How I killed the Sparrows?

            I remember my childhood days that I spent at one of my aunt’s house by engulfing myself over the pass-by trains. Rail track is just a stone away from her house. The blow of engine is a cuckoo’s song to me in those days and I showed deaf ears to other sounds. But, somehow, few house sparrows that made their home in the nearby hill mango trees managed to draw my attention. They were of less interest to me those days.

            Years rolled on. Now I am an adult. Trains are no more a fancy thing to wonder about. Modernization has caught up my aunt’s village. Every square inch of the town’s (Yes! It is a town now) land carries the price worth gold. Anything that is of least economic value has to vanish like those mammoth hill mango trees. Alas! What happened to those sparrows? For long, I thought that they had shifted their home to a new tree, a larger one, I suppose.

            To my disappointment, those sparrows are never to be found – not even in the biggest of trees in the town. I concluded that money and man’s desire to own a lot of it has changed everything - never knowing, for years, that I too had contributed to the disappearance of those sparrows.

            Years went like fishes escaping the sight of cranes. I am studying my engineering degree. Somehow, Environmental Science has managed to make my brain awake in an otherwise boring Civil Engineering classes. Views expanded like a rising falcon, at least I thought so. Now I have mobile phone towers and their electromagnetic radiation to blame.

            One fine spring day, an article has unmasked the truth. Those little sparrows are gone because of me. If it is the money, I am also going after it. If it is electromagnetic radiation, I am also contributing to it with my Optimus and 6270! But the truth is far from the above two. The irrefutable act we are all doing till date is, polluting mother earth as ferocious as we can.

            Those colorful tins of body sprays, elegantly designed perfume bottles, bags of fertilizers, the drainage with dissolved toxic creams (toxic, at least for the invertebrates) and powders, bulls and prancing horses at the garage are hurting mother nature. Trees are felled like toys, and so sparrows are finding it difficult to adopt. Somehow, few have managed to cling on to the new environment. Sparrow nests are increasing sighted in the rooftops.

            Every sparrow lay its eggs in a hope to pass its gene to the next generation. I spoil its hope by not taking public transports. More the bulls and prancing horses in the streets, more the carbon dioxide it would be in the atmosphere, thanks to our notion of development. Carbon dioxide and other green house gases are playing a crucial role in altering the climate. More eggs are going lifeless because of the rising temperature and changing seasonal characteristics.

            Man! These sparrows are still elusive from my killer blows. I robbed their home, their hope of more off-springs but still they cling on and having the party. Food is an integral part of any party, for that matter, any life to sustain. Spoil the food, spoil the party! These small chirping noise makers need invertebrates and small millets to fill their belly and water to quench its thirst, if at all it has any hope of living. I spoiled it with the toxic wastes – from beauty creams, powders, fertilizers, pesticides, acids, antibiotics. The invertebrates couldn’t find its traditional food and home and died off! As a part of my government’s green revolution programme, I switched from self sustainable polyculture (cultivating multi grains) and permaculture to inorganic monoculture (single crop), especially rice and wheat – grains that are hard to break with the soft beaks. I ransacked both their natural food and cultivated food.

            I have a bore-well and a reverse osmosis system at home. Why should I waste the land in the names of lakes and ponds and streams, especially when these are located in prime property development area? Blue water bodies are changed to grey and black water tanks. Sparrows don’t have the adaptation for sneaking into it to drink. Dish antennas replaced the last of the remaining trees in the neighborhood.

            These sparrows must have big guts to remain alive. They still managed to live, thanks to my brethren. At least some thought, development is not about luxury but about inner wellbeing and it is not tangible like luxurious cars and palace like homes but healthy living as a society. For them, Human Development Index (HDI) and natural resources are important than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a Nation because they are aware that cosmetics can’t beautify evil hearts.

            I began to realize that the food I am eating has lost its natural taste and the water, no life. The chemicals, which I used in the form of fertilizers, antibiotics, creams and gels, have entered by gut and now I am reaping what I sowed years back. My town is having high rate of cancer occurrences, a plague that we brought upon ourselves. Bolt upon bolt struck my town. Arthritis, osteoporosis, blindness, mental illness, abortions and many others has become uninvited guests in our medical reports. 

            Those sparrows are still living as a sign of natural selection, endurance and hope for all those who lost it. The glimmer of hope they have shown will widen our understanding of environment, development and the life itself. Perhaps, one day, they would make the sigil of humanity and its future.