Are you in a state when everything seems to be falling apart in your life? You do not like anybody in your class or is it the other way round? You look at the mirror and realize that your nose is too chubby. And you are getting pimples of all sizes on your face. In short, unpleasant things happening and you just can’t cope.
Well, meet someone who is literally, physically falling apart and still coping… wonderfully surviving against the toughest odds. Meet B.P. crow, who lives in a lush green Badam tree opposite my house. B.P. is not blood pressure , but bits and pieces. Here is a crow that seems to be made of bits and pieces and assembled all wrong. Some of these bits and pieces keep falling off. Yet B.P. crow survives and seems happy about it.
To begin with ,B.P. crow lost all the toes and claws of one leg, when perched on an electric transformer an year ago. Next, he lost the stump of a leg in a violent fight with a raven twice his size. Now he stands on his belly. His head doesn’t have the neat back combed look all crows have. The few feathers he has, stick out in all directions as if someone had crudely stuck them on him.
And there was the day he fought a dog over some crumbs. B.P. crow was the winner though his eye took a swipe from the dog’s sharp claws during the fight. That was also when his voice changed. so, when he caws, it sounds like he is being strangled, startling other birds who stare at him in horror. But his spirit was not dampened by all these things.
And then, last week, B.P. crow vanished. I took round in the surroundings to see if he was lying down wounded somewhere. But, no traces of him and I assumed he must have died somewhere! Afterall, it is amazing that he had survived this long with all his disabilities, with no one to protect him.
And then this morning he suddenly reappeared. And he no longer looked like a crow. I had thought it was impossible for B.P. crow to become more battered than he already was, but he had managed to become worse! Now his tough vulture beak had broken half way up and now he had a longer lower beak and a half-upper beak. As I threw a piece of milk soaked bread at him, he ate it digging his lower beak into the food and tilting his beak head backwards to let it all go in. all the feathers in his back were gone. And one wing was clearly broken. His single eye shone like a star.
So inspired was I by B.P. crow’s surviving skills that I went back to the mirror to replace my grumpy sad face with a smiling one, I then looked at B.P. crow again out of window, and this time my smile became laugh of admiration. Do you know why?
Because in that broken beak, B.P. crow was now holding a twig tightly. He was building a nest! Yes, when ‘the going gets tough, the tough gets going’!
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