Environment Day 2025 - Celebrating our Fellow Dwellers on the Common Home.

ENVIRONMENT DAY 2025 - BEAT PLASTIC POLLUTION -https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AyD4UZEzt/

As the human community observes another environment day, I reflect on myself in connection with the planet, our common home. I am fascinated by the thoughts of our Malayalee author Basheer (Vaikom Muhammed Basheer - Bhoomiyute Avakaashikal - Inheritors of the Earth 1977) who could present such lofty thoughts even about 2 decades ahead of the great surge of environmental concern forcing humans to think of other beings occupying the planet with some amount of care and concern - at least from a very anthropocentric concern of how their being there or affected also indicated how the anthropos also were being impacted.  

As school students, we had some remote references to the environmental crisis, when one of the teachers had referred to the Ozone Hole sometime in 1979 or 80.  In those years, Kochi had what used to be referred to as 'smog', and it was attributed to industrial pollution. I witnessed at least 2 instances of massive destruction of fish in the waterbodies linked to Vempanad, thanks to the effluents from Karimugal factories. 

I had developed a kind of fear of various species usually found within homes or around - cockroaches, spiders of all sorts, lizards, rats and toads.  Centipedes, millipedes and scorpions were not all that common in our part of the world. With a kind of rage coupled with fear, I would attack and destroy them, perhaps exempting lizards. Over the years, the fear has not really disappeared, perhaps diminished, but the destruction part is totally done away with. Though I still don't tolerate them in my home or room, I would rather get them removed from my room. Today, two big ants have found access to my office desk, I don't know where from. I got the help of our staff to get them out, rather than just squeeze them to death, which would have been the case a decade or two ago.  But regarding rats and roaches, perhaps I am still intolerant, and if someone could get rid of them for me, I would rather do that. But do we really have the right to do that? 

My school days listing of birds I had noticed or observed in our neighbourhood would be as follows: Common crow (kaakka), Jungle crow (balikaakka), Mynah, crow pheasant (uppan kaakka), tailor bird (adacka kili) and herons or egrets (kokku - in general), Sparrow (angadi kuruvi - we never used any name for that. It later on got into fame, for the wrong reasons, leading to March 20 being observed as Sparrow Day to set the wrong right - Sparrows were usually seen in the market area of Thevara and Ernakulam, not in my neighbourhood as such), Kingfisher (ponman) and Woodpecker (maram kotti) - the last two hardly ever seen or observed, still familiar. It was much later that I had an entry into the fascinating world of avian fraternity and plants, about whom I have become careful, concerned and sensitive. But still I am far away from that stance of 'untouchability' - I still deem human beings to have a greater role in guiding the rest of the species, and even 'keeping' them (caring for and controlling them) - they are doing it; and perhaps, they cannot avoid doing that. 

Since 1992, thanks to the Rio Summit and the media reports on it, I have been made a little more sensitive towards our life on the planet.  My Social Work training and our course on Environment and Disaster Management added to my interest. It was Thomas, my good friend and colleague on the Kalamassery campus as I joined as a faculty member of Rajagiri College in 1997, who initiated me into the world of birds - from where I began to be interested also in other fellow creatures like butterflies, dragon flies and other animals and insects.  Through him, I got the friendship of another great bird enthusiast and scholar, Pakshi Eldho of Thattekaad, who named his daughter Ashy, after the bird Ashy Drongo. He is credited to have spotted the Frogmouth after the days of Salim Ali at Thattekkad. I deeply regret the untimely disappearance of a great Birder and friend from our Common Home. 

With Pope Francis and his landmark encyclical Laudato Si (2015) the term Common Home has gained greater currency in the Catholic Christian circles, though Catholic spirituality as such has not caught up with the stewardship envisaged by the re-reading Francis had done about the creation story and the role of humans in creation (Holy Bible - Genesis 1 & 2). 

Finding a bird and being able to identify it made my travels and treks more interesting and engaging. 

At Sitapur, our college campus welcomes about 800 human beings during the peak hours, and about 25 of us reside on the campus.  After the humans and their usually controlled voices and noises are gone, the campus becomes very active and alive with unhindered movement of birds and squirrels. 

The chatterboxes on the campus are the squirrels and the colonies of the seven sisters, who are generally called babblers. The squirrels out here (five-striped palm squirrel - Funambulus pennantii) appear very small - I think smaller than the ones found in South India. They create a lot of noise - as if a group of birds are chirping; and then the babblers would chirp in with their babble. They appear to complement each other in their movements, appearance and noise. The squirrels have found comfortable nesting points between our window nets and the glass frame. They nest during the winter, nurse the new ones, and then come back next winter. So far, we have left 3 or 4 such installations untouched. 

