By -Rabin Prasad Kalita
Do birds and other living beings have the same sentiments as humans, questioned by my school-going daughter? To uncover her answer, I started telling a parable about a lovely pair of a dove.
Very frequently, I had been noticing a pair of dove met up with the worst quarrels, whipping physically by their wings on each other. Sometimes they got wrangled harshly at one another, hitting and injuring by their short narrow bills seemed more ferocious. Every so often, the bicker lasted uncompromised for a long time.
After the fight, resenting each other, both of them were kept on sitting on the electrical extension wire quietly, keeping sufficient distance in-between. Their assorted emotions made them disengaged from mingling together.
Smirking in my mind, I enjoyed their silence and tried to look into my personal life along. We human beings too, do the same by showing our hatred. Sufferings of mental discontentment, just after the tussle, seem normal.
Mismatch of moods was reciprocated and negotiated gradually by closing themselves inch by inch. Erstwhile, I saw them submitted at each other. Found them loving and rubbing their beaks once again. As if nothing had happened before. What a lovely scene it was to observe as a bystander! I reckon they have the same sentiments as humans to deal with concern, compassion, or compromise.
A couple of days later, I saw them flying with twigs and hays to a gooseberry tree. It was hardly two yards away to my terrace. Fixing them in a protected cross branch and coming back for carrying another one was their day-long work. Seeing them doing such hard work, I felt pity for them. Hence I threw a fistful of lentils at a distance so that they feel safe to pick them up. At the end of the day, a beautiful nest was ready.
The habit of throwing lentils or grains went on further. It becomes one of my most enjoyable moments every day, to observe them pecking one by one. To bring them more closure, I started reducing the distance of throwing grains to them.
A few days were gone. One of them was not in my sight. Must have planned to lay eggs very soon, I presumed! The other one went out to collect food grains fed its counterpart through beaks and went in search again. What an eye-catching vista to watch, that filled my heart with ecstasy!
Sitting on the porch, sipping tea, looking at the headlines of morning newspapers was my habit. In-between, out of my curiosity, I observed their activities attentively. One fine morning, nearly a fortnight later, suddenly I could notice a pair of unmarked white eggs in the nest! The female dove was hatching, sitting gently over her eggs.
Though, I was happy but worried a little about the fate of their eggs due to their late planning. The rainy season was on its doorstep and the weather was not very amiable to keep their young ones out of risk.
My prophecy proved right but hurt me hard. On the same night, there was a heavy downpour along with moderate wind for a considerable time. It was like never-ending threads of rain that touched the ground and sparked all over. I couldn’t enjoy its pleasant smell of first rain as was greatly concerned for their eggs.
My entire night was poised from sleeping, thinking about their safety. Got up time and again, went near to the windowpane, unveiled the curtain and peeped outside. Worryingly after some time, I used to come back to my bed with a stone in my heart. What else I could do, except to watch as a helpless watcher and to feel their pain?
The nest was pretty bright and apparent from the light that scattered from the main gate. Both of them kept on spreading their wings like a canopy over their eggs and the nest, to save them from getting soaked. It was necessary to maintain proper warmth for incubation. They got to withstand lashing rain whole the night to save their young ones that destined inside the egg crust. Then I realized the fortitudes of my parents who had to sacrifice lots of their dreams while raising me up.
By the time in the morning, the rain stopped and the mighty sun brightly flashed all over. That was the end of a bizarre night, suffered by the unfortunate pair of the dove and pitiably witnessed by me.
A couple of minutes later, one of the consorts flew down and unfolded her moist wings to get them dry under sunshine. Started swelling-up and flapping her wings on the morning sunlight. After a few processes of manipulations her feathers with its beak, somehow she could dry her wings. She flew back again to the nest and straight away sent down the other one for parching her wings too.
I was lucky to witness such an act of thoughtfulness. It filled my heart with divine pleasure. Thank God, their eggs were safe. He is always safe, who is protected by the grace of God, fits perfectly on them.
Before one’s eyes, a few days later, chicks were out of the eggs safely. Hereinafter, parents played a massive role in upbringing their unfledged chicks to fledged ones. During the entire period, one out of them was at the nest at all times to keep a vigil on predatory birds. Parents were doing so until their young ones could fly high and save themselves from any untoward peril. They shouldered an immense pain right from raising them up from a diploid cell to adulthood.
Now, they all fly down to my quad to taste lentils that I keep dispensing in a corner. Happy to watch them, pecking joyfully today! They taught me, happiness is the sweet yield of all pains.
******The writer is an An-Ex Air Warrior (India). He can be contacted at [email protected]
