If one is looking truly for a soul curry then I am more than sure that you have found it. An unbelievable but true life incident which took place approximately 35 years ago is still fresh in my memory. My mom was known for her philanthropy and had never allowed any soul visiting our home empty stomach, a quality which I believe was prevalent in those days with most of the people. But it is sad that nowadays this quality is vanishing even with people in small towns and villages. My recent experience during my stay in the hometown of my friends in konkan shattered my belief. I had a view that village people consider guests as "Athithi Devo Bhava" which means that guests are like God and hospitality can be witnessed at the best.
I wish to share a particular incident which took place during my teenage days. My mom had the habit of feeding the crows with chapattis and milk daily. I wish to specifically mention here is that the silver foil lid of the milk bottle brought from the milk booth during those days was shaped in a cup form and used to serve the freshly boiled milk to the crow. She used to place the food outside the kitchen window sill at a particular time everyday. One particular crow used to be very demanding and my mom was of the opinion that he might be my paternal grandfather and I used to accept her funda with a pinch of salt. One day she had not prepared chapattis and the same crow was screaming continuously demanding for his regular diet. After tolerating it for sometime I got irritated and yelled at it. Till this day I remember the words very clearly. In Hindi I said “Aaj roti nahin hain, tera baap gehun laakar deta hai kya? Kyun itna chilla raha hai?” which means that today there are no rotis and does your father bring wheat, why are you screaming so much? And shooed it.
After some time I was summoned by my mom to see something very shocking. We found a mouthful of crushed wheat on the inside portion of the same window sill. It was dropped by the same crow that was fired by me. I found the crow sitting tight on the window peeping inside as if waiting for our response. We couldn’t believe our eyes and immediately prepared rotis and served it to the crow only after profusely apologising to the crow. This particular incident has left many unanswered questions in my mind. The lesson I learnt is that even birds have emotions and they should not be taken for granted. They are capable of expressing themselves even without words. It is our moral duty to share the food with them and be grateful to them for eating the food served by us. It is shocking to know that a number of birds die during the summer season due to acute thirst. Why not make a difference by keeping a mug of water tied to our window sill for the thirsty birds to start with? Spreading a handful of grains for the pigeons and sparrows and serving rotis and rice for the crows also doesn’t need much effort. When we move closer to nature we realise how easy it is to co-exist.
