It was somewhere in the middle of March, on the windowsill of our kitchen a pigeon started its visits rather more frequently. In every trip that it made it also brought small dried twigs and kept them neatly in one corner. The windowsill is more than five feet below the normal sills. The area is fitted with grill fabricate from steel materials from the outside and has a roof too. It is used for drying the clothes that are washed daily. Though we can protrude our bodies out of the window and approach the clotheslines, we surely cannot reach the sill or the corner that the pigeon had chosen, thus rendering it safe from human predators.
I watched with curiosity the pigeon and the gathering and stacking of twigs, till one day it came and sat on the twigs that it had so painstakingly accumulated. Another pigeon sat on the grill, watching it quietly. After some time I noticed that the pigeons were not there and on the pile of twigs lay two glistening white eggs. The hard outside shell had the embryo of two winged lives inside.
What followed made me admire the ways of nature, which has imbued all living creatures with the wherewithal of procreation and safety of its species. The two pigeons, who I presume, had parented the eggs took their turn in sitting on them, to provide the warmth which would help in the development of the embryo into complete birds. Time flew. I watched with eager anticipation.
My waiting bore fruit. One morning, two heads popped out of the shells one after the other and the new lives struggled out of it into the world, which would be their home for as long as they lived.
Nursing by the parents followed. I saw the mother and father pigeon visit their brood and feed them with regularity several times in a day. In the evenings they came to stay with them. The growth was gradual. The tender hairs slowly turned from lighter shade of gray to deeper and deeper one, and the birds started growing in size. Slowly wings also grew and the birds could walk. All this time they were being fed regularly. One day one of them was strong enough to fly out. The other one took a couple of days more to join the millions of pigeons, which inhabit Mumbai.
The spectacle of birth, nursing with utmost care, and the preparation that took place before hand, left me fully beholden of the unseen hand of God Almighty, and filled me with awe at His silent ways, of imbuing all the species with the knowledge and instinct to carry on the cycle of procreation ceaselessly. How the creatures which were originally living in the green woods have adapted to the concrete jungle that mankind had created to replace their abode fills me with dismay, and leaves me wondering at their mastery to adjust to the changing environment, and shrinking resources.
Does the human species have the same instinct? The question, which arose within me, was answered in the same month of March. It so happened that our daughter in law, Shweta was expecting to deliver her first baby some time in April. Every thing was going fine. Monthly check-ups by the gynecologist, regular medication, prescribed food regime, evening walks and many more things, were being followed with religious regularity. But God had other designs. He had probably decided put to test the forbearance of not only the mother and the yet unborn child, but also the father’s capability to handle a situation that was to arise and stretch human capability of bearing the suffering that was to follow, to almost breaking point.
In the wee hours of March 14, some complications arose and the mother to be, had to be shifted to the hospital. The attending doctor advised to go in for premature birth of the baby using surgery. Since the baby’s internal systems were probably not fully developed, because it could not complete the full residence in its mother’s womb, alternate arrangements had to be made to put it into an incubator in the care of a doctor who specialized in completing nature’s functions with the help of medico-scientific gadgets. Surgery gave us a baby boy, whose birth could not be heralded by ringing the temple bells because of the unusually grim situation.
The transformation in human nature began to metamorphose. The mother having been incapacitated by surgery, the father took over the multifunctional role of a round the clock attendant to his wife as well as the caretaker to the newborn. A job that was a physical impossibility, given the ten kilometer distance between the place where his wife lay waiting for her surgical wound to heal, and the incubator in which the child lay helplessly waiting for his internal organs to gather enough strength to enable him to stand on his own.
While it was difficult to read the facial expressions of the pigeons between the time when the eggs were laid and the final flying off of the progeny, I was certainly able to see the internal stress reflected on the face of my son Shantanu. The fear of the unknown was engulfing him. The pain and the sufferings of his wife, he could fathom, because of her capability to express. It could easily be related to and empathized with. But the child was too young to show any signs of discomfort or unease while in the incubator, making it more heart rending. The different emotions arising out of the situational intricacies and logistical disadvantage dissolving into a sense of helplessness would have a numbing effect on anybody else but Shantatu the ‘brave heart’. He gathered every bit of his biology and chemistry and rose to the occasion trying to be at all the places at the same time. Succeed he did, in a large measure, when the ordeal was finally over when both, the mother and child, were released after the most trying times of his life so far. It was indeed a great relief for the family to see the new born with the mother back into the safe and familiar confines of home.
God certainly has imbued each species of His creation the ingenuity, strength and the intelligence to adapt to changing circumstances and environment. The pigeons did it in their own way so did my son and came up trumps.
Life expectancy of pigeons is but a few years, and I could witness the progression from the hatching of the eggs to the flying off of the birds. The same good luck I cannot expect to have in witnessing the birth of my grandson and his growing up through all the stages, as I am likely to meet my end much before even a fraction of the progression is completed. But what I have already seen fills my heart with gratitude to the Lord Almighty. He provided me the opportunity of witnessing the growth of my son from a carefree lad playing in the neighbourhood to a young man ready to shoulder the onerous responsibilities of raising a family and facing both the predictable and the unpredictable with equal ease.
