their beaks into the rivals’ fur mercilessly; their little claws trying to gouge out the opponents’ eyes. Mind you, it had all human connotations. Their rumpled feathers and crumpled fur had all the elements of a bloody street fight among the humans. And what was it for? To grab the nest!

Possibly the fact that the nest had the smell of human hand in making it had something to do with the things going nasty like among the supreme species of the earth. It was a barn roof made of wooden rafters and stone slabs. The box made of plywood was attached to one of the rafters. It hung there with a broad look of TO LET for free at the uncemented, brick-laid floor below.

Earlier this transgressing couple never ever cared to look at the abandoned nest, vacant after the previous hatching, waiting for some laborious sparrow couple to sort out things for another cycle of home-making by the new entrants. And a diligent couple arrived looking for a secure home. Finding the odour of long-left nestlings inimical to their pure, non-short-cutting instinct to procreate and preserve, they worked to bring it into order for a new homely start. Old bird-drop smitten sinews were thrown down piece by piece and new ones fixed for a brand new cosy interior. Then eggs were laid and the expectant moments for hatching started.

Now there was a fight at hand. Perhaps, it’s the modern day norm to destroy before getting on to the next step in the journey. The way they—the attacking couple, led by their hissing instinct which easily overpowered the much mellowed down parental defence—beat out the parents waiting for the fluid in their tiny eggs to form and shape into nestlings, made them condemnable as the rogue, brutish couple. Broken shells and scattered fluid on the ground for ant-feed provided testimony to the charge against them.

The winners knew that the mourning couple will take one more day to keep fussing around the site, so unashamedly they mated on a nearby tree, fully sure of their possession of the nest. The next day, they started flitting in and out of the sinewed shelter, with spring in their flight and much mirth in their dives; making minor adjustments to the grabbed property to satisfy that primordial birdy instinct to make a nest before drawing out procreative self’s best. Very cleverly they made those minor adjustments; gave themselves a clean chit and life started again in the nest.

Why have even birds started taking short-cuts like the humans, stepping over others’ toes in the selfish stampede, crushing others’ dreams to fulfill personal motives? Very intelligently the birds around the human world have also picked out a few paying lessons from our book of practicality.

Pomegranate seeds in a dung cake

He is looking deep into the well of nostalgic memories. “What does August 15 mean to us? It only means that rains are almost over. A mark of change of seasons. Similarly, January 26 means the end of the real cold,” he gives his peasant interpretation of the Independence Day and the Republic Day.

And the anecdotes follow. His dim eyes are looking back to enliven some memories buried deep in the layers of his brain.

Nobody grew vegetables as a cash crop during those days. It was called dum kheti, named so after a caste legendarily popular for their leisure ways, no physical labour, who survived on singing folk ditties and smashing drums, and that too on rare occasions like when a son was born around. In 1952, it was his family that sowed peas, and not just sowed the seeds but chartered a new path. They had a huge dung disposal pit, where they would dump basketfuls of dung taken out in the morning, as the buffaloes, bulls and cows defecated freely through the night in the bark. A faculty with a domesticated cattle is that it can continue eating through the night, and letting out the waste from behind. And this faculty served as a manure factory during those simple times. In the dung pit, they would pour bucketful of cattle urine. And over months and years it turned into most fertile manure. There was hardly any artificial fertilizer during those days. So they sowed the peas. And not only sowed a vegetable, they sowed the prospects of a new farming way. The pods grew this long, he is indicating from the top of his middle finger to the lower middle of the palm. It even comes as some crude gesture. Some peasants laugh. Even he himself gets conscious, then makes it more polished. The pods had 22 grains, can you believe it, I myself counted these, in fact I learnt counting with those pod grains.

Sugarcane was as thick as this much, he has sprawled his fingers and thumb in opposite directions to accommodate the maximum girth. And what did you need to grow the sweetest wonder? It was just human effort, manure from the dung pit, and sprinkling alkaline soil from the alkaline waste land outside the village. You just chew one sugarcane stick, drink water on the village well, take a bath in its cool water, and mind you, you had to run to your house to avoid dying of hunger.        

