A baby bird

The children found a bird. It was a baby, learning to fly, and must have fallen out of the nest when it was trying. It wasn’t injured, but seemed shocked, and sat very still and let me pick it up. Ankur had put her in a basket with a lid.

I sent the children off to ‘make a nest’, and they happily brought back fistfuls of grass and leaves, scolding each other and scattering it about. As more children appeared, I found tasks for them to do – get a box, bring water, find some rice, find some insects, specifically, worms. Find a piece of jali to cover the box. They asked me how to find worms, and I said to dig the ground with a stick (sometimes I think that I actually just keep making the children do useless things for my own amusement). One of them came triumphantly back with his hands cupped together. Everyone gathered around as he slowly lifted the top one to reveal – nothing! Then we saw an ant scampering away on the ground. As the bell for assembly rang, two class one children argued vehemently about whether the bird was white or black (she was actually brown).

In the meantime, inside the box, the bird had started calling out, and trying to fly. I called Mirza, who said that I should put her back near the nest, and the mother would come and get her, and to not try to feed her anything, since we didn’t know what she eats normally.

So, I took Sheetal dada, our carpenter, along to watch the bird from afar, because I had to get back to work. We went to the roof, close to where the bird was found, and saw the nest and the parents flying around. We put the basket and some water close by and went farther away to watch. Soon, one of the parents saw her and started circling around. Finally, she darted down close to the baby and flew away again. The bird was quiet now, perched on the edge of the basket, and seemed to be watching the parents.

The mother (or father) kept flying to the baby and flying away. Then, in one flight, the baby came with her, and flew to a low down branch. At this point, I had to leave, but felt that my duty was done, although I had made all the children run around for nothing (except maybe to occupy them during the before-school time). I also had to tell them, but when I did, they accepted the very simple, “We put her to the roof and her mother came and took her away.”

I wasn’t surprised by this. The children were very excited by the bird, and enjoyed the few minutes of running around. But I don’t think that any of them would have spent any more time looking after her or taken on any real responsibility. I could just imagine myself scolding them for neglecting some chore.

Is that how all children are? Or are these children more like that because most of them, especially the boys, are given no responsibilities or duties at home, have very little contact with ‘nature’, and don’t usually work on longer projects without immediate rewards, and are mostly interested in TV and ‘exciting’ things like that? As I think those things, the immediate contradictions face me. So many of the children look after younger brothers and sisters or help their families, including in earning. Many own livestock and must help in the care or at least be aware of what it involves.

But still, most seem ‘spoilt’ to me, not knowing or caring enough to follow through on something like this. There must be more we can do in school…more longer-term projects, pets in the classrooms, nature trips, more responsibilities that have real consequences that matter to the children.