A grandma kills two birds with one stone
The glint in her lovely eyes was worth capturing and I did it on my phone camera. She, armed with the crude catapult made of a twig and hair band by me, was aiming at the birds in the guava trees. She clapped her hands and laughed with glee when they got scared, fluttered their wings and made screeching sounds before flying away. I marvelled at my clever move of killing two birds with one stone. I had managed to salvage the ripening fruit by getting my young granddaughter scare away the parrots who ate away and wasted the guavas. Also, I had made her enjoy her vacation like I intended her to.
Like most grandparents, I too love my grandchildren and always long to have them visit me here in the village. Through them I relive my own childhood spent in a small village near Hoshiarpur, the district famous for it’s luscious mangoes. I want them to build wonderful memories in their childhood to be cherished in their future lives like their grandmother does. The best of my memories are of spending summer vacations in a tiny village near Hoshiarpur with my paternal grandparents.
The stretch of 25 km from Hoshiarpur to our village was full of mango groves then and I could never possibly forget the joyful drive with huge trees laden with fruit on both sides of the road. We had nearly 30 mango trees of different varieties of our own in the village.
I along with my cousins loved picking mangoes by climbing on the accessible ones. From morning till evening, we played under the mango trees and also relished the sweet juicy fruit. It used to be fun taking turns to shoot the stones from the catapult to scare the birds away and forbid them from eating the fruit.
This vacation, I made a catapult with the branch of a tree and an old nylon hair band for my young granddaughter. I taught her to scare the birds and squirrels by shooting pebbles with the catapult. She found it fun.
After initial annoyance and resistance at being forced to fly away from the fruit trees, the birds stopped coming all together. The child was happy initially at her victory for having stopped them from coming to the orchard but soon started missing them. One day, tearyeyed she told me that she wanted the birds back and feed them otherwise they might die of hunger.
The child’s words shook my conscience and I was ashamed of being so void of compassion for the poor hungry birds who had no other means of survival besides eating fruit from the trees. The innocent eight-yearold had taught me a lesson in compassion. I was reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s words: There is enough for our needs but not for our greed.
The rest of her vacation we spent clicking pictures of lovely birds who were soon back to peck at the fruit. Now, that’s what I call killing two birds with one stone.
THE CHILD’S WORDS SHOOK MY CONSCIENCE. I WAS ASHAMED OF BEING SO VOID OF COMPASSION FOR THE BIRDS