He is then telling about the legendary wells among the farms. Their waters were so sweet that you never missed sugar during those days. Then he is telling how everybody was so healthy, so healthy in fact, the healthiest of today would still fall short of the weakest of those times. He is telling of legendary strong bulls which pulled carts that a tractor would struggle with. He tells of buffaloes whose bursting udders would compete with a whole dairy’s output. He tells of mighty farmers who could pull a whole cartload by themselves, in case the bull went on its knees, and still pat the animal on back as if it was his son who needed some help.

Well, it seems the best is long past. Gone with the wind.

******

He never knew that his craze for cricket will turn into a dream that will be kept alive somehow. Growing up in the seventies and eighties, the madness would get into his soul on dusty pitches in the playground outside the village. He could have done batter in studies if not for this obsession with the willow-lashing game. But what did the countryside urchins know about cricket, except Kapil’s famous feat at the world cup, and that two people run madly between the stacks of bricks facing each other from some yards, with a dusty land in between, somebody throwing mindlessly, and someone swinging the tattered bat still more mindlessly, and still more people running madly after the cork ball which had all the possibility of taking whatever course it preferred to take. Well, this isn’t even the A of cricket. It starts many notches further. It’s a very technical game having thousand nuances and mind-games. So it was more of baseball cricket which gripped rural India during the seventies and eighties and it ate countless hours as much as it ate all other sports. Having spent a major portion of his youth in baseball cricket on dusty, holed ground, he got into Delhi Police as a constable. He kept the flame alive, and gave the best of affordable facilities to his son. Settled in a town, sent him to coaching, pushed him to Jim, gave him expert diet. The boy rose above the level of baseball cricket to play cricket, but not beyond the city club level. He isn’t dejected. The dream is still alive. Such big innings are played across three generations at least, he says. I have got him to a level where he will be able to guide his son to at least national level, he has the patience of the Pacific Ocean in just being there for centuries. Well, it’s more suitable to keep the dreams alive. Across generations, in fact. Then they stand a chance to get fulfilled.  

******

China is rabble rousing boundary issues with all neighbors to retain its CPC dictatorship. Keep them believing that there are foes outside, who have committed crimes against the Motherland, and they will forget about their own irritation at the ruling party’s manipulation of their lives. But there is a danger that it will snap like in the USSR. Russia went boom to bust from 1917 to 1991, 74 years of an experiment, which is inevitably bound to fail. Let’s see how far China can manage the experiment which started in 1949. It has been 68 years. Even they may not have as much time as they think. Things may just crumble up. Only reason is, the communist model carries the seeds of its own destruction. Right now Chinese leadership has to have more and more enemies, real and imagined, to keep the people hooked onto the idea that has failed everywhere else in the world.

Too much of laws, rules, regulations, legalized forced discipline creates a facade that goes too perfectly to soar too high. It then crumbles. Perfection rarely sustains. That's why communist societies fall apart. Like a castle of cards. It crashes. Like it did suddenly in Russia. To survive, a society has to have its pitfalls, imperfections. The facade doesn't go too high. It sustains. There are plus and minus which cancel out each other. Oh, the glorious imperfections of democracy. That's why it thrives. In the same way, the well managed, rigid facade in China will crumble. It will collapse. Well, unless they voluntarily introduce some imperfections themselves, some traits of democracy, to make it pliable, some allowance of mischief, some humour, some criticism to bring down the upper stories of the facade which has gone too high. It won't fall then.

******

Ever wondered why so many Muslim boys take to the self-destroying path of violence? Polygamy may be responsible. Multiple wives, many children, family strife, children grow beyond the axis of love and affection required to groom a loving and caring newborn. Long before you love the world outside, and become responsible to keep things in order, you need to have your own quota of love, your share of affection, your portion of trust. In polygamy you get tested. You get isolated when you need your near and dear ones the most. You end up competing instead of being loved and love in return. A polygamy family lacks the positives of a cohesive unit, nurtured by the sweet shower of parental and sibling bonhomie and affection. Life becomes a struggle at the home itself, the point you start from, and where it should be stable to groom a healthy personality. Your father abandons your mother at his mere fancy, gets a new wife, your mother either sulks as a secondary object in the same house, or leaves to either rot in poverty, or remarry, and you with your real brothers and sisters, get pushed around the corners. How will a young sapling take roots? Childhood gets uprooted. All religions have adapted to get attuned to changing times. Muslim clerics and theologians should encourage monogamy. It will sow the seeds of trust, love and stability in the family, the point a child begins his journey. Islam means peace and monogamy will help the real spirit of Islam as wished by the Prophet. With peace and trust in families, Islam will become the great religion it is meant to be. Just have a look at the data.   

