Broken Twigs

“I’m back mom”, I yelled. I was just back from school. My brother was sitting quite comfortably on the sofa and peacefully watching TV. Not anymore. I grabbed the TV remote from him and changed the channel. We had never been the kind of brothers who would hug and kiss each other often. But that day his actions were wierd. He didn’t seem to care about the TV and went inside. I was curious to find out what interested him more than TV, so I followed him.

Mom stopped me and asked, “How many hours did you stand out today?”

Ugh. She was kidding; I was liked by every teacher in class. Okay, maybe not, but I like it this way. All the other students wondered how I manage to frustrate the teacher just by saying something stupid .My mouth was my first enemy and my policy of questioning everything, the second. I had no time to answer my mom. I had to find out what my brother was up to.

He went straight inside the balcony. “Wow”, I said. It was a bird’s nest. Just then a sparrow came back to the balcony with a twig and placed it carefully on the nest.”Mom, the sparrow is here. Can we feed it some grains?” my brother asked. Mom gave us some grains and we threw them inside the nest. The sparrow flew away.”When did it start building the nest?” I asked.

”I don’t know. It was there when I arrived from school”, my brother said. His school works till 2:40 pm and mine till 3:30 pm.

”Very well”, I said. He ran to the hall and changed the TV channel. I did not seem to care about it, something else interested me.

I was searching for the sparrow and there it was, on the ground picking up small twigs.”Don’t lean too much, just a slip and you could fall down and get the sparrow killed”, Mom said.

”Yeah, as if the sparrow stands still and watches a guy from the second floor falling on it.”, I said. In case you didn’t get that, it was sarcasm. Sometimes I wondered why I even have such pointless conversations with my mom. My mom mocked me often and I always had something to give her back.

The sparrow came back to place a twig. It noticed the grains. It perched on some and then chirped. Then came another sparrow to feed on the grains.”Oh mom, there’s two”, I said. My brother rushed in to see. He went too close and scared the sparrows away.”Ha-ha”, I laughed. With the sparrows gone I rushed to the hall to get the TV.

”Ohh”, my brother said. I spent the rest of the day thinking about all the things I could do with the sparrows. I could have it as a pet and watch them all day long. I could have the sparrows on my shoulder and take a picture.

This was the talk among the students the next day at school.”Maybe if you run out of food supplies, you could fry them and have them for lunch” my friends said.

“Oh! Please one would do just for a snack” said another.

“Hey wait, I never said anything about eating it, I’m going to raise it as my pet”, I said.

Everyone laughed. I rushed to the balcony as soon as I returned home. The sparrows were such a delight. I noticed some uncanny behavior of sparrows that day. It never flew away no matter how close I got. When I was about to lay my hands on one of the sparrows, the other started pecking my finger with its beak. Wow! That was brave. My mom said “Don’t you touch that. You might get some infectious diseases. You don’t know where the sparrows have been, do you?”.

“Maybe, but I am almost sure they are less lethal than the food you make” I said.

“Just going to skip over the insult” she said.

That would keep her quiet for a while. I then noticed something white and round below the sparrows. It was an egg. “Look at that”, I said, “The sparrow has laid an egg.”

Mom rushed to take a look. She didn’t seem quite pleased. “Oh no, it is sin to have an egg in the house .That too, so close to the kitchen”.

“Oh yeah, who said so?” I asked.

“God did”, said mom.

“Then ask God why he even created sparrows” I said.

“But it would make a lot of mess” she said and went inside.

I spent the rest of the day admiring the activities of the sparrows. One was guarding the nest and the other went in search of food. At a point of time I even considered studying ornithology. The next day was a regular day with no difference. Comments passed “You can have the egg as a starter.” I didn’t care about the jokes. I was in my own world dreaming about sparrows.

Again when I was back from the school I rushed to the balcony. I was very much shocked to see that the nest was not there. I knew my mom would have thrown the nest away. I asked her “why did you throw the nest away?”

“It already made a lot of mess in the balcony, I want our house to look neat and clean” mom said.

“Very thoughtful mom, the house might be clean, but what it will never be is a home” I said.

I was frustrated and stormed out of the kitchen. I went to the balcony to see if I can spot sparrows. The sparrows stood on the window grill apparently searching for their nest. I felt bad for the sparrows, went to my room and shut the door. My mom noticed that I was sad and came to comfort me.

“I am really sorry, kid. I never thought it would hurt you so much”, said mom.

“Do you even think about other people mom?” I asked, “The lovely sparrows made me forget my worries and now they are gone”.

“Maybe if they come back to build a nest, we can keep them” she said.

“Only if mom” I said, “only if”.

When did practices of religion overpower the basic love people had for animals and for each other? If a sparrow can unite two brothers, what is the harm in letting it stay at the cost of devotion towards religion?

We and the animals share a home. Is it a fair share? Do we not realize that we are cruel? We cover up the vast majority of the world. And we report that a large number of people are killed by animal attacks. What do you think would be the statistics of the number of animals killed by humans? If our life has to function at the cost of the animals, just ask yourselves: do we really deserve to live?

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