Back then, even city schools had their trees — mango, tamarind, neem,
peepal, each a colony of nests. Oh the joy of stealing mangoes! Hitting
tamarind clusters with your catapult! Or, swinging on the aerial roots
of the banyan, to spy on that hole where the sun-blind night owl snoozed
with owlets, one, two… three?
In summer you walked on streets canopied with interlacing branches.
Rain trees laid carpets of wispy pink, the rusty shield-bearer and flame
of the forest rolled out gold and scarlet paths. Maramalli,
unromantically called “Cork Tree”, sprayed its creamy clusters and heady
fragrance.
The laburnum, amaltas, made pools of lemon gold.
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| A kingfisher waits patiently |
Each tree was an aviary to hoopoe, wagtail, myna, dove, bee eater,
babbler,
kingfisher, Indian roller, woodpecker, tailor bird,
magpie-robin, drongo,
sunbird, minivet, shrike, hawk, rosy pastor, the
fluttery red-vented bulbul,
the elusive coppersmith which we knew more
by its call. What a thrill when huge tree pies made a noisy halt on a
massive branch! Or a crane stopped to rest on its way to the river!
Watching coral-beaked parakeets winging above the banyan tree, as if
green leaves and red figs were scattered in the blue above?
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| Can you spot the sunbird? |
The spectacular paradise fly catcher, angel-white, weaving through the
sun-dappled trees, trailing an incredibly long fairy tail… Was it the
romantic prince of fairy tales, waiting for a princess to break the
spell, and restore his human form?
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| And my favourite coppersmiths. Two male barbets competing for a mate? |
The humble sparrow, now a stranger to the city, was a household member
then. Every morning, grandma greeted the chittukuruvi with a song,
“Sparrow, little sparrow, give me all the news!” The sparrow’s nest was
tucked into the niche behind the huge Ravi Varma portrait of Goddess
Lakshmi. You never used the electric fan in that room. It could kill
fledglings in tentative flight.
Indian summer is imaged in the koel’s call, celebrated in centuries of myth and verse.
Suddenly, I wonder. If she had heard the bird’s voice crackling through
the urban din, could Begum Akhtar have poured out her passion in
“Koyaliya mat kare pukar, karejwa laage katar” (Don’t call, a dagger
strikes my heart),?
Mishearing karejwa (heart) as kajaria (kohl), I had long believed that
she addressed the Golden Oriole… Maankuyil in my mother tongue Tamil,
the name a variant of the kuyil or koel. How striking those jet black
“kajal” stripes lining its ruby red eyes, against dazzling yellow! In
flight it spins gold, in song it spills incandescence. Like love, the
oriole’s aria pierces the heart with bliss and pain.
Where are those endless V formations of water birds in twilight flight?
The pools are gone, the river dry. A condominium walls my balcony,
replacing the mango tree which housed a hundred birds singing at dawn,
chattering at dusk. The same balcony where, 20 years ago, my son had
been wonderstruck by three miniscule bits of fluff, (sunbird chicks?)
emerging from a hidden nest behind the flower pots, hopping on to his
foot with carefree bonhomie!
Today, you can hear the oriole on a Youtube clip maybe, where you can
also learn about a fast spreading modern ailment: nature deficit
disease. Then you know what the eerie ballad means: “The sedge has
wither’d from the lake, and no birds sing.”
The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician, and journalist writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature.
So, plant that tree and look out of your window, for this is what you may see.
All these Cassia pictures by
Rags as he looked out of his window and played "I spy" with his camera!
I miss my neighbour's Millingtonia which provided a convenient perch for the birds of our street, and delighted me consequently.
