We don’t talk to each other too often now. There is simply too much to be done around the house. But for the past year and a half, we cleaned, hoarded and stocked up like maniacs. We liked being busy. We liked keeping a clean home. But we knew we were fooling ourselves.
We didn’t have the heart to call anyone anymore because we only had sad news to share. Paycuts. Loss of livelihood. Standstill careers. Collapsing businesses. The ever mounting pressure of ‘work from home.’The ever mounting pressure of surviving on meagre savings. Getting fired without notice. Testing positive. Quarantine. False reports. The rigmarole of online classes. Fraying relationships. Sick people. New diseases. People without a single health issue losing their lives. Or falling prey to all kinds of diseases. Mercifully most of them had recovered. But it unnerved us when we heard stories of loss.
Our fingers would go cold when we read such messages. What was God up to? How could a man, any man cope with losing two of his immediate family members? Even the whacky sense of humour that we shared with our friends and family members seemed so hollow now.
There was no reason to call anyone anymore. But God operates in his own mystic ways, doesn’t He? No. Why blame God? It was always so convenient to do so, anyway. So we just focussed on taking things in our stride. Stoically.
Then it came. The cyclone. What was new? One more thing to be dealt with. That’s all. No? We stocked up on milk and veggies. And drinking water. Cleaned our fans because the gusty winds forced us to do so. Shut our windows. And hoped we did not have power cuts. We didn’t.
We opened the window when the rains stopped for a bit. We had almost forgotten about the bird and its nest. But when we were sipping on our coffee in the early hours of the morning, we looked out curiously to see if the bird and its nest had survived the cyclone. Several old trees had fallen and big broken branches were strewn all over the ground. We knew for sure that the nest must have blown away. We refused to think of the eggs within the nest or the bird. Yet we could not help looking for the nest.
And much to our surprise, we saw that the nest was still snuggled perfectly within the branches of the tree. The mother bird had pinned it down with its own weight. We could see her swaying along with high speed winds. Even when the tree was bent halfway down to a 90 degree angle.
We silently applauded the strong spirit of this small wet cold shivering hungry bird. Who coined the phrase – ‘bird brained’? Who had the answers to such questions? The bird had protected its nest and eggs for two whole nights. It had rained continuously for the better part of two days. And the bird had focussed only on survival. We wondered if we could create a banner based on the bird’s story. Why can’t we just focus on survival during these tough times? Like the bird.
No one wanted unsolicited advice, anyway. So we just shrugged our shoulders and moved on. How could we help creatures like that poor wet bird who was so far away? Or the dignified construction workers who worked all through the pandemic? That night, we could see them walking through the slushy slippery mud carrying heavy pails of water to the temporary bathrooms that they had created at the far end of the site.
And suddenly their electricity supply snapped them all into darkness. And what did they do? They used their phones as flash lights, lined a few bricks amidst the slushy waters, walked carefully over them and ferried their pails of waters even in the pouring rain. Strong bird. Strong people. Things like covid 19 or vaccination did not mean much to them. They had better things to do. They had to focus on survival. And you know what? They didn’t need our sympathy either. Neither the bird nor these strong folks. We could sense that.
We respected them. And learnt from them. And then prayed for them and everyone else too. That was one thing we did. Whenever we could. What more could we do anyway. For anyone. And learnt from them all too. A lot.
We then left it at that. And continued with our routine lives. With our cleaning. Chopping. Folding. Cooking. Et al. Our never ending daily grind.
And then Ramya ushered in a breath of fresh air into our minds and hearts. She sent us a message. Requested us to share it with Hrutvi, our newest youngest artist. And asked us if we would consider putting it up on our blog. While we had assumed we could do nothing to help others except pray for their well being – Ramya focussed on helping as many people as she could in any way she could.
Ramya then did what she could. She forwarded genuine messages to people who would be interested in helping others along with a few heartfelt words. And that small shift in perspective was enough to bring about a change in our thoughts. All would be well with the world. Things would never be the same for any of us. But we will emerge out of this as stronger, better and more humane human beings.
None of us could help the bird. Or the dignified construction workers. Or the world at large. Yes. We would continue to pray for them. But like Ramya and the bird and the dignified construction workers – we needed to focus only on what we could do. For ourselves and others too. At all times. That’s all we can do anyway. Then we have to leave the rest to Him. Or Her. He would do the rest. He knew what He was doing. He knew what was best for us. All of us. And that should be good enough for all of us.
A small update: We can see three baby birds with shiny red beaks in the nest now. The mother bird hovers over them and flies only for short distances to search for food. And we know, this update will make you all happy too.
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