‘There are three things precious to me: Layla, birds and music, in that order. They are to me like a single lit candle is to a dark musty cave of uncertainties. Layla, I left alone far too long far too often. Every time I thought of her, I heard Chopin’s Nocturne which I believed was the perfect title track to the beautiful flowing montage of her hair she let loose from her high bun. Actually, the verse that really does capture the state I’m in when I see her hair unravel from the towel in the mornings is zulfein hain jaise kandhe pe badal jhuke (your hair is like the dark cloud that drifts upon your shoulders) from the song Chaudhvin Ka Chand (full moon of the night) by the great Mohammed Rafi, one of her favourites. I was utterly at the whims of her eyelashes too.
She was unpredictable. Most times it was charming. Other times, I just stayed clear of her and chose the safer company of birds - winged troublemakers most of them. The Loten’s Sunbird I first came across in the Sunderban National Park for example had its own distinct neuroticism and unwavering character. Being witness to them felt strangely reassuring. Some others may find the starlings more graceful. Profound in their synchronicity, delicate in their movements, eerie sometimes in their form. While our world was at incessant war, the birds only ulterior motive it seemed was exploration and survival. Was there politics among birds? Were birds suspicious and insecure? Much like humans, birds also had moves when it came to courting a potential mate. Sometimes I wished I could interview birds themselves for these answers and those regarding their own machinations.
I am a bird watcher, but I’m also chronicler, even though sometimes I have trouble transcribing my own handwriting. I chose this as my line of work, to speak for them so others may understand them better. I learnt from them that one’s elusiveness becomes one’s armour. But this was just a cover. Being an ornithologist was just my cover sometimes, it was a passport to facilitating dubious but necessary global diplomacy. Politics of water both inter-state and transboundary when it comes to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh has been complex to say the least. I don’t know how far my reports as a civilian may have helped. Water ownership is the source of these disputes you see. As opposed to people reporting from the frontline, you could say I report from the water banks. But I also obliged because I wanted the government to be more vigilant about wildlife trafficking. The Border Security Force (BSF) along the India-Bangladesh border seized birds known as the Toucans that were smuggled from South America. Have you ever seen a Toucan? They have a majestic bill, it’s like an explosion of colour on canvas, but they’re terribly noisy and can’t sing to save their life, much like my Layla.’
This is what Rumi, a freelance wildlife journalist uncovered in her in-depth feature interview with Amod Ohri, renowned ornithologist almost a decade ago in his home in New Delhi. The Bougainvillea seemed to consume most of the outer walls of his home, while various bird feeders had pride of place in his garden. He boasted the last time that he had over three dozen variety of flowers and over 16 types of birds who visited him from time to time. His favourite was the Orange Headed Thrush. She fell in love with his love of birds. Amod truly believed that everyone ought to love birds. Birds defy borders and boundaries. They are the true global citizens of the world. Think of all the love stories, the trials, happy interludes, and the devastating encounters they witness and leave in their wake. How do they choose their destinations though? Do birds experience doubt or regret? Do they chase the wind to pass time? Rumi was left with a profound appreciation of these elusive creatures. She wanted to visit him for a follow up and requested his daughter Tara to accompany her specially to sign her in at the premium gated facility for the elderly. She wanted to go over the points of her interview from the previous week with the Yamuna Biodiversity Park that reported that the bird count had increased from 83 last year, to 101 this year.
When Rumi and Tara tried to gain access to Amod on a rather wet Sunday, it seemed challenging. Amod was in one of those moods. While observing him, Rumi believed that Amod was in a gnawing conversation with himself. The situation presented itself as such that when he paced around his room which incidentally was decorated with feathers, he seemed like a neurotic spider doddering its way across what may have been a catacomb of memories. It was as if he was inspecting his attic, rummaging through it frantically. She remembered that he once told her that he often wished he could take a tonic or something to bring to heel his wretched memory.
***
‘Why the hell is it so dark?! What was I looking for again? Ah, this looks familiar…my letters to Layla. She kept them all. I wonder if she took pleasure in mapping my reported adventures and misadventures. I know she forgave me… most times. Her diary is here somewhere. We did promise each other that if one passes on, the other has free access to their private plots and thoughts. I need to find hers. God there’s so much chatter outside. What a nuisance! Here’s another trunk, I bet it’s messier than the first. Oh, here’s the first book I wrote on birds, covered now in the dust of abandon. Who would have thought I could make a career out of birdwatching? Feathers amidst foes by Amod Ohri’ he read out the title with pride. Did I keep that promise to myself of reminding people that these beautiful creatures depend on us being at peace with one another? If I did, I bet it didn’t make a difference. People are always at war. If not with each other, with themselves. But what is the point in poor birds being caught in the crossfire?
