The birds who lost their home!

This was a common site in an education campus that I was fond of visiting whenever there was an opportunity. The palm trees were a home for Parakeets, Owls, Minas and Wood peckers. Now these palm trees no more exist in the same place. A new building essential for the use of students has come up in its place. 

During a recent visit to this place, I looked for the birds which were made homeless. The parakeets found another tall tree; the owls and others could not be found. 

As I walked along the criss crossing roads in the campus, a watchman, who knew of my interest in birds,  told me that birds used to keep him company at night with their cacophony. He was now finding it difficult to endure the silence of the night!

We are in a political climate, where the refrain is all about development. 

This development is to pursue human aspiration. The large environment of flora and fauna, and people who live in the margins of society, get lesser attention when development agenda is pursued. The agenda is set by those who can exert their presence and demands.

I returned from the walk, thinking of the displaced birds who had a quadrangle of forested area for themselves for scores of years. 

Humans seem to win in this struggle for living and other living beings seem to suffer.

When Anna and I came to live at our present cottage 18 months back, we did trim trees and cut a couple of them to give a ‘better look’ to our frontage. Immediately after that we noticed the silence in the mornings and evenings around the house… the birds had flown away fearing the unsafe environment for them! That is when we regretted cutting trees and made an earnest effort to plant more trees since then. Now the birds are back and we have some of them making their nest in the shrubs and trees.

So the pursuit of development needs to be integrated with moral and spiritual foundations!  We live in a created world, where harmony and relationship is the instituted order! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)