Predator or Prey?

My friend Shreya and I used to be regular morning walkers at band stand. On one such morning just as we began our daily round we noticed a big bird lying limp and helpless on the side of the promenade resting against the divider. Only when we went closer did I realize it was a kite. Its feathers were wet and it wasn’t moving. I was dreading it was already too late. But, when I knelt down beside it to see if it was still alive, it slowly opened its beautiful, orange eyes and stared right at me. It was ironic actually; the same bird that would strike terror in the smaller city birds was found crouched awkwardly on the ground, propped up against the promenade wall with crows circling overhead.

The bird already seemed distressed so I didn’t want to disturb it until we needed to. It amazed me to see the number of people walking past the bird, noticing it, but showing little or no interest in helping it. When they realized that we had stopped and it looked like we were going to do something about the situation, they began stopping and giving their advice on what should be done, displaying no signs of doing any of it themselves. In fact, one lady walked past without even stopping, screaming out behind her, “Take the thing to SPCA!” Not having to wait for her valuable input, we had already phoned SPCA but to no avail. No one was willing to get out that early in the morning to get a kite. We were told to call after 10; but at that point I knew I couldn’t leave it unguarded or the crows would have got the better of him, not to mention the number of stray dogs who would pounce the moment they got a chance. Finally, not knowing what else to do, I decided to take him home. But I couldn’t just carry it with my bare hands… I needed a towel and a box. Shreya lived close by and so she rushed home to get the necessary things. I think we both left her mom quite baffled! When she returned, I called a rickshaw before lifting up the kite. The kite may have been wounded, but it hadn’t lost its pride. It tried to resist the towel and ward me off, but it was too weak. Having gotten into the rick, I was just hoping with all my heart that it would sustain the bumpy trip home. But this was a big, powerful kite and it didn’t look willing to give up just yet. Had this been a pigeon, I doubt it would have survived.

On reaching home, I asked my dad to come downstairs to help decide what to do next. Being a bird lover, he didn’t hesitate in the least. We put him in the trunk of the car and tried to examine him more closely. Having got a little more room, he stood upright, on his guard, looking alert, almost ready to attack. Well, I wouldn’t have blamed him- after having broken his wing, he was tormented by smaller, inferior birds, draped in a thick, white cloth, picked up by two strange females, had a rickety auto ride and had been transported to the back of a car. Well what could I say? We were just trying to help!

We lifted his wing to see how bad it was…. It was much worse than I expected. The wing had completely come off from the shoulder bone and it was just hanging lose. The bone was jutting out and it had no control over its wing at all. It couldn’t even fold it back in place. We doubted that it could have suffered an injury as bad as this just by falling down or crashing into something.

A boy who washes the cars in our building got curious about what we were doing. When he realized it was a kite, he came round to our side and started examining the bird. He said he had rescued a kite himself once and he had had it with him in his house for quite a while. He was excellent with handling the bird and showed no fear of getting clawed. He opened up the wing to take a look and he managed to open it up wider and with much more ease than we did. He said that it looked like a classic case of a dog attack. That seemed to make sense, when we now looked at it; it looked like something that would have happened if a dog had got his teeth into it. What’s more, the boy said that this one was just a young bird and that it would still grow at least 1/3^rd its size! I could only imagine how magnificent this fellow would look fully grown.

We folded his wing back in its place and wrapped him up again. Left him a little water