The Fall of a Sparrow

The wonderful thing about being a child is the license to be unabashedly amazed by things that the world pooh poohs as commonplace; The difficult part about being an adult is the painful realization of exactly that. A child wonders why something is what it is, whereas an adult assumes he knows what that something is; A child treads carefully on the mud while an adult tramples over it; A child looks up at the night sky and sees the twinkling dots and wonders why they hang there. An adult just sees an enormous black space of nothingness and puts his head down to worry about more important matter. A child goes out and makes friends by sharing his tiffin. An adult manages to break human bonds because he has to share something far less useful than a tiffin. In presence of such overwhelming evidence why do we all try so hard to grow out of our childhood, I wonder?

This is the story of a little boy who grew up.

The British had come to Bengal four centuries ago. Among the many buildings they had constructed were the lavish quarters for the staff who managed their factories. These factories were littered along the river Ganga which was used as a conduit to transport raw and finished goods. Centuries passed, the British left, but their buildings remained; Old yet majestic, neglected yet inhabited, encroached upon by peepal trees on the outside yet untouched on the inside. The little boy grew up in one such house. Every morning as he brushed his milk teeth with juvenile vigour he would look up towards the high ceiling. High up there was a row of iron bars holding parallel wooden beams placed at right angles to them; reminding him of the letter "H". High up in the corner of that ceiling was a water drainage pipe that appeared through the roof, took a turn and went right through the side wall. It resembled a boa constrictor after it had had a sumptuous meal. But that wasn't exactly why he always looked up. The peculiar turn of the pipe and its proximity to the wall created a natural space, suitable for a bird's nest. I am not entirely sure if God opens one door when he closes another, but he sure made the summer breeze open the sky-light of the room and he did make sure that a homeless sparrow spotted it from the outside. So every summer there was activity up there. This year too the busy sparrow tirelessly built her nest as the little boy looked on. Every morning he would find twigs strewn on the floor, results of the bird's failed attempt to build her nest. He picked them up and threw them as high as his little hands could. But all little boys are not Davids and all of them don't carry slings, So the twigs fell to the floor, and with every fall the young soul ached a little.

A month passed and the nest was ready (There were enough twigs on the floor to build another nest). The sparrow laid her eggs and eventually the little ones were born. The child could only hear the distant chirps and see indistinct movements from below. His father had advised him not to venture into the bathroom too often lest it scared the mother sparrow away. So he kept the large wooden door of the bathroom shut; But left a gap enough for a curious eyeball to track the playful ballet between the mother and her children . Secretly, he prayed that one day a little one may fall in his lap. And then one day God answered. That morning as the boy was brushing he heard the chirping from,only it wasn't as distant as always. It was coming from below the ceramic basin. As he bent to look under the basin, an incessantly chirping beak greeted him. A little featherless chick with its eyes closed was searching for its mother. As little as he was the boy recognized the essence of the call. He had done the same when he had broken his wrist. He ran out of the bathroom to fetch his father.

The father explained to the boy that since the chick had tiny wings it had perhaps tried to move out of its nest, unknowing of the danger that lay beyond the safety of that fat pipe. It must have been a painful fall, the child pondered. He had had a similar experience, but that was in a dream. He had dreamt of falling in a deep dark well. That had happened after hearing grandma tell a story about how a street urchin in her village had fallen in a well. After a long hour of deliberation the thoughtful father made a proposal. Since this wasn't the only bathroom in the house he decided that the chick and the mother should be left alone by shutting the bathroom door. That way he believed the mother would fly down to the floor and feed its little one till it became strong enough to fly. It sounded like a noble plan. That night the father read a short story to the boy about an old wise man by the name of Charles Darwin. The boy slept away before Darwin reached Galapagos.

Days passed. While everyday the mother flew incessantly in and out through the open sky-light she never brought food for her fallen one. It was as if she had forsaken it. To the boy who kept a clandestine watch from behind the door, she sounded concerned for her offspring. Her chirps were more frequent now and she flew down occasionally, but she never fed the chick. She had other mouths to feed up there. Every afternoon the boy tip-toed inside the bathroom and left some rice for the chick to pick up. But with closed eyes and no sense of food it was too much to expect. The nights became longer, and two little eyes kept staring at the ceiling in the darkness wishing God to return the little one to its mother. This time He certainly was not opening another door. The father was lost in thoughts too. He knew the inevitable, but did not have the heart to tell his boy. Besides he thought, innocence in a child is best left untouched. One day it will be gone, but till that day it must be protected. He smoked a Wills Navy Cut cigarette and looked up towards the dark moonless night. He remembered his days as a child. Subconsciously, his hand was skillfully making a bird's beak out of the silver foil from the Navy Cut packet. The next morning, the father and son tried all day to feed the chick with food stuck on the silver bird's beak. After hours of struggle, they failed. The chick had locked its beak shut, as if to protest the injustice of being abandoned by loved ones. Two days later, it died. The boy wept.

That evening the father held his son's hand and the two walked towards the jetty by the river Ganga. In his other hand he held a box containing the carcass of the fallen soldier. In this case the dead had truly "fallen" he thought, and smirked. There is humour even in death, he thought. The box languidly floated downstream in the low tide and mixed with a bunch of floating water hyacinth before if vanished into oblivion. The two spent an hour by the river, watching boatmen return after their day's catch and the sun immerse itself in the brown water. The boy heaved a long sigh, then got up and walked. The father kept looking. Today his lad was no more a child for he had seen the fall of a sparrow .