******

Watch your words, your sentences and speech. If you take a stock of the overall pitfalls of your life, your words, not the real bloody punches you gave out, might be the spoiler. It’s not usual to have a war. Even real fights and bloody noses are exceptions. These come rarely. In between most of the time we are blabbering. So buddy it’s the words that carry the risk to land us in testing, awkward, painful situations. And of course words take us to the best moments of our lives also. 

The sneeze which topples the snuff

There is a cosmic law of just being, of things and phenomena floating effortlessly in the graviltyless space-time continuum. Certain events and occurrences just happen, naturally, effortlessly, without any fuss, needing no pushing or cajoling. Harmony thrives on such effortlessness. It sustains life, it retains the cosmic balance, it nurtures the eternity. You may have a supposition that after taking a pinch of snuff powder, one sneezes. Well, you must have seen many old people doing that, or even experienced yourself. Well, snuff gets one sneeze. Agreed. But only as long as a free ‘effect follows the cause’ principle is applied in the natural form. Smallest interjections from mind will topple the scale. This universe loves its harmonious sequence of cause and effect. Tamper it with your conscious meddling, it will repel the transgression. Charles Darwin did an experiment. He called ten snuff powder users and asked them to take pinch of snuff and then sneeze. He put a gold coin in front of each of them as a reward if they sneezed after taking the snuff. On any other day snuff and sneeze would follow as natural companions. But not today. Today there was a forced will to win the gold coin in between. The snuff users became so eager, and consequently super-conscious, to get the sneeze that the natural balance between the cause and effect was broken. They won’t get the sneeze. Their faces contorted in all directions at funniest angles, their eyes watered like anything, but the accursed sneeze, which came hurtling down so effortlessly every day, will not come. Certain natural things are better left alone as simple occurrences without our stone-pelting the sequence without super-conscious, egoistic meddling. Sharpen your natural instincts, allow them to guide you, trust in them, and be a follower. There are lot many human affairs where we can meddle with our brain games.

Walk slowly and reach your goal with a smile; you will beat the fastest runner

The moment you grasp the meaning and purpose of your life, you become indispensable for the scheme of things around. You become a requirement for this whole universe. You are no longer a burden for this cosmos to drag on. You just don’t survive accidentally. Yours becomes a planned journey, shaping and reshaping the environment not just for meeting your end, but also carrying the effects that go onto touch many lives around. The sea cannot survive without its tiny drop. Suppose a drop goes missing, the sea gets a hole in its heart and it just cannot miss its drop. Similarly, this universe cannot sustain the hole left by you. It sustains by you as much as you sustain by it. The only condition being that you live consciously, that you know what you are doing, that you pick an option only after deliberating over it. From chance living to well-meant steps purposeful for the self and the larger humanity, all it takes is a small realization. Just look back and see the trail of decisions you have taken in life. How many of these were taken consciously, you being fully aware of the range of options? How many of these were just pushed on you by the random happenings and chance occurrences? Unfortunately, a vast majority of our options are born of random throws by chance factors and we just grabbing some involuntarily. And a life dictated by uncalculated, random options and opportunities, hits and mis-hits ends in a confusing travel across the endless twists, turns, U-turns and back outs from dead ended streets like in the puzzle game. We get wasted and wearied in endless turns, re-turns and U-turns, always pushed on by the random factors that happen to spin out of the lot. No wonder, even after travelling a whole lifetime, we are almost at the point of start. We feel we haven’t done anything at all. It’s the puzzling zigzag. It cannot be called a path leading to your destiny. Across the serpentine criss-crossing and entangled turns of random paths and choices, there are most suitable paths laid out for all of us. All we need to do is to start living consciously. Walk slowly but mindfully. You may see others hurtling fast on the racetrack around you, raising dust, crashing into sidelines, shouting with trophies at some corners, but mind you, no journey is complete and meaningful if one doesn’t feel contentment at the end. No journey across the blizzard of accidental turns can result in the peace that you are looking for at the end of the day. So plan your journey even if it means walking slowly. You can even delay your onslaught on the exams or other important tasks of life by a year if you decide to go into self reflection, weighing your abilities and limitations, look at the competition. It’s better to watch from a distance first. It’s better to walk slowly if you know what you are doing. Mindless dash towards the finish line has no meaning at all. Stop if you have been running. Pause if you have been mindlessly allowing yourself to be held by the collar by the monster called life. Sit down if you have been standing for too long. And then look around and think. Look at the zigzag pattern of your mindless run so far. The actual distance covered will surely be very short. Walk slowly like a wise man. A wise man walking slowly will still beat a reckless sprinter at the end of the day. It’s better to walk slowly to the finish-line, with your breath still under control, your legs still able to carry you. The end becomes meaningful, preparing you for the other journey. Running out of breath to the end line, and crashing straightaway has no meaning. This is no victory. This is nor the destination. It’s not meeting the goal. It simply means collapsing. The whole journey turns meaningless. Victory means being able to smile after reaching the destination. So stop, look back, see the mindless work and the stampede, pause for a moment, look ahead and walk to your sweet goal with a smile on your lips. You become a winner instantly.

