A QUIET WISDOM

We notice everything with our eyesight,

but we perceive, realize and learn only with a keen insight….

 

I was pretty much anxious. Keeping myself from helping the little creature lying helpless on the platform, was out of my normal. While mom kept iterating from the kitchen, "Don't touch them, their mother will surely come to get them. If you touch them, she might as well abandon them.". Her concern was right whereas mine was also justified. I feared for we had seen a large snake roaming around our house a couple of times since that morning. Also, it was getting dark since dusk. I had in fact made up my mind, that if the squirrels don't reach here on time, I shall rescue the baby squirrel and give it a home. I waited from inside of my wire-mesh door with lights switched off, not to frighten away the baby squirrel's parents by my silhouette. Also, my mind kept wondering if the snake might have crawled up to the squirrel's nest and caused havoc. How else would those little ones which couldn't move an inch for their own safety come all the way down to the floor, with no one to look around. While my mind was busy speculating all these possibilities, I heard the squirrels shrieking from above the tree. After a few seconds of silence, I noticed a squirrel running towards the garden, and picked up one of her babies that was lying under the fresh saplings my dad had planted a day before (which of course I hadn't noticed), cradled the baby in her arms as though it was any mother (human being). I was really relieved but at the same time ashamed of underestimating their feeling of care, love and affection for their dear ones.

Many snakes are really skilled at crawling up to the trees and balancing their slender yet heavy bodies on very thin twigs. My dad won't let the old dried tree be cut down by the sanitation labourers, as there were numerous parrot hollows on the tree and destroying someone's house was not a kind act. So, one day we heard parrots and birds unusual chirping, more specifically not in a happy tone. We went out to check, and on very patient and brief observation we noticed a snake that had crawled up to an unusual height on the tree. But, what was even more surprising was how brave the parrots were.

Usually when we saw other birds such as blabbers, Mynahs or squirrels too, they would keep making loud noises gathering others too and seldom pecking the snake with their beaks to distract it and also save its eggs. While these parrots with their strong strength had the courtesy to pull off the snake by its tail in order to loosen its grip and also to frighten it. Had to get back to class but it was probably a long battle as we could hear the voices for a while.

One of the recent events being the same large snake which is also a regular visitor in our garden and on our side-way tree, being hungry beyond imagination. A day before my mom had sprayed an anti-snake potion around the tree which probably was the reason why the snake kept returning to the base of the tree for a number of times and had to return without even giving a try to crawl up. But as I said it was desperately looking for food so it started to pounce on birds on the ground itself, with its mouth wide open in order to catch them. The aim of the birds was simple as a parent would do, to be at the brunt of any difficult situations such as the snake at that time and save their lives. After some time, although we heard nothing, the snake vanished into the dense forest area behind the houses. What we saw was hard to digest, the snake had successfully caught one of the birds and was trying to swallow it with all its might which of course is a process that takes time for swallowing and digesting.

You see, it’s not only human beings who perceive different types of feeling such as love, affection, care, pain, fear, revenge and grief, in fact, but all the living beings do also feel it. It’s a different thing that we have a mode of demonstration of such feelings. Those creatures however can very well express the same by their actions and different types of voices and calls that they make. What would it take? Well, just a deeper synthesis than mere observation.

Keeping all the deductions aside, it didn’t take me long to recall that this is an ecosystem and everything that is meant to happen, happens. We are all a part of the food chain and the predators will catch their prey in order to extend their lineage. And all this that happened at such a small scale in my awareness, keeps happening in the dense and deep forests and across, only that the iceberg is far more under than above the surface.

 

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