Then there are the periodical visiting groups of prinias (I guess, rufous fronted or grey breasted) who try to do their best from those very tiny frames. The campus is blessed with the musical calls of bulbuls all through the year - At times, one group dominates, at other times another - usually red-whiskered, and less often red-vented. Magpie robins are there all through the year, though not very many in number. The spring mornings invariably bring out the copper smith among the Barbets. The brown headed Barbets are also regularly there. Bulbuls and Spotted doves move around without any fear; they don't fly away at the sight of the huge two-legged species with various hues of coverings to substitute for their beautiful natural plumage.  Crows - both common and jungle - are there around the year, but are not vocal. At times, Mynahs spring to action and contribute their mite. There are times, even at night Common Hawk Cuckoo reveals its true nature by its manic call, befitting its appellation - brain fever bird. In my mother tongue it is called 'pekkuyil' (meaning, the mad koel). The campus also has the sweet call of the Asian Koel.  Tree pies also abound, but their sore-throated call is rarely heard by me. The peasant crow with its slow gait is often seen, and on a daily basis it announces its presence by its booming and resounding call.  We see parrots and egrets fly across the campus. Bats are there. But fruit bats come in hordes, when the report of the ripening of lychees reach them. Then, no one knows from where, they arrive, and gobble down the abundant fruits of a huge tree within hours and then go back to their hangouts. The history repeated itself this year too; but fortunately, a tree was spared for the next day, by when, it came under a protective net.  The juicy translucent whitish flesh of  red heart-shaped lychee is a treat in summer - it is indeed sugar syrup in a piece of jelly. Give a minute and the juice dries on your fingers to form a fairly thick coat of sugar. 

Another noisy resident is the red-wattled lapwing - many pairs of them who nonchalantly build their nests on the football ground and even on the hot terrace of our residence, and would bluff us by making noise away from what they call their nest.  Thomas, my birding guru suggests that it is asking us: Did you do it? In UP, they call it Titihari, almost re-sounding the noise they make. When the students are gone for summer holidays, we see them converting the campus into their anganwadis, walking and guiding their young ones around. We have also purple sun bird, and spotted munia making their nests on the campus; doing everything possible to appear that there is nothing of that sort there. We also pretend not to have seen their karigiri. But from our kitchen window we have a very good view of its work with the nest, while remaining unseen.

Adding to the din is the piercing whirring of the cicadas - their non-stop chant works as a background, and when other artists take rest, their mantras become deafening, while they remain generally invisible. 

We have spotted owlets who become active at night, and at times with a shrieking call, pounce upon their preys, including the doves, whose nest they have come to occupy. Our other avian residents include flower peckers, tailor birds, Larks (sparrow Larks?), Drongos, Orieols, visitors like Shikra, Pariah Kite, Rock pigeons, various egrets, horn bills, King fisher, parrots etc. 

Dr. Yogesh has managed to induce Magpie Robin to nest at his home, merely by placing a human made nest at his residence in the campus neighbourhood. This time, there are four nestlings this time. 

While we miss a cow on the campus (once upon a time, there used to be many), we have 3 dogs (Dobermen and woman😁), One cat - Rani (who is very friendly with the students, and disappear, when its promoter Dr. A.K. George moves out of the campus), a pair of geese - Monu and Munni, about a dozen rabbits, a few guinea pigs.  While we try to cultivate the great honey gatherers as an educative process, their wilder family has created a huge home in a matter of a couple of days - amazingly withstanding the strong winds, rains and heat. I learn that they have their own air-conditioning mechanism. 

The campus abounds with snakes - vipers, cobras and rat-snakes; a few families of mongoose, at least a few monitor lizards.  Visiting us and marking the same by uprooting our tapiocas and spilling some of its valued quills is the persistent porcupine. Our canine trinity was badly mauled by its hard-hitting tactics.  A Toad has managed to sneak into the residence, and I am afraid it is somewhere inside my small cell. One day, a young one was found in the washbasin. I somehow managed to get that outside my room. The other night, I found three of them in different parts of the ground floor, making me feel uncomfortable. Care for the species diversity is one thing, being happily in one room with them, not always so. 

Our Kochi Sacred Heart Delhi chapter alumni group had some birdy sharing and discussion, which finally ended up with our erudite senior Dr. Antony sharing the following poem, which inspired me to make these jottings: 

Long Ago

I once knew all the birds that came
  And nested in our orchard trees;
For every flower I had a name—
  My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees;
I knew where thrived in yonder glen
  What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe—
Oh, I was very learned then;
  But that was very long ago!

I knew the spot upon the hill
  Where checkerberries could be found,
I knew the rushes near the mill
  Where pickerel lay that weighed a pound!
I knew the wood,—the very tree
  Where lived the poaching, saucy crow,
And all the woods and crows knew me—
  But that was very long ago.

And pining for the joys of youth,
  I tread the old familiar spot
Only to learn this solemn truth:
  I have forgotten, am forgot.
Yet here's this youngster at my knee
  Knows all the things I used to know;
To think I once was wise as he—
  But that was very long ago.

I know it's folly to complain
  Of whatsoe'er the Fates decree;
Yet were not wishes all in vain,
  I tell you what my wish should be:
I'd wish to be a boy again,
  Back with the friends I used to know;
For I was, oh! so happy then—
  But that was very long ago!

 

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