The Dance of the Drongo and other quills of poetic wisdom: an Introduction
The
inspiration for this anthology came on a sluggish, sultry, summer’s afternoon -
I had stopped my work for a second and was looking outside my window. The heat of
summer had ushered stark silence except for the rare noise of a car that revved
by – not exactly the kind of Ruskin Bond inspiration you would expect. However,
as if in response, a spotted dove flitted from nowhere and took refuge in the shadowy
balcony outside. It made no sound, but its flight broke a dam of memories – and
a rush of thoughts of these feathered ones came rushing through. After the initial
overwhelmia, I tried to focus my thoughts and gather them around memories that
have inspired me for decades.
I
recollected the soft melancholic coo of a summer’s dove – that sound tinged
with sadness, that breaks the silence, the monotony, yet fills your soul with an
unrequited love of loneliness. On the opposite end of this spectrum, I recalled
the rather energetic, wake-up call of the coppersmith barbet, that seems to be
burdened with the need to justify its name, making the staccato toc-a-toc,
toc-a-toc sound similar to a coppersmith yielding hammer on metal. Come spring,
the world would get serenaded by the Asiatic cuckoo, that makes the loveliest
of songs, sometimes even on bright moonlit nights. Then there was the
non-melodious chak-chak-chak sound of the gregarious jungle babbler that
seems to blend with the drowsy ochres of a cityscape.
I
realised with great wonder how this fecund avian life has adjusted with the din
of a metropolis. Despite man’s parsimony to share his ugly city, these birds
have found out niches to survive, no- man’s lands to thrive and forgotten
habitats to recreate a slice of paradise. Walk to any lake or tank or wooded
spot – our cities still have some hangovers from earlier times – and the
cornucopia will amaze you. In Calcutta’s famous Rabindra Sarovar, if you visit
during the hours of dusk, the gargantuan V shapes of cormorant flocks will
surely take your breathe away. (I remember the first time I saw it in the
backdrop of an orange sunset sky: there was not one, but three such Vs flying
on top on each other – it is a spectacle I recollect with great satisfaction
even today). In Mumbai’s mudflats around Sewri, the cotton-candy-coloured flamingos
in roseate abundance will remind you how much can nature be forgiving. The backwaters
around the thrumming city life of Cochin is abundant with water birds, watching
which will make you feel you are on vacation. And these are very easy, obvious
to the sight. Once you get an eye to spot these feathered friends, that’s when
the real joy begins – to spot a coucal rushing past a green hedge, to see a silhouette
against the sun and immediately recognise a bee-eater, to catch the superfast
sunbird flitting from flower to flower (and almost mistaking it for a
hummingbird), to spot an elusive green-footed pigeon in a grand Gulmohur tree next
to a busy thoroughfare – that is birdwatching Version 2.
Of
all urban birds though, the one that has inspired me the most is the
Fork-tailed drongo – glossy blue-black in colour, small is size, its energy seems
unstoppable. Always flitting, flying, zooming, zapping, it creates a whirlwind
with its wings and has often amused me. I remember a phase in life when I was overly
upset and melancholic. Walking down a football field one day, I saw this bird
bursting with energy. The next day on my walk of weariness, there it was, still
rushing around, harnessing chaos. And similarly, the next day, and then the
next. It was, as if, nature had sent an ambassador to try to uplift my mood,
and remind me there is need to celebrate and absorb the energy of the world as
much as there is need to bleed and let out the pensiveness within. For the
first time in days, I had smiled, and the drongo rapidly ascended my charts of
urban birds I admired. Many a time after that day, I used to remind myself of
that zealous bird, whose existence seemed to be embedded with genes of exuberance
and ecstasy. To replicate a sliver of that could change my day.
The
memories rolled on in a montage – beyond cities, I went back to the many
species I had spotted in the hills of the Himalaya, the Western Ghat Sahyadris,
or even the Eastern Ghats. If you travel to archipelagos or scattered islands,
you will be rewarded with a different category of birds – either masters of
migration or experts of evolution. Seeing a hornbill flying above your head in
an emerald green tropical jungle; spotting a tragopan in the hills; watching a white
bellied sea eagle gracefully arcing in the skies; spotting a frog-mouth sleeping
in the daytime; flame-backed woodpeckers, azure kingfishers and large
kookaburras, parrakeets, pheasants, water hens and jacanas – it was, thankfully
a long list.
Coming
back to the present, these memories made me smile. The collared dove was
sipping water that I had left in an earthen bowl. As if reading my memories,
nature was assured I was her ally – a noisy miner dropped by searching for bugs
in the garden, a raucous parrot came by and sat atop a tree turning fluorescent
with spring. Here, at the city’s edge, in a different land, there was more
greenery, resulting in more balance of birds thankfully. And just like humans,
they came with their very nuanced behaviours on which you could ruminate for
hours. And there was still lots to see if you could look in the right places.
It
was at this point that I decided to compile an anthology on these feathered friends.
This
collection is dedicated to these winged wonders which have been sources of
great inspiration over decades – as a muse to a photographer, as a palette of
colours to an artist, and even as a source of motivation in the midst of my melancholy.
I
hope the lines inspire you as well, to look around for our quilled companions,
and not just appreciate their pleasant plumes – but also find in them a zeal that
nature seems to be abound with, but which we surprisingly have forsaken over
time, perhaps as a price for ravenously trying to contain everything we see only
for ourselves. Who knows, which avian wonder will infuse you with what wisdom?
You will find a speck of this sagacity in the poems ahead – as you go through
them, maybe sit next to a window, keep the binoculars handy, and keep a lookout,
You never know when and how Nature decides to amaze and humble us…
1st September, 2025
Cover image: Malabar Hornbill, borrowed from a fellow photographer equipped with a better camera while on a walk at the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Kerala
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