Last in its lineage, the grand Mogul, the peacock

Rain-washed green has painted the countryside. Nature seems to have been besotted with only one colour on its palette, bold green. It’s very soothing to the eyes, and more so to the spirits. Trees look like they will survive mankind’s onslaught against nature. Clouds unfurl their sails across the sky and moist wind creeps into any nook corner that may still be dry. Monsoon is going well after all.

The fields around my village are splashing with as much green paddy as possible. Raise your eyes in any direction and you will see a green sea. Monsoonal sun across the corners of flying lumps of clouds gives the best glimpses of nature's bounty. But the travelling shadows also try to cover up silent, invisible man-made tragedies. Farmers have been cornered like never before. One day they are forced to dump tomatoes in roadside holes, the fruits of their labour not getting more than INR 1/Kg. The other day the price may go as high as INR 80/Kg in metros. Driven by intensive agriculture, born of costly inputs and decreasing landholdings, farmers just mindlessly dump poison in all forms of pesticides, weedicides and insecticides. So this lush green is a merciless stroke of brush on the canvas of nature, swiping away the natural world of many insects, worms, reptiles and rodents that make nature holistic and encompassing in its game of give and take across food chains. So guys, its just green paddy and poisoned soil below.

Peacocks survive on insects and reptiles in the fields. Nothing is left for them to feed upon, so food-less where would they go. A peacock's plumage swinging to gentle breeze in open surroundings of the countryside is a treat, and we were lucky to witness it countless times during our childhood. Now the last or second last generation of these destitutes, who rarely get an insect in fields, has landed with an airy resentment in the village. An irony: the poison giver is somehow better than the poison itself, at least in the short turn. In the foliage of neem and acacia trees, they just pew out their miseries. To the infants and younger lot, it gives a chance to get acquainted with the national bird's sound, and of course help them in learning the initials of human language.

My mom has an almost regular bird visitor, who perches upon the neem in our courtyard and pews out its begging song as if pleading, ‘Mai Roti do!' While she dispenses her routine chores across the yard, it continues to draw her attention. Roti delayed, it is forced to come down and enter the inner reaches of the house just to make his presence felt through his luxuriant plumage. Once roti pieces are thrown before him, it has to chuck up the offerings as fast as possible because crows line up in their accusing harsh tones, blaming him for being a transgressor who has infringed upon their rights. Crows are very clever. Some of them get behind his plumage and take a pick at his feathers to distract him. One defensive look behind and a few pieces are stolen by the other crows waiting in the wings. I call it the 'beggar peacock', my mother does not like the title though.

If that is the fate of the national bird, it’s hard to imagine the condition of others. Looking at this marvel of nature, whom mom sometimes accuses of being ungrateful -- when it comes without its plumage, all the feathers having been shed somewhere, and mom cursing it for being so mindless to waste them somewhere and not shed them in the courtyard -- I just feel sad on account of the fact that may be it is the last or at the most second last in its lineage.

