Failure in my artistic life and a White-eye's chick

[Samrat Sarkar]

I had to look down towards the ground. By the time at 8 am the concrete terrace was quite hot. There was a cane basket kept upside down, some small broken pieces of bricks strewn here and there. I generally move ahead towards the open field leaving behind these houses and when I return the inmates want to see the pictures. As I show them the pictures they become curious and ask questions; have you got anything new? As I was standing there for an unusually long time the housewife came outside. She lifted the cane basket to show me a very small chick of an Oriental White-eye under it. It’ll not be more than 10 days that the chick has come out of the egg. Even feathers have not grown properly on its body. To save the chick from cat, the housewife has kindly made this arrangement. She declared that the chick was under the basket for about 20 minutes. Generally, chicks of this age has to be fed at an interval of not than three to four minutes. Moreover, the concrete terrace was already quite hot and the air circulation inside the basket was very much insufficient. In situations you can easily guess what could happen to this poor fellow. It bent its knees and was drowsing with its beaks touching the ground.
The moment the basket was removed one of its parent with a white spider in its mouth came towards it and mildly poked it on its back. When my boy was of a very tender age the elderly members of our house used to say that it is not wise to feed a sleeping baby. The baby should be awaken first and then should be fed. Here also I did not see any difference. At that time I was not much more than a minimum focusing distance from the chick and the housewife was more close to them than me. The bird was fearless and was ready to risk its life to save the life of its chick which was in great danger.

The other bird kept on shouting continuously. It was perhaps telling the world that their baby has fallen down from their nest, has not been fed for quite a long time and was in danger.