BIRDS AND MONKEYS

One of the salient advantages of my profession is the frequency and diversity in the places I travel to, after all traveling and visiting new places have always been my favorite indulgences. On one such trip to Bareilly, I happened to pass through a small town called Tikonia. The bus I was traveling in halted for a short while. The driver and all on board alighted for a cup of tea, a smoke, to munch on the readily available peanuts or just to stretch their cramped limbs. The break in journey disturbed my half sleepy state of mind as I too followed suit.
The winter morning chill, the typical smell of cow dung and raw tobacco and freshly roasted peanuts hung in the air. I was in no mood to eat or drink anything, so I just stared at the monkeys crowding the area. Some big and strong, others skimpy and weak. Some chattering their teeth, some preening each other’s bodies, some carrying their babies on their backs and the youngest ones clinging tightly to their older and bigger mothers. They all looked like one big family with each and every component, appointment and member of a family present. All of that and the indispensable feelings of love, unity, concern, anger and intolerance for each other, very visible. I looked on with no thoughts in my mind, no emotions, no biases, no expectations and no inferences. The ordinary looking, frequently sighted monkeys were not worth any more time. There was nothing to break the loneliness, the silence, the monotony; nothing at all till the intruders intervened to disturb the perfect harmony I had entered into with the quiet environs.
The intruders in question here were unlike the typical gruesome and violent ones we generally associate with the word, but a flock of some of the most beautiful and colourful parrots I had seen. The striking green coats of feather, the cherry red beaks and the cat-walk like steps of the birds, their short and swift hops from one shop to other an occasional little flight and heart warming chirps, were enough to draw attention and appreciative glances from everyone. They seemed to be very used to people walking about, staring at them and showering them with overwhelming attention. A new set of emotions took over me. I suddenly wanted to express my affinity towards those beautiful creatures, somehow, anyhow. I wanted to thank God for putting life into such subtle beauty. With an unexplained eagerness and anxiety I looked around till the answer dawned on me – peanuts. Yes, I thought this would be the solution to this new self-designed restlessness of mine. I very quickly bought an insignificant amount of peanuts for the birds. Watching the seemingly hungry pack, peck on peanuts would definitely bring an unparalleled joy to my heart. And so began the ordeal of crushing the peanuts into smaller pieces, lest anyone of them choked themselves on; and throwing them to the birds. With clockwork precision I set about the task. However to my utter dismal amazement, I realized that the parrots would have nothing to do with those peanuts. They hardly paid any attention to the small pieces of love, appreciation and peanuts cast before them. What a waste of emotions, I thought. And then to make things worse, one of the enchanting birds came and pecked angrily but cautiously at my shoes as if visibly expressing disappointment and disgust at being treated to something as tasteless as peanuts. His self-esteem seemed to be hurt at being fed such a modest meal. And then they decided that the insult was too much for them to bear and they flew off leaving behind a half angry, half sad, half craving heart of mine. With painful sigh of a banished lunatic, I turned back and threw away all the peanuts I had bought for the lovely birds wishing they would maybe come back some other time and munch on the small pieces of love, appreciation and peanuts cast before them.
I had nothing better to do than to board the bus and wait for the passengers to finish their snack and the driver to get refreshed enough to start off on the bumpy road again. But a touchy sequence of events propelled me to alight again. The big family of monkeys I had so promptly and so deliberately forgotten, was now munching on the peanuts meant for the beautiful parrots. Each and every monkey member of the family, the big and strong ones, the skimpy and weak ones, the mothers, the youngest ones, all crowded around the small pieces of tasteless and modest love, appreciation and peanuts. Each one of them was cracking the nuts, collecting them and happily gobbling down the treat. With expectant eyes, silent gratitude and swift movements of their hands they cleaned up all of the so few peanuts that I had thrown. The unity and patience displayed by the huge family over a meager amount of peanuts could put the most refined and dignified of us to shame. They did not mind the recklessness, with which the peanuts had been thrown, or the fact that they were tasteless, or the fact that they had not been crushed lovingly into smaller pieces, or the fact that they had not been peeled with concern. A handful of peanuts lasted only few moments. I looked on, expecting them to wander away in search of more as what was available was insufficient to satisfy the huge family. We all are either taught or are forced to learn, to move on to better grounds, once all we may harvest is ours.
But this was not to be. One, just one out of the pack walked up to me, scaring me to an appreciable extent. Sat down in front of me and with half grateful, half hungry eyes, looked at me. The others looked on with patience and trust; patience and trust that we, as God’s most intelligent creation had abandoned slowly but surely over the ages.
Those piercing eyes spoke too much to comprehend. They spoke without saying and I understood without listening. The truth in the words a great man of our times partially dawned on me, “When there is love, there is no scope for words.” Such chemistry was rare even with some of the people I was very close to. I did not think twice. They were hungry and I couldn’t refuse for reasons unknown even to me. I couldn’t help buying a generous helping of peanuts for them. The happiness and satisfaction that could be derived by just watching them eat and feed their counterparts can probably never be compared to the so worldly and practical approach we adopt while dealing with people in our everyday routine. For once I wished, the parrots would never come back again, for once the not so attractive monkeys seemed to be as beautiful as the striking green feather coats and the blood red beaks, for once I thanked God for putting life into such wonderful creatures.
The bus moved on and I slumped again into the same half sleepy state I was in earlier. Life moves on and time waits for none and neither do we. But how many ‘parrots’ and ‘monkeys’ have I cared about in my life? Do we feed only ‘parrots’ in our lifetimes as they are more ‘beautiful’? Do we ever care to feed ‘monkeys’ in our lives as lovingly as the parrots? Are ‘monkeys’ and ‘parrots’ both not equally important and amazing creations of God? Do we thank God for the ‘parrots’ only or we thank him for the ‘monkeys’ too? Some answers are too bitter for us to comprehend and accept.