Such incidences help one to prepare for the final journey into the unknown with no regrets. God be with my children and their children, even after I am gone.
I watched with curiosity the pigeon and the gathering and stacking of twigs, till one day it came and sat on the twigs that it had so painstakingly accumulated. Another pigeon sat on the grill, watching it quietly. After some time I noticed that the pigeons were not there and on the pile of twigs lay two glistening white eggs. The hard outside shell had the embryo of two winged lives inside.
What followed made me admire the ways of nature, which has imbued all living creatures with the wherewithal of procreation and safety of its species. The two pigeons, who I presume, had parented the eggs took their turn in sitting on them, to provide the warmth which would help in the development of the embryo into complete birds. Time flew. I watched with eager anticipation.
My waiting bore fruit. One morning, two heads popped out of the shells one after the other and the new lives struggled out of it into the world, which would be their home for as long as they lived.
Nursing by the parents followed. I saw the mother and father pigeon visit their brood and feed them with regularity several times in a day. In the evenings they came to stay with them. The growth was gradual. The tender hairs slowly turned from lighter shade of gray to deeper and deeper one, and the birds started growing in size. Slowly wings also grew and the birds could walk. All this time they were being fed regularly. One day one of them was strong enough to fly out. The other one took a couple of days more to join the millions of pigeons, which inhabit Mumbai.
The spectacle of birth, nursing with utmost care, and the preparation that took place before hand, left me fully beholden of the unseen hand of God Almighty, and filled me with awe at His silent ways, of imbuing all the species with the knowledge and instinct to carry on the cycle of procreation ceaselessly. How the creatures which were originally living in the green woods have adapted to the concrete jungle that mankind had created to replace their abode fills me with dismay, and leaves me wondering at their mastery to adjust to the changing environment, and shrinking resources.
Does the human species have the same instinct? The question, which arose within me, was answered in the same month of March. It so happened that our daughter in law, Shweta was expecting to deliver her first baby some time in April. Every thing was going fine. Monthly check-ups by the gynecologist, regular medication, prescribed food regime, evening walks and many more things, were being followed with religious regularity. But God had other designs. He had probably decided put to test the forbearance of not only the mother and the yet unborn child, but also the father’s capability to handle a situation that was to arise and stretch human capability of bearing the suffering that was to follow, to almost breaking point.
In the wee hours of March 14, some complications arose and the mother to be, had to be shifted to the hospital. The attending doctor advised to go in for premature birth of the baby using surgery. Since the baby’s internal systems were probably not fully developed, because it could not complete the full residence in its mother’s womb, alternate arrangements had to be made to put it into an incubator in the care of a doctor who specialized in completing nature’s functions with the help of medico-scientific gadgets. Surgery gave us a baby boy, whose birth could not be heralded by ringing the temple bells because of the unusually grim situation.
The transformation in human nature began to metamorphose. The mother having been incapacitated by surgery, the father took over the multifunctional role of a round the clock attendant to his wife as well as the caretaker to the newborn. A job that was a physical impossibility, given the ten kilometer distance between the place where his wife lay waiting for her surgical wound to heal, and the incubator in which the child lay helplessly waiting for his internal organs to gather enough strength to enable him to stand on his own.
While it was difficult to read the facial expressions of the pigeons between the time when the eggs were laid and the final flying off of the progeny, I was certainly able to see the internal stress reflected on the face of my son Shantanu. The fear of the unknown was engulfing him. The pain and the sufferings of his wife, he could fathom, because of her capability to express. It could easily be related to and empathized with. But the child was too young to show any signs of discomfort or unease while in the incubator, making it more heart rending. The different emotions arising out of the situational intricacies and logistical disadvantage dissolving into a sense of helplessness would have a numbing effect on anybody else but Shantatu the ‘brave heart’. He gathered every bit of his biology and chemistry and rose to the occasion trying to be at all the places at the same time. Succeed he did, in a large measure, when the ordeal was finally over when both, the mother and child, were released after the most trying times of his life so far. It was indeed a great relief for the family to see the new born with the mother back into the safe and familiar confines of home.
God certainly has imbued each species of His creation the ingenuity, strength and the intelligence to adapt to changing circumstances and environment. The pigeons did it in their own way so did my son and came up trumps.
Life expectancy of pigeons is but a few years, and I could witness the progression from the hatching of the eggs to the flying off of the birds. The same good luck I cannot expect to have in witnessing the birth of my grandson and his growing up through all the stages, as I am likely to meet my end much before even a fraction of the progression is completed. But what I have already seen fills my heart with gratitude to the Lord Almighty. He provided me the opportunity of witnessing the growth of my son from a carefree lad playing in the neighbourhood to a young man ready to shoulder the onerous responsibilities of raising a family and facing both the predictable and the unpredictable with equal ease.
Such incidences help one to prepare for the final journey into the unknown with no regrets. God be with my children and their children, even after I am gone.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar