Without the sound of my heartbeat

"I can't bear it anymore," said my neighbour, when he caught up with me on my morning walk.

"What can't you stand?" I enquired, valiantly trying to focus on my steady pace and breathing.

"Strange fellow," came the reply.

"Who is?"

"You." Silence followed. Then he whispered hoarsely. "You are."

I focussed on my walk, each footfall softly and firmly landing, one after another, the gravel and mud responded to my soles. Around me, the morning sunlight streamed through the trees and dappled the shaded lane ahead of me. High up from the green domes above, birdcalls flooded the air, each trill, whoop, whistle and sonorous song was uniquely individual and yet complemented the others in joyful union as if in agreement - "what a beautiful day."

My neighbour's presence now hung like an albatross around my neck. Though I was tempted to cut the cord and drop the dead bird by the wayside, I let it hang, swinging like a pendulum. "I'll tell you what I am talking about," he said with a sigh. "It's these birds. They just don't keep quiet. Even before the sun is up, a bloody whooping starts off just outside my window, announcing the start of a chaotic day, crazy with birdcalls. And let me tell you one thing, the night is no better. The street dogs everywhere either howl at the moon, chase cars and yap, fight over bitches in heat or challenge each other. I mean, this is crazy. In the gular tree giant fruit bats screech as they feed off the wild figs….and cats bawling….its hell….do you sleep through it all?"

I didn't respond, cut the cord and let the albatross slip off my neck and fall with a great floppy thump as I walked on, through the morning, beneath the domes of trees green with song. I couldn't even hear my own heartbeat. The space in me was filled with light.

That was two decades ago when this city was a sprawling lazy town and families of mongoose resided in gardens, discreetly hunting at night whilst owls, bats and night jars kept them company. The days were filled with numerous species of birds - resident, local migrants and long distant visitors. From the tiny Ashy Wren Warblers, Spider Hunters, Flower Peckers and Sunbirds to great flocks of Green Pigeon, Green Bee Eaters and Rosy Pastors and on to Black Necked Storks all the way from the cold reaches of the north and countless others from far away continents. At any time, there were more than fifty species of birds who fed, roosted, courted, created families and moved on.

At the time, I inhabited a studio apartment at the far of a housing society. I was on the second floor and my small terrace garden overlooked an open area lined by trees. Towering above the others was an Acacia with its rusty yellow blooms and high shady boughs. It was home to two families of Grey Hornbill, Jungle Crows and a host of other visitors. Among them, were house crows.

One season I sat with my binoculars, watching a koel (a member of the cuckoo order of birds) lay its eggs in a crow's nest. When the babies hatched, the cuckoo nestlings shoved the baby crows out of the nest. Four babies crashed to their doom. Oblivious of what exactly was happening, the female crow continued to feed her remaining babies till they were old enough to take off on their own. One of them, during practise sessions, would land on my terrace and perch on the green bamboo trellis. He was a shiny black male who seemed very pleased with his plumage and constantly preened. At the end of his display he'd stretch his neck and shuffle about trying to call like a House Crow, managing only a sad croak. Clearly, an identity crisis.

Then one day, the magic happened. A passing Koel called out passionately, filling the air with a series of beautiful rolling notes. The bird on the trellis began to shiver in seeming ecstasy and called in reply. Surprised by the unusual notes that came out of his body, he shot into the air, did three flips and vanished into the morning light, leaving behind faint traces of his song. He had found himself.

There were other birds in my life at that time and I courted them with a large terracotta bird bath filled with water and a flat terracotta plate loaded with papaya and grain. My feathered friends came in droves, to bathe, drink water, eat and roost in the shade of the hibiscus, pomegranate and lime shrubs and among the shady creepers of bougainvillea. The Brahminy mynas (like true Brahmins) bathed before they ate whilst the others lower in the order, waited respectfully for their turn. The Ashy Wren Warblers and Spotted Fan Tail Fly Catchers were skittish whilst the Flower Peckers, Sunbirds and Tailor Birds just couldn't keep still. The Sparrows, poor dears, waited till all the others had left before they bathed and ate. There were three female Sparrows who would bring their young and teach them how to feed themselves.

I was blessed by the company of birds. For me, they were messengers of Freedom, Joy and Companionship. They were with me through my moments of loneliness and heartbreak. In fact, I was even adopted by one - a House Crow. She turned up one day on my terrace, perched on my armchair, cawing loudly, obviously asking for food. It was only after she had visited a few times, did I notice that she had only one leg. The other was devoid of its lower half. But her balance was perfect.

She wasn't interested in the grain and fruit in the bowl and plate outside but wanted something off my plate. One lunch time, she entered the studio, from under the curtain and sat watching me. So I offered her a morsel.

From then on, we ate together - I at my table and she outside.

She turned up like clockwork every day. About a week or so later, she started presenting me with gifts - a stinking piece of rotten meat, fish bones, entrails of a rat and a lot of other unmentionables. She'd place the offering on the terrace floor and then hop on to the back of the chair and caw her head off. "Greetings from Caw Land, I got ya an offering boss."

One day, came her ultimate gift - a little girl's T shirt decorated by a big beautiful butterfly, nicked from a nearby clothesline. She seemed extra excited that day and bobbed up and down on the chair. "Surprise, surprise."

That was her last visit.

With the passing of time, change began mushrooming everywhere. Trees and gardens disappeared. Roads widened, avenues of ancient trees whose roots reached deep into the very womb of the city were replaced by lesser fast growing trees whose roots were shallow and wood soft…so soft that a single storm can bring them down.

My companions visited less frequently. The sparrows disappeared, other smaller birds perished in large numbers. Artificial lawns began appearing. Opened spaces were steadily crusted by apartment blocks, car parks, malls and other urban scabs.

I shifted out of the studio apartment which I had inhabited to a larger apartment. For months I had no feathered friends, except for Pariah Kites that wheeled overhead, spiralling up and down the thermals, an occasional flock of swerving and dive-bombing Swifts, roosting Blue Rock Pigeons and House Crows - plenty of them.

Then came Spotted Munias who chose to weave elaborate grass nests in the bathroom windows, lay their eggs and rear their young, Tailor Birds who stitched leaves of shrubs together to make their nests and Red Whiskered Bulbuls who set up temporary abode in a large potted palm. Yes, they had returned. But it was not the same anymore. They were more wary.

One day, while working on a new exhibition, a young Spotted Munia who had just learnt to fly, alighted on my drawing in progress. It hopped around, as if doing a preview of the work, pecking the paper here and there and then finally delivering short bursts of droppings all over the sheet with perfect aesthetic precision. One week's work down the sewer. I should have reacted but I watched in amazement as the tiny bird hopped around gingerly. "Thanks," I said, "thanks."

I extended my palm and the bird hopped on and I took it for a sightseeing trip around the apartment. Not long after, two baby Red Whiskered Bulbuls turned up at my front door. I let them in and they fluttered around inspecting my abode. They were soon followed by the adults and other relatives who flew in, stopped for a quick inspection then shunted their young ones on to the terrace garden where they continued their trial flights.

Now with "Lockdown", "Quarantine" and "Social Distancing" becoming familiar words and suspicion and fear becoming the order of the day and streets and highways empty like the palms of the dead and human abodes closed into themselves and the empires of mammon brought to their knees and the precariousness of our human lives surrounding us every moment, I think of all my feathered friends and the unpardonable damage that we have done to their lives. I regret that I too stand guilty.

Nevertheless, I thank my feathered friends for the gift of wonder and companionship that they have given me so abundantly.

Today, amidst the gloom of human silence I hear the singing of the birds. Everywhere. Life is aglow with sunlight, stars, the music of Nature.

The cluster of trees outside my bedroom window shiver with delight as Golden Orioles, Crimson Throated Barbets, Crow Pheasants and a myriad others are busy feeding, courting and roosting in the shade and the Grey Hornbills have returned.

Despite the gloom that is sticky on my skin and smells of death, a strange and beautiful realisation flowers in me. Birds are Nature's angels. Though we have damaged their habitat and decimated them so ruthlessly - they have survived and flourished and are here today in this hour to delight our senses.

I live without the sound of my heartbeats. I live with the songs of birds. I feel privileged to have known them and delighted in them.

Birds

They say the dead
Return like birds
Clustered in an ark,
Through the deluge
Of dreams
And the thundering dark;

Huddled pairs sit
Waiting, whilst the world
Bubbles in sleep,
For a leaf-twig
Of dry land
Floating above the deep.

Sometimes with wings
Of longing
They rise and soar the air,
Search for all
The dreams they've lost,
All that they couldn't share.

Sometimes they wander
Through our dreams,
Feathers wet with a glow,
We speak to them,
They answer
Then vanish with the flow.

Some say birds that
Find their dreams,
Feed on them through the night
Then burst the barriers
Of silence
And wander into the light.