There was once a sparrow...

Birds have always been a source of inspiration for humans. We look up to the sky more often to see them than airplanes. A bird inspires us in many ways,
1. Seeing a bird fly, gives the ultimate sense of freedom
2. Seeing it feed the chicks makes us remember our family after a hard day’s work
3. Hearing bird song makes us feel tranquil & safe
4. Last, a pair of birds always makes one remember love.
The list is endless and goes on…

I still remember the days when I was a kid, we had a neighbor who works with the Food Corporation of India (FCI). He works as a supervisor for a local granary and like any government employee he has his own list of worries. His list used to be the unaccountable babus, the bad monsoons, the grain thefts by local goons, the big fat rats & the ever breeding sparrows. Days rolled by, I grew up, went places and now out of my hometown.During a recent trip back there, I had a chance to catch up with him after a long time. I found that his list has actually shortened, which actually got me worried, not excited. The list of babus & rats remains the same, but the sparrows in it have vanished!

That piece of news made me sit and think. My mother used to feed the sparrows before we had our breakfast then; now, she no longer does it. I see the smoggy skylines of our cities in the morning; not the birds heading for their day out. What ever has happened to the sparrows?

The small, cute, naïve bird that had so much been a part of my life was gone, and worse, I did not even realize it. What followed then was a set of frantic steps. I tried to search for a sparrow in the best way we could, just Google “Sparrow” and I got more than 17 million results. Still, I had not seen a sparrow.

I pride myself in that I do not miss capturing many moments, having my ever faithful Sony-DSC-H2. Yet, in all my collection of over 13GB of pictures, there was only one sparrow. It was taken more than 20 months ago! So, what shall I put, Sparrow last spotted: Mar 2007?

I contemplated more on what ever had happened to them, and found only more questions than answers.
1. Sparrows are gone by the time cell phone towers started to creep, does it have anything to do with increased electromagnetic radiation?
2. Sparrows are gone after apartments started to sprout. Did we just uproot them in our desires to reach new limits in the sky?
3. Sparrows are gone after unleaded petrol came in (because it contains exhausts that kill small insects that sparrows feed on), did we kill the little sparrow in making our vehicles greener?

Many more questions like this remain unanswered.

But, I also worry about what we can do. Of course, we can’t do anything unless we have answers to the many questions that dazzle us in this context. I believe that someone would realize what has happened, and what we can do before it is too late.

I still wake up every morning hoping to hear the excited chirps of the House Sparrow, but all I get to hear is the loud honk of my neighbor back from his night shift.