Wild in the Cage

I dont yet know whether it is a He or a She.So let me call it simply that - It. It came to me one afternoon one month back, at 3 PM, scrawggly, dehydrated and miniscule.Hardly had any feather on its body. A Security guard from the neighbouring building with a wide grin that kids have when they visit a zoo for the first time, rang my bell. When I opened the door, here he was, with that grin, holding a squawky fledgling in his palms.Before I could say Zap he had pushed it onto my hands.He said he found it in the middle of the road and decided to bring him to me, where he heard all animals come when they have nowhere to go. ( Why people think my home is a sanctuary, I have no idea) .

So in it came.Fro its yellow long beak I knew it to be a Mynah baby. And from my past experience in the hospital I knew it wouldnt make it without its mother.But I had to give it a try. So I measured it from beak to tail, weighed it counted its feathers-it was easy, he had only a few. Then I made a call to our Surgeon. He told me to feed him water with tomato juice with a syringe since he was obviuosly de hyrdrated and make a paste of mixed grain flour and start hand feeding it if he survived the next few hours. Which I was very doubtful about.

But Providence had some other plans for us and the It- after a drink from the syringe simply lifted its head and sqwaked a strong sqwak. Next came the paste food every 2 hours, with new plumage growing all over.Then came the solid food and a new name from my husband-he named him Pahlwan, a satire for its lean body. His abrupt tries to fly and crash land graduated to long flights from one room to the other.He is succesfully demolishing all the spiders and insects in my home which have had made it a safe haven for themselves for all these years. I ignore it thing NATURE!! He has shown a distinct will to survive, he has distinct preferences for food and habits.I knew all animals have a character of their own, but didnt know a bird of this size also did.Surprisingly, he has befriended our pet cat Maurani who we had feared would make mince meat out of him.Not that she likes him much, but now she simply tolerates him when he sits on her back and pecks her, even she knows the Never-say-Die attitude of the bird is something to reckon with.

Now Pahlwan has been checked by 2 eminent surgeons and given a clean chit to be set free in a months time. Every morning he is placed on the bedroom window sill to get accustomed to the outside, the cries and flights of passing birds and of course predators.Every morning we hope he will respond to the calls of other mynahs and at least try to fly away. He does respond, with different types of sounds, and then he turns inward and flies onto the safest places he has known since he openbed his eyes, our shoulders.

The Wilkdlife Dept has been duly intimated of the presence of this So-called wildlife in our home.Endeavours to help him take his flight back home will be on,from our side. Only he has to decide whether he will fly outwards to a risky natural life or inwards into our homes and heart where he already is.And a sickening apprehension of emptyness and void this 7 inch bird with his lively approach to life will leave in us, if he ever does leave us to find his own place in Nature where he belongs.

----- Shakuntala Majumdar (smitten with pahlwan)