Wow! There’re almost 100 kinds of feathers in this ol’ trunk, magnificent as ever. Why didn’t we exhibit them or at least give them a homage on our living room wall as we had intended! Oh yes, it’s because people now like spending time looking at their mobile phones as if it would divulge their prophecy. Why would anyone look at something they can’t share instantly for validation or profit of some kind? Instead, they walk right past precious artifacts like wind chimes that extend a tone to the wandering gusts or take a selfie in front of murals without a care for their origin. These feathers would just represent a dying avian breed, or idea of something irrevocably beautiful but unpossessable. Unless you spell a thought like this out to people, the point would just frizzle and frazzle out of sight and be as lost as a feather would be to boundaries. At best, the feathers would inspire their Mardi Gras outfits. Now this is a truly weathered box. I know friends and family who have cartons and chests of photo albums, old toys and clothes. We have letters, postcards, books and feathers. I suppose if we had children, our lives would have been different. Babies are a tough and unpredictable audience. I think Layla thought of them like a ticking time bomb with a complex diffuse system that is activated after 18 years when their independence can hold parents’ emotions ransom. But our lovely daughter was the exception. What’s her name again?! Oh, here are her piano notebooks…
I remember how jealous I was of that black and white monstrosity of a piano in our living room that commanded her attention. I had never seen her as comfortable with anything or anyone than with the 5x5 feet wooden box with ivory that obeyed her fingers. It offered her possibilities I couldn’t I suppose. Anyway, why can’t I find my letters to Layla. Whatever I forgot, she had a way of reminding me. She harboured my sanity for me which she handed back to me over a cup of ginger tea. I miss her. I… I … I’m still forgetting something…my mind’s filing system is so rusty. Blasted! Why is it so dark in here? How can I find anything?!’
***
‘Can he hear me?’ Tara asked the doctor on duty. ‘I’ve brought him his favourite cake and there’s someone here who wants to have a word with him. Oh please, can you let him know I’m here. Do you think I can take him home at least for the long weekend?’ The doctor with a heavy sigh replied ‘’I’m sorry but, for him this is home. Mr. Ohri will be well looked after here. His Alzheimer’s has locked him into his own mind. This is the best place for him.’
Tara didn’t argue with the doctor. She just gave in to this sense of dismay that she would never again be able to have a conversation with her father about leaving out the burnt toast for the birds and animals, or about how he and her mother would constantly try to chirp back to the birds during their morning chai on the terrace, as if it were an actual conversation. She would miss their scrabble games where they created their own dictionary of words. She had fought her parents against a rule that only species of birds could be used as words in their game of scrabble. Tara hated that everything in her parents’ life invariably led back to birds. But over the years, she also found this to be their most charming quality. They were truly unified in their eccentricities. Tara hoped she too could somehow merge with their quirks. When she was 19, she returned from university for a summer vacation, relieved for not having to eat peanut butter sandwiches or khichdi (rice and lentil, but almost like baby food for adults) in her dorm anymore. She discovered in several carton’s little tapes with her father’s chronicles from his trips. She heard a couple and decided to extract the sound of the birds that were in the background of his narration and stitch them together to make something musically scintillating. What started as a summer experiment to get out of doing chores around the house, turned into a hobby, and then into a profession. Tara is now a leading ambient soundscape composer with more than two million followers on YouTube. She was lauded by a commentator for her contribution towards audio-centric ‘brain tingles’ that invoke the feeling of being somewhere else. Her parents were proud of her, that she knew. But she missed them.
The doctor returned with the paperwork that detailed the new terms for the facility’s assisted living and gently tapped Tara on her shoulder. ‘These will need your signatures. There have been a few changes to protocols introduced here which may give you some solace.’ Grateful, but still heartbroken, Tara walks away to the waiting area to gather her things and return the John Irving book to the dusty shelf. But, before she does, she once again reads the last paragraph where she left off, as if for closure, ‘your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things from you or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!’
Rumi, meanwhile, had been exploring the facility and enquired about all that it had to offer. Before she signs out, she asks Tara hesitantly, ‘by the way, where is your mum, the lovely Layla?’ Tara slips the book in the shelf and fiddles with her car keys, as if avoiding eye contact, not wanting to let tears escape her just yet, and says plainly ‘she’s in the room down the hall.’