The Mourning

Today morning while strolling in my garden, I found a crow lying peacefully dead in a corner. Electricity lines pass over that part of the garden,maybe it met its end while sitting on the line.

I was surprised not to find any other crow around cawing as part of its mourning ritual.Perhaps it was because it was early in the morning and they might not have noticed the absence of their fellow bird.

The sight of that poor bird which had no soul to mourn its passing away was heart-rending and I was in tears. I had heard the painful cries(caws) of that bird the previous night ,but it was too late in the night to go out and see what had happened.

It was not long before a crow spotted the dead bird and started raising an alarm. It looked as if it was telling me to do something about it. I didn't know what to do, and came back inside.Once I was in, the cawing stopped.

Later in the day, I mustered up the courage to take the dead bird and put it somewhere away from my house. When I stepped out of the house, a few crows flew out of nowhere and began cawing again. Some were even following me,screaming ,hopping from one place to another, trying to catch my attention and persuade me to do something....anything at all that would be equivalent to a respectful homage to the bird.

I carefully pushed the bird in a dust pan with the help of a broom and put it in the red-green "Makkum Kuppai ,Makkatha kuppai" bin in our locality. I don't know if that sounds respectful at all but then it was the least I could do instead of letting it rot away in the garden.