As the mercury soars like never before and the normally verdant state of Kerala takes on an unfamiliar yellowish brown hue, with the prospect of rains not even in the distant horizon, the people wonder whether this was the same state that a couple of years ago was grappling with a situation of excess water, the great floods of 2018. The scorching heat and parched throats have us walking around with bottled water and other means to quench our thirst, but what about the birds and other creatures?
They simply follow the principle of nature that the whole world and everything in it are for all the living creatures to share. Though man has created boundaries, as in compound walls and locked gates, the birds, cats, squirrels and every other animal that chooses to, will enter our compound unhindered and we will not be able to do a thing about it.
I, for one, welcome them when they come into our compound. The birds either come in batches or singly to cool off with a jolly dip into the safe recesses of the water lily trough in my garden without a care in the world. They flutter their wings and prance around playfully, squawking aloud in a language only understood by them, while the cats and other creatures do it stealthily, thanks to their close association with man and subsequent distrust of him. The lavish baths of the birds cause untold damage to my water plants, some of which would be seen lying around outside the trough, half-wilted and dying, but since the birds are my friends, I don’t mind it and would put the plants back gingerly into the water during my evening watering sessions.
I can’t help feeling a little jealous about their carefree lifestyle. If only I were a bird, I could fly anywhere I wanted and see places without visas or passports. But how many birds fly to see places? Their only interests are the basic necessities of life. That’s where they are different from man, who has digressed so much from nature, that he is now in a position to even recreate it to some extent. From a food gatherer, he can now manipulate the growth of food for the whole world. In the process he sometimes forgets even the well-being of his fellow humans and does unethical things to make a fast buck, the thought of which would not even cross the minds of animals.
Elizabeth Koshy Email: kitty.koshy@gmail.com