The crow is ugly. I look at it through conventional parameters of good looking set by humanity and it is ugly. The call raucous the beak long, the claws scrawny and the color black.
I was asked by quite a few, many with a smirk many quite indignant at my feeding the crows. They are scavengers they said, They eat meat they said, They are harbingers of evil they said, Feed pigeons instead they are the only vegetarian birds or at least sparrows they said. Little did they know it had all started with sparrows but more of that traumatic episode later.
I will admit I was a little reluctant initially with the conventional notion of crows in mind but the urge to feed someone could no longer be ignored. Watching ten of them wet clinging all over the window grill in the monsoon was not a very pleasant sight in the beginning but as they say, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder I started seeing the grace and elegance in this gods creation.
Adamant I stuck to my guns and started feeding them to see a bird completely contrary to what it was perceived to be. Selfless caring disciplined, the adjectives are quite flattering I know. But they deserve no less.
They came, daintily hopping on the window grill towards the yellow container filled with ganthiya. Eating only a few morsels before calling out to their brethren to come and partake in the feast before flying off. As the days passed they started coming in droves, clinging on to different parts of the window grill feeding in orderly queues, and flying off. It was poetry in motion no gluttony no desperate need for domination eating a couple of morsels and giving way to the next one in line. Surprisingly pigeons too come and eat ganthiya which we assumed would not but are not many.
We now come back to how it all started. One fine day I wanted to feed sparrows. There’s nothing that spurred me to this I just did. I am quite impulsive that way. In a few days equipped with a bird feeder and a water dispenser ordered off Amazon and a few kilos of a special seed called kangni, I set the whole thing up in my window grill. In a space-starved city, balconies have become a luxury and we make do with windows now enclosed with prison bars called grills which to me not only emasculate my view but my horizons too.
And yes in a couple of days pigeons started pouring in. Few sparrows and parrots too. It was gratifying to see them eating and drinking. It warmed my heart watching them eat and drink in the height of summer.
But then it all started going downhill very soon with pigeons coming in by their tens at a time fighting each other like lunatics for the food that was going nowhere. Pooping cooing rioting and worst of all not allowing any other bird near the feeder. Their incessant pecking at the food was getting on my nerves. The sheer greed and gluttony had to be seen to be believed. I watched with a sad heart knowing that eventually, I would have to stop feeding sparrows because of these dastardly creatures. On a Sunday morning exasperated at these clumsy obstinate stubborn birds I took down the feeder.
They still come. The little sparrows, Flitting about in vain and I watch helpless saddened at the ways of the universe. Some get lucky some still win and some lose.
And in a world obsessed with “Beauty” I look at my crows and can’t help but think aren’t we all ugly inside?