Kill a mouse like a mouse only; not like a lion

He has done it again. The feeling of victory is carried by the air around his swollen breast. These are the steps of a warrior. A victorious warrior walking triumphantly can literally create an earthquake with his stomping and swagging steps. The King was effusive in praise as he again emerged as the most skillful swordsman of the kingdom. The Lord’s words are ringing in his ears as he steps down from his chariot. Holding the most coveted sword in the state, he walks down the flower-bordered path to the entrance of his impressive mini palace. He has been awarded and rewarded so many times that he has lost a trail of his swordsmanship.        

The competition has been long, tedious and tough. He bears many cuts as a testimony to the arduous path to the trophy. He is tired and wants some immediate rest. There is group of female servants who run to help him ease up. He just dismisses them as if he doesn’t even feel they are around. He wants to soak each and every moment of the victory. He wants to retain his scars for some time. It keeps the smell of victory nearer for some time.

It’s getting dark. A restful night is round the corner. He is belching. His stomach is full with numerous delicacies the King had ordered in the royal kitchen to celebrate his victory. He ate and drank to his victorious self. He is full with food and victory. He doesn’t put off his robe for the night. He decides to go to sleep like he is now, just to carry the aura the next day as well.

The sword but needs to be placed on the holder on the wall. It’s a sanctimonious ritual. He loves and reveres his sword. As he is moving to place his sword, he sees a mouse on the cushioned chair by the wall. The tiny trespasser is twitching its muzzle, almost like poking fun at him. He gets angry. How dare a mouse keep its presence for longer than required in front of him? He expects the little thing to scurry away at the mere sound of his step. His expectation is scuttled.

His ego gets a dent. By natural instinct his hand grams the holster of his sword. But then he shakes his head in irritation for even thinking of using his sword against such a tiny irritant.

“Just the sound of air through my nostrils should be sufficient to scare this idiot!” he thinks.

He has let out a few noisy breaths. The mouse but is relaxed on the silky cushion like it is a special guest. The champion swordsman’s irritation is turning to anger. His hand is itching to just finish it off in one masterstroke. But won’t that it be an insult to his sword? To use it against such a tiny creature. He moves on to place his sword at its place expecting that his crossing the room will scare away the tiny foe. As he turns back, he is surprised to see the mouse still there. Unmoved and relaxed like the room belongs to it.

“This is too much! This little one is inviting sure death!” he claps and expects the mouse to literally faint with fear.

It all but normal to expect a mouse to be most cowardly creature. It is linked to so many tales of chicken-heartedness. The mouse is still unmoved.

“This bloody tick of a mouse seems to be deaf and dumb!” he mutters.

The defiance seems to be a challenge to him. He picks up the wooden practice sword and waves it around hoping the airy swirls will be sufficient to scare the mouse and run for its life. His expert swings in air in front of the mouse fail to budge the tiny opponent. Now he is flabbergasted.

“What the hell! Does it want to commit suicide or what? How can I put a dark spot on my heroism by even accepting challenge from something that will be buried under my shit?” he is offended.

The things that take a detour from the normal of course unsettle us. He moves towards the cushioned chair hoping the cowardly creature will scuttle away, twitching its tail. They are face to face. The mouse isn’t moving. Now it’s getting into his nerves. He feels like putting it off in one strike. But then to stoop so low to start accepting challenges from mice. After all he has slayed mighty warriors in bloody combats. He seems intent to give the mouse more chances to run for safety, accept its defeat and go as things go normally in the world.

He puts the lower end of the wooden sword on the cushion just inches away from the small rival. The mouse is still unmoved. Now it’s really eating into his nerves. He is in no mood to pass off such things as jokingly one offs. The bursts of clapping and shouting sloganeering is thundering in his ears.

“And now this bloody mouse! Go little one go, don’t mess with my patience. I don’t want to put a blot on my bravery by being a mouse slayer.”

He feels like cutting it in two even with the wooden sword in an expert stroke. But killing mouse with his artistically bravest of swordsmanship.

“This little nuisance is worthy of being killed with a stick. Poor mouse,” he raises his practice sword to hit back like a stick.

