Our garden has early avian visitors, sometimes at day break. The visibility was poor a few days ago at day break with a cloudy sky. I happened to notice movement of leaves in the tree in the front area of our garden.
I noticed a White- rumped Munia perched in the intersection of slender branches. It moved to be perched in a slender branch bare of any foliage. It started its bird calls, which was just audible in the silence of day break. A few minutes later another Munia joined it on the branch. The two became three and in the last photo a fourth Munia is just visible perched in a branch below. It was just one Munia that was engaged in the bird calls and it could gather three others to its fold.
I remembered the book, The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, which was an international bestseller book at one time. In that book, first published in 2000, the author explored the biography of an idea. In the comment on this book, by the Sunday Telegraph, it said; "The Tipping Point provides some profoundly suggestive arguments and insights. Its account of the pivotal role that identifiable individuals play in the spread of ideas, information and trends is, in particular fascinating, It is also heartening: individual men and women can, it turns out, really make difference"!
This book is about, 'How little things can make a big difference'!
A single Munia bird could gather three others by its bird calls!
I was keen to find out whether the palpable cranial sutures in the scalp of infants and toddlers is an early sign of vitamins D deficiency. In a study that was done in the department where I worked, I gathered some evidence to this effect. I wanted about 20 paediatricians to look at this issue and indicate if they have an evidence of Vitamin D level being low in infants and toddlers who had palpable cranial sutures. With some information in favour of this hypothesis, I requested three obstetricians to check on the vitamin D level of pregnant ladies in the first trimester, second trimester and third trimester. The indication is that vitamin D level is low towards the second and third trimester of pregnancy. All these are early indication of any association. At least this question has alerted some Obstetricians to check vitamin D levels in pregnant ladies, which was not routinely done. A few Paediatricians have begun to check Vitamin D level in infants and toddlers who have recurrent respiratory infection. Recently I requested them to check the Zinc level as well as my observation suggested low Zinc level in a high percentage of infants and toddlers who had recurrent respiratory infection.
I noticed in literature that there is more published data on the rationality of checking on Vitamin D and Zinc levels in infants and toddlers , who have less exposure to sunlight.
Malcom Gladwell argued in the book that an idea needs to be disseminated by word of mouth. In fact, the sale of Hush Puppy shoes brand went up several times when some people started to ask for the brand in the shops, which made the retailers to order for the brand in their shops (p3-4).
One Munia bird was enough to influence three other birds to join its company!
I suppose it is a message that each of us can cause something good to happen if we so desire!
On one occasion while travelling in a bus recently, I got up from the seat earmarked for a senior citizen, when a lady with her infant needed a seat. Seeing this, another young man got up from his seat and offered his seat to the lady and made me sit in the senior citizen's seat!
Each of us can initiate a change process! Its cascading effect may or may not happen! But doing good is the way to give the change process a chance!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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