NATURE NURTURE: With Pretty Voices

It���s a bright, beautiful morning in Delhi Cantonment. We are taking tea in a small, elevated garden and shooting the breeze. Flowers sparkle in the gentle sunshine. Across, on the lawns and trees and bushes and in the fresh air, green parakeets, babblers, tailorbirds with upright tails, bush larks and such are out in large numbers.
Their cheerful notes make for a wonderful symphony.I open the morning papers. The broadsheet has screaming headlines. Militants cross over the LoC. A young Bangalore army officer succumbs to enemy bullets. More innocents caught in the conflict and tension of the Valley. Displaced Kashmiri Pandits talk of their land and homes being taken over by extremists. ���So what���s new?��� goes my companion. I don���t know whether it���s a question or a remark. More birds fill the air, bushes and trees. Mynahs boldly come hopping, close to our feet rummaging for insects in the grass. A long-tailed black Drongo swoops in front of us.
Interrupting the morning stillness and the birdsong are urgent, screeching sounds. A belligerent house crow is in hot pursuit of a screeching jet-black common koel. It is a noisy and angry chase. Why is the crow chasing the poor music-producing bird? Didn���t the veena maestro Chitti Babu fashion the koel���s mellifluous notes into the hauntingly beautiful piece, Kommalo Koyila? My companion observing the action, said, ���The chick with pretty voice is taking the crow for a ride this nesting season. The cuckoo that you see being chased is actually a selfish bird. It has provoked and distracted the crow so that its mate can lay an egg in the crow���s nest. Not just that, the femme fatale will destroy the crow���s eggs. In time, the wide-mouthed koel hatchling will get priority in the food chain! That���s what���s happening, old chap!��� Aghast at what one had heard, and without a Salim Ali or a Ranjit Lal around to throw light on the conflict, one stood confused in one���s crushed kurta-pajama, watching the social tensions of the avian world. As we got ready to leave the garden, to prepare for the day, my companion said, ���Happens all the time in nature, and around us. Don���t we all get fooled by chicks with pretty voices? So what���s new?���