My wife was feeding the crow out of her hand. The bird tentatively perched on its stiff, alert feet, ready to take flight any moment. I stood behind in stillness, watching the entire exercise in pin-drop silence.
She said their interaction started just a week ago. The ice-breaking first happened when she tossed a piece of dosa at the bird. Now the crow is comfortable enough to come and rest on the backyard platform for its breakfast, and what’s more, it starts to caw if it doesn’t find her outside the kitchen.
As I watched their rendezvous, my memory flew back to the late 1980s when we, a small detachment of airmen, were heli-dropped at the fringe of the Siachen Glacier. The only entity that brought a semblance of living earth to that barren icy desert was the presence of a raven. I, heavily swaddled in snow fabric, spotted a raven through my dark anti-glare glasses.
The crow, larger in size and with a hoarser voice, was probably equally perplexed by my presence at the icy glacier. It walked on the snow and came close to our tent. For once, the bird looked like the most lovely and magnificent creature in the universe. It gazed at me tilting its head to the side, and its beak half-open, as if to figure out what these humans were doing in that inhuman, arid land! I, out of natural instinct to share food with a bird, threw morsels from my precious foodstuff, and the crow, as friendly as ever, did not think twice to accept the offer. It was a rare occasion, quite early in my life, to realise how our fellow species compose the rhythms of life and how comforting their presence could be in alien conditions!
Humans have an uneasy relationship with crows. Even as a non-stop cawing crow irritates us, superstition has it that a milder change in its tone foretells the arrival of a guest. Crows are often associated with death, bad omens, and all negative things. In Malabar, the Balikaka (jungle crow) represents the spirit of the deceased, and there are rituals when the bereaved invite the blackbirds and feed them in memory of the departed soul.
The crows’ monochrome plumage could be an instant repellent. Unlike a cuckoo, crows do not have that sweet call. They are everywhere and their commonness makes them less exciting too.
Then the crow-human bonds are excellent examples of interspecies relationship, though more often it looks like a one-way affair. These highly adaptable scavenging birds follow humans almost everywhere. Lands of no crows are rare on our planet.
That way, the carrion bird represents life itself, a life rich and thriving. The crow’s altruism towards mankind once again reminds me of the hazards of judging by appearance, colour, voice, habits and food choices.
As the Scots say, “a rich heart may be under a poor coat”.
harichitrakootam@yahoo.com