But to strike a sword, even if it is a wooden practice wooden one, like a stick is an insult to the holy art of swordsmanship. His hands just give in. He cannot do it. He cannot kill it like a sword, he cannot use his sword like a stick. A mouse is too lowly a creature to be killed by him. His mind is full of so many ideas that he even gets panicked for a moment regarding his dilemma.

“This suicidal chit of a bird-drop needs a suitable punishment. I cannot bring myself so low to turn a demon slayer to a mouse slayer. The fate of a mouse is to bee slaughtered by a cat. Yaa that seems justified and natural. And this little rascal will pee at the sight of a cat. The little devil.”

He is thinking of suitable punishment to the mouse without compromising on his sense of heroism. It’s fair between a cat and a mouse. He agrees on this and already has the instrument of punishment in his mind. The fat, well pampered cat of the wealthy man in neighborhood. He has a sadistic sense prevail over him as he visualizes the cat chasing the shitty little one, putting its teeth around its soft fur, and mowing down the squealing bastard. His hands are itching to grab this moment from the space-time continuum of happenings.

A servant is sent to fetch the cat from the neighboring house. Now the cat is listening to the exaggerated version of what happened in the warrior’s palace.

“Just imagine the guts. The devil is not scared of anything. Not even the bravest soldier of the land. Not that he can kill it. Of course he can. But he doesn’t want to put a blot on his name by being a mouse slayer on the day he has been crowned the state champion. But this little piece of arrogance by the tiny creature has forced him to mete out the harshest punishment to a mouse. And that is to be hunted down by a cat.”

The cat is listening. It doesn’t sound normal. There is something in it. It doesn’t seem like any other cat and mouse encounter.

“Of course it means it must be some special mouse. Otherwise why would master take all this trouble to look out for a cat? He could have taken rest after the hard fought victory,” the servant is nailing it down.

The well fed and amply pampered cat is becomes serious. Many things are playing in its mind. Its paws aren’t itching to slice through the soft fur. Its mind is clogged with calculations. It seems a daunting task. It doesn’t appear like any other cat mouse encounter like she has done hundreds of times in life. The poor mouse scuttling away at the mere sight of the cat, the cat preying upon, a minor one-sided scuffle and the inevitable happening.

The merchant is very happy over the prospect of being of some service to the King’s prized fighter. Holding his dear cat he walks with a swag to the scene of the looming encounter. With each step the poor cat is becoming more and more conscious of the fight. The news has spread like fire and people are toeing after. The procession moves.

“The mouse is definitely some special devil otherwise why would these humans make such a show of it,” the cat’s mind is getting bombarding with countless random thoughts.

Her judgment is getting clouded. All the natural sequence of hunting down a mouse is getting stretched to miles with so many distinct steps. And she has to face a mouse that stood up to the mightiest warrior of the land. Thoughts are randomly scurrying across its head, these are now changing to numerous apprehensions, these in turn are eating her natural inborn confidence in doing a small task like killing a mouse. Today it’s not about hunger. It’s about a challenge. The cat is fully fed. Still it has to kill with the impunity like it is the hungriest on the planet.

“What stance I should take before preying upon, and from what distance it would be safest to pounce upon? Should I put up a fierce avatar with my hair standing up, tail taut, and mewing and growling like a tiger? No. Yes. But wouldn’t a cool approach will ensure a better shot at the aim? Yes. No, because the idiot may take it as lack of character in me. Should I, shouldn’t I??” each word from the people around is putting out questions after questions in its mind.

At the end of it the cat feels like they are taking her to the altar to sacrifice her.

“Who knows it may even be a devil dog impersonating as a mouse!” she has completely forgotten about its experience in killing mice.      

By the time they reach the warrior’s house, it’s terrible pandemonium around. The cat’s head is buzzing with thousand questions, thoughts, fears, apprehensions and what not. It can barely see what is happening around. Now she is in a total daze, not able to think at all. It’s not about killing a mouse, it’s about defeating THE MOUSE.

Before she realizes she finds herself placed at a distance from the mouse. So many eyes are prying over her. Her natural instinct, her inbuilt dexterity, her inherent skill, her easy-going call to eat a mouse has abandoned her. The cat is conscious of the effort it will take to dash. It tries to think, but its mind has gone empty. Abandoned by all conviction, it sits there indecisively. It’s puzzled beyond measure.

It’s a blind’ futile dash. With a very awkward movement it leaps. The mouse coolly shifts to its right by a few inches. The cat doesn’t know what is happening. It goes rolling like a lump of earth thrown aimlessly. It hits it head on the wall, loses balance and a brass utensil falls on it from the windowsill. There is noise. It’s senses are in a riot of panic. Yaa, it’s not some cat. It’s devil and I am attacked. The cat runs away for its life. The mouse looks curiously at the peoples standing at a distance.

Well, that’s what happens when mouse become THE MOUSE.          

The news spreads far and wide. It’s no ordinary mouse. It doesn’t scamper away at the sight of swords and cats. The King’s still more pampered cat listens with its innards shivering with fear. What if they send me? What if even I fail? I will lose all this royal luxury. Lost in the painful reverie, the poor thing doesn’t even realize before the onerous duty of dispensing justice has been handed over to her.

Now there is bigger hoopla. Lot more people are talking about the incident. There is more noise. And consequently thicker are the clouds of apprehension in the royal cat’s mind.

“It’s not scared of a sword, nor of cat, and now the presumably the finest cat in the state is summoned to get it done. It cannot be a mouse even if it impersonated like a mouse.”

Simple mouse is becoming a still larger THE MOUSE with each step they cover towards the place of the incident. The royal cat seems surrendered to a doomed fate. They appear like enemies who are pushing her to her doom and fall from royal grace. Her worst days are coming. There has been a shift in her destiny. The winds of misfortune are pounding the fabric of her well pampered self. Chronic panic has set in. She thinks of everything expect the art and craft of the natural art of killing a mouse.

The royal cat was in a far bigger dilemma by the time they put her in front of the defiant mouse who seems hell bent upon retaining the seat like it was the crown of the universe. The cat is shaking with nervous excitement. It goofs up even more miserably. The mouse just jumps to its left and doesn’t move. The cat seems to have wasted all weapons in its armory.

Even before the fight she has been thinking of the aftermaths. How the king will laugh at her and kick her impudently. She is thinking of the life away from the disgrace. More than killing the mouse, its mind is plagued with thoughts of where to run away from the disgrace. So having missed the aim, the cat runs away from the scene of its disgrace.

The news blasts through. There is an unheard of mouse which is not afraid of cats and swords. Almost everybody appears unwilling to put his cat through the ordeal and the impending disgrace. Nobody showed eager to be called the owner of the cat which couldn’t kill even a mouse.

An ascetic stayed in his hut outside the state capital. The task of accomplishing the deed reached his doorstep. He listened to them patiently. There were long and wordy narration of the incident. It was made to appear larger than life. People looked overawed of what happened. The ascetic’s demeanour was calm. He listened to the tales with a smile on his lips. His kind eyes shone with a divine understanding. Knowingly he looked into the eyes of his cat. The cat too appeared unperturbed.

“Go and do what you always do with the same attitude and mindset. A mouse is a mouse. Remember. Always. Everywhere. And expect a mouse to be just the same mouse you have eaten so many times in the past,” he pats his cat affectionately.

The molehill has become the biggest mountain. It is being talked like nothing else. It beats the pulsating humdrum of a thoroughfare. Everything seems to have been pushed into the background. Everybody is talking about it. But the cat is beyond all this hoopla. Its mind is the same like on any other occasion.

They place the cat in front of the mouse. It twitches its tale with the familiar conviction. There is surety in its movement. It holds its head at a form predatory angle. It beats the mouse in the dozing game and buries its teeth into it. The mouse squeaks. People cheer around. A great thing has been accomplished.

“A mouse is a mouse only. Why burden your mind with so many things which a poor mouse himself can never relate to in the wildest of his dreams,” the ascetic is telling the people who give his cat to him.

The cat has eaten the mouse and mews contentedly. There wasn’t anything complicated about it. It was a straight matter torn and skewed into numerous phantom shapes and appearances. And when that happens, even a simple mouse becomes THE MOUSE.