Reading time : 7 minutes
Yesterday was World Sparrow Day. Sparrows seem to have vanished from urban homes and spaces. Will we listen to her sad story?
By Suresh Nautiyal
Nobody knows what happened in the English classroom of the Humanity College, one summer, not long ago.
After the summer vacation, the teachers, students and staff members of the college could hear a deep melancholy rooted in infinite agony. Others swear that they had seen blood spurting from certain queer scratches on the blackboard.
It was a mystery no one could explain.
Legend has it that the words were scribbled on the blackboard by a little sparrow. It is said that the letters transcended beyond the blackboard and grew thick and tragic.
A fountain of dark and suppressed blood gushed out of the transfigured letters.
The caretaker of the Humanity College would only say that what he had seen was a half-eaten body of a sparrow and some creepy crawlies in the room, after the summer vacation.
So, the question remained: How did the bird enter the classroom?
Perhaps, it is not relevant how the little one entered the class-room, or whether she led a miserable life, as the saying goes. Nobody knows for sure what the real story was.
Chhabboo did know the story as he studied in the same class where the poor sparrow used to come to attend the English lectures. He did not know much about non-human life, but one thing he knew was that the sparrow’s life was of continued suffering and tolerance, accomplished with a will to live and fight back.
However, it was not easy to know about the little sparrow, her ambitions, her dreams, her zeal for her fellow beings, and all that for which she had struggled, day after day.
If Chhabboo were allowed, he would suggest a tomb in her sweet memory — for she always behaved like a saint.
In the real sense, she was the inspiring soul for the whole flora and fauna, and wildlife, around the ridge near the college, within the precincts of the green ridge.
There is not enough evidence about the life and times of the little saint, but, this much is indeed known that she did not have a home to stay, not a proper place to study, which she could claim as her own.
Very few people know that in the hour of dire need, she had been compelled by circumstances to sell away her prized collection of the ‘choicest books’ that she had acquired while attending lectures at the college. What books could mean to an innocent and caring bird like her?
Instead of writing a philosophical treatise, let us listen to the story in simple words, in the words of Chhabboo and through his eyes — crystal-clear.
The little, sweet sparrow, a philosopher in her own right, was serious about the things around her. She took life as a challenge; life was worth exploring.
One day, by chance, she was flying over the college besides the thick wooded ridge, when she heard a professor of English saying some good things in a classroom. She perched on the edge of a window. She listened with rapt attention. attentively The professor was teaching Shakespeare’s classic play, Hamlet.
From that day onwards, she attended all English classes at the college. Soon, she became a regular and obedient student and attended her classes with diligence like Eklavya! She studied the syllabus and reference books for better understanding of the various texts.
Romantic at heart, her favourite pastime was watching and admiring the beautiful girls and handsome boys who chatted for hours discussing literature, politics, world affairs, cinema, sex, and so many other things. An expert in eavesdropping, she knew who loved whom and who nourished hatred for whom.
She was a partner in the secrets of several couples who used to steal hesitant kisses while passing through dingy, unlit galleries, or, hiding behind the huge book shelves in the library. Nobody, ever, bothered about her presence for nobody ever paid attention to the ingenuity of a little, nameless bird.
The students occasionally poured loving words into the ears of their sweethearts without noticing her presence. Listening to such talk, she became aware that love and passion mattered a lot in the course of a human life.
One day, she found herself in the same mould. She, in fact, started spending a lot of time contemplating and dreaming about love and passion, even sex.
Sooner than later she recollected Mahatma Gandhi, who said the first need of a man lost in a dense forest in the night, was light. This light of duty was easy for anyone to acquire, and once it was acquired, the way would be found forthwith!
In the light of what Mahatma Gandhi, the poor bird thought that her utmost priority was to attain knowledge and gain experience so that she might be able to contribute towards her woodland community. The feelings of love and passion suddenly disappeared.
She became so devoted to her quest that she never worried about getting home for lunch as there was no such provision for her. Neither did she have a mother to inquire about her, nor a boyfriend to go on a date with.
The next few months were important for her. During this period, she got to know many more things about life and about other classes in the college campus. Philosophy was the subject that attracted her curiosity. It was surprising for her to know that philosophy was the mother of all sciences.
The academic session passed quickly, more quickly than she used to fly to her nest after the classes. At last, exams were announced. She started dreaming about getting a degree in English Literature and teach her fellow birds in the ridge, in order to educate them. By doing that, she would make them aware of the world around and tell them how humans were destroying their habitat, and eventually how they would irrevocably destroy Mother Earth!
Interestingly, she also wanted to let her fellow birds know what their importance was in literature and how often they figured in the poetry composed by the humans.
She also vowed to do everything to save literature as she knew that the decline of literature indicated the decline of a nation. May be the same applied to the ridge, she philosophised.
Besides, she knew she had greater responsibilities towards her community, being an educated bird. “How would others think of improving their lot if I myself do not do anything,” she wondered.
She made a pledge to take any step that improved the condition of her flying-fellows in the ridge. She thought Fyodor Dostoyevsky was right in saying that taking a new step, uttering a new word, was what people feared most, but, for sure, she knew she had nothing to fear.
At the same time, she knew the importance of the sensitive things in life. Therefore, she wanted her fellow birds to learn about Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats. She, in fact, adored those human beings who were concerned about the fauna and flora, and wildlife, around them.
The little sparrow thought she definitely would write about the virtues of mankind and its role in the welfare of wildlife. Did she not have any inkling about Hiroshima and Nagashaki, the dangers of a possible nuclear holocaust, or, for that matter, the conditions created by climate change due to global warming that loomed large over the innocent heads of all wildlife?
At last, the exams came and she reached the Humanity College, a prominent college of the International University, but, sad to say, no seat was marked for her, neither was she offered one!
She tweeted. She chirruped. She cried. She complained.
No one paid heed to her grievance for nobody could ever imagine that a bird could have the desire or qualification for getting a degree in English Literature.
She was so disturbed that she forgot Mahatma Gandhi and the virtue of silence and austerity. She forgot Thoreau who taught how humans could live simple lives. Instead, Dr Samuel Johnson’s observation came to her mind, who had said that a poor man had no honour.
Sunk in misery, she realised that she could not get a degree and therefore would not be entitled to teach her fellow birds.
Was she asking for too much?
She remembered Louis Bonaparte who had said that he would never ask for more rights than those of a French citizen. Alas, nobody understood her feelings. She knew that she was not recognised as a citizen. She knew there was no place for the words of Thomas Paine who had advocated that every human being deserved every right that one claimed for him or herself.
The sweet and sorrowful little sparrow realised that Paine’s doctrine did not apply to her as she was not a human being in any sense. She knew the human beings had rights, less or more, and other beings did not enjoy any rights for they did not have the tongue to protest and hands to write down their feelings.
She knew her thoughts, no matter how mature or relevant, were limited to herself. They did not mean anything to others.
She stopped chirping, eating, and even thinking.
She hoped that somebody would come some day and persuade her to take food and allow her to appear in the exams as well. She did not know that most human beings were the most greedy, most inhuman, most cruel and nasty, most violent, and most selfish creatures on earth, and they cared a damn for nature. Instead, they are out to destroy nature.
Obviously, nobody ever came.
The utter sense of deprivation and alienation caused a revolution in her cosmos.
Her body-chemistry was experiencing a volcano. She remembered Victor Hugo who had observed that revolution was the larva of civilisation. Did Hugo mean lava for larva, she thought.
Whatever, a determined sparrow pledged to bring in a new world order based on equity and justice, the world that extended beyond the ridge.
In the meanwhile, the exams were over. Everybody had gone home. The caretaker had to close the windows and doors as the summer vacations had already begun. The caretaker came to do so. He did not notice the little sparrow sitting on the edge of a thin blade of a still fan.
On the contrary, the little soul did see him and knew what he was going to do. She will not choose to fly out of the classroom, for everything was over for her.
This is the end!
She did not move an inch from her place. The caretaker closed the windows and the doors and disappeared for the summer vacation.
The noise of his footsteps died down slowly, but continued to ring through the corridors.
After a few days, when she came out of her grief, she felt hungry and thirsty. There was no one to listen to her, or to rescue her from her self-chosen prison.
She wondered how the classroom had turned into a prison for her, where the learned teachers imparted the best of knowledge to their students. It looked to her as a dark cave leading nowhere.
Death seemed inevitable.
The thought of God came to her mind. Even in the most depressed state of mind she remembered Lucretius who was eloquent enough to declare that fear was the thing on earth to make gods. Also, she considered it her pious duty to remind herself of the words of William Douglas who once said that fear of ideas made people impotent and ineffective. And, the little sparrow, moulded in the toughest of metal, refused to surrender.
Not this time! No.
Next day, a sense of realisation developed in her and with a great difficulty she reached the blackboard. It bore the chalk marks and writings on its dark face. With shivering pain in her body, she went up to it and picked up a small piece of chalk with the help of her thin, trembling beak. She scrawled a few letters in a strange language on the blackboard, and after doing so, fell down immediately, in stark silence!
The indelible marks, or the essence of her life, on the face of the blackboard, still tell that the world that it can still be wholesome and sweet for all living and inanimate creatures — flowers and trees, rivers and stones, based on the principles of peaceful coexistence, love, sharing, compassion, and equality.
The sparrow has told her story. On World Sparrow Day, a we banish her from our urban societies, will we find a little nook and corner for her in our homes, and inside our hearts?
Suresh Nautiyal is a journalist, environmentalist and Founder, India Greens Party. He is based in Pauri, Uttarakhand, and Delhi.