The Hindu Business Line : In Nature’s company

On the last stretch of my morning walk, one turned into Devaki Nagar and was walking past the thick tamarind tree when one noticed a house sparrow (Passer domesticus) on the road. One froze. The bird did not move. After about a minute, one touched the sparrow and it remained still.

One picked up the bird, which felt like a ball of cotton, and spotted a twig (an inch long) of the tamarind tree stuck in the claws of its left foot; one could sense uneasiness in its eyes. At a light tug, the twig came away and the bird wriggled out of my fingers and flew off with a thank-you call. It was the second time one had handled a house sparrow though a large number visit my home every morning at around 7 to feed on rice grains; any delay, and they protest.

There is a woman on Linking Road, who sets out on her walk a bit late in the morning, with two Pomeranians on a leash; sometimes, she sets them free and they readily trot away. All the stray dogs in the area follow the lady as she offers them fresh milk in a steel plate. If the lady is late, the dogs wait; she sends her son when she cannot make it.

One has not seen cats in the area which should be sad news for my friend Lyla. That could change as a few days ago one spotted a chubby tom cat having a scrap with a stray dog (or was it another cat?). It took one some time to spot the two sparring in the darkness and seemingly the dog (or is it the cat?) gave up. Never have I seen a dog give it to the cat. With the mornings getting the sun late and temperatures dropping to a tolerable 28 degrees C, it is hard to see birds or squirrels in the LIC Colony area.

For a change, in the last two days, one saw the brilliant yellow flowers of the Wild Ladies’ Fingers on the road margins and today, one was thrilled seeing a single blooming Blue Dawn Glory. Isaac Kehimkar in his book Common Indian Wild Flowers, says the Blue Dawn Glory opens around sunrise and fades before 10 a.m.

As one was admiring the flower, my friend tapped me on my shoulder to ask what one was doing. When I showed him the flower (without plucking it) he said bye and walked away and to be frank I felt relieved. It is doubtful whether Nature can be matched to freely lend a few notes of happiness; maybe because Nature is not a banker.

Ruskin Bond argues in his Book of Nature, that, “Nature gives. And takes away. And gives again.” Going further, he writes: “This is a relationship that has grown stronger and more meaningful ever since I came to live in the hills over forty years ago.”

“Is Nature your religion?” someone asked, just the other day. It would be presumptuous to say so. Nature doesn’t promise you anything – an after life, rewards for good behaviour, protection from enemies, wealth, happiness, progeny, all the things that human desire and pray for. No, Nature does not promise these things. Nature is a reward in itself.”

Sometimes one gets a confirmation from one’s betters like Ruskin Bond who, India Today, dubbed — “our very own resident Wordsworth in prose.” In Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature, the poem Silent Birth runs: “When the earth gave birth to this tree,/There came no sound;/ A green shoot thrust/In silence from the ground./ Our births don’t come so quiet –/ Most lives run riot –/ But the bud opens silently,/And flower gives way to fruit…”

Recently, at Strand Book Stall, one bought a book – The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff — only because my favourite wild lifer, Jane Goodall has endorsed it with a foreword. If Jane Goodall says something I accept it because she is a pure (99.99 per cent) gold coin. All her life she has fought against the idea of a “non-human animal”.

Doing her doctorate in ethology at the Cambridge University, she could not get along with her professors for naming each chimpanzee instead of giving them a number. For her teachers, “it” sufficed, while for Goodall, it did not as they had a human personality and had to carry a name.

Robert Hinde, a supervisor, helped. She could not say, “Fifi was happy,” since it could not be proved; however, she could say, “Fifi behaved in such a way that, had she been human, we would say she was happy.” Marc has dedicated the book to Jasper and Pablo. Jasper is a moon bear who was kept flat in a crush cage on a bear bile farm in China. He has been tortured repeatedly over years for his bile, a chemical used in traditional Chinese medicine, possibly the cruellest healing system. Now Jasper is free. Pablo was a captive chimpanzee with a number – CH-377 – in the New York University.

Pablo’s story: Pablo had been darted 220 times, once accidentally in the lip. He had been subjected to 28 liver, two bone marrow and two lymph node biopsies. In 1993, he was injected with 10,000 times the lethal dose of HIV. The barrel-chested chimp had shrugged off AIDS and kept hepatitis at bay only to die of an infection aggravated by years of darts and biopsies.

When Pablo died, Jane Goodall took some of his ashes with her to Tanzania “to sprinkle in the forests of Gombe, where chimps dance to stop the rain.” From Jane to Marc Beckoff has there been a change? With globalised humans threatening to gobble the Earth, will humans, at least, share the Earth with animals on the first principle: Forests for animals, the rest for humans?

P. Devarajan

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