One for Sorrow, Two for Joy!!

While giving my car a nice early morning cold shower on Sunday, I heard the not-so-familiar sound of a ‘myna.’ It had perched itself firmly on my rooftop railing and was chortling with an apparent gay abandonment; something that is a rarity amongst us homosapiens living in a busy metropolis. It took me back in time – four decades and five years…us kids playing in the huge tracts of empty space between two housing rows left by the then British and Indian town planners in Durgapur. It was thankfully created for us kids, the birds and the trees. Lung space, as one would call them now in the concrete jungles of today. Amongst birds, the common sparrow, pigeon, myna, the occasional koel, parrot and the common Indian crow were a familiar sight those days. We would compete with the parrots and mynas to pluck the ripened guavas directly from the trees around for a snack between meals. The excitement would heighten if we had to steal ourselves into the neighbor’s fenced compound, climb the tree, pluck guavas and later scram for safety.

It beats me still, how the commonly used term ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for letter and so on’ came to be associated with mynas, but then it did leave an indelible impression deep down, somewhere in a few of the 100 billion brain cells. The instant recall upon suddenly spotting the myna on Sunday morning speaks volumes of the way the brain cells are interconnected between the left side (logical & analytical) to the right side (feeling & meaning maker). It brought pleasant memories, when spotting twin mynas was considered to be a good omen but spotting a single one was considered bad or sorrowful. At that young and formative age one does not know what sorrow in its true form meant, but the occasional whack from dad or getting chided by the school teacher for not completing homework or getting singled out for scoring poorly in a ‘surprise’ test was perhaps the limit to which one could stretch our imagination. I strongly feel that the third one got added as we grew older and when a sibling had to move to a different city in pursuit of higher education. Spotting Myna’s in groups beyond three was considered a blessing for material gain and is probably not worth mentioning here. It had very little significance then and virtually none now!

It was such a nice sight to spot this beautiful dark brown myna with a yellow beak and head gear of the same hue. How spotting a single bird can bring in a sad thought of ‘sorrow’ is difficult to imagine; but if you look at this variety in the avian family, they are very social and gregarious and found mostly in southern and eastern Asia. A myna perched on a tree branch would probably look like a two-color dolphin and the similarity ends there. Three to four times the size of a sparrow, these dark and often brown winged birds have strong feet and flight. They thrive on fruits and insects and generally nest in holes. Some species are pretty well known for their imitative skills. A relatively unknown fact about mynas is their contribution towards pollination. They are known to be dispersers of seeds, especially the sandalwood and banyan. This may sound stranger than fiction; their stomach enzymes have the ability to quickly break alcohol when these birds consume over-ripened and fermented fruits. No wonder these birds do not get intoxicated as in their history of existence none seem to have crash landed and their 3-axis flight coordination remains intact with their tiny brain combining the interdependent motion between eyes, feet and wings with precision control.

Unbelievably, it was the twin leg winged dinosaur almost 150 million years ago that turned into an aerodynamic winged creature and birds were thus born. A huge variety of these winged creatures turned birds, came and went before evolving into some 9,000 present day variety of birds. While dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago during the ‘big bang’ when supposedly a meteor crashed onto earth and wiped out the entire family of dinosaurs, the family of smaller birds that evolved post this era have adapted themselves admirably well. The power of flight gave these an edge over other creatures and Sir Richard Attenborough believes that birds may be the most successful creatures on earth, more successful than even insects to have adapted and evolved. From the extremely cold sub-zero temperature in South Pole where emperor penguins have thrived to the extremely hot and dry climate in the South American deserts where grey gulls have survived, the sheer variety is absolutely amazing.

One noteworthy trait of the homing pigeon is its innate ability to return to its nest and to its own mate over long distances up to 1,800 kilometers. These birds cover distances at an average speed of 80 kilometers an hour. The Egyptians and Persians were the first to use these homing or carrier pigeons. Closer home, Tipu Sultan had a fleet of carrier pigeons at his headquarters in Srirangapatna, near Mysore. Closer to its nests, the homing pigeon depends on visual landmarks much like the way humans do while finding their bearings, but when released from distant lands, the pigeons trace back their path using spatial distribution of atmospheric odors also called olfactory navigation.

Birds are not known to attack human beings but the 1963 film by Alfred Hitchcock, ‘The Birds’ struck terror in the minds of people who ventured to see this horror film. This film portrayed ‘fear’ in its raw form and with no explanation of why the ordinary crow attacked anyone venturing out of their homes; the movie left people petrified. Such was an impression Hitchcock could create in his movies! Compare this negative portrayal to Richard Bach’s best selling fable, ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull.’ This is a story of a seagull; tired of the daily squabbles decides to push himself to improve on flying skills and to eventually attain perfection.

It is indeed a pity that the city bred generation ‘Y’ does not get to see these small wonders of God’s creations. I am told that the proliferating cell phones have driven the sparrows away. The explosion of electromagnetic waves in cities is causing the common house sparrows to quickly disappear. These waves are concentrated in the tower masts and with hundreds of them spread across the cities to cater to the ever increasing demand for cell phones; the day is not far when these winged friends will become extinct. How true are Ken Robinson’s words when he says in his book ‘The Element’, a NY Times best-seller and I quote: “The crises in the worlds of nature and of human resources are connected. Jonas Salk, the pioneering scientist who developed the Salk polio vaccine made a provocative observation. It’s interesting to reflect that if all insects were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would end. But if all human beings were to disappear from the earth, within fifty years all other forms of life would flourish.”

We need to deeply introspect and remember that; ‘This planet does not rightfully belong to us! We have merely borrowed it from our children and other living beings. We need to take care and be a part of the eco-system, not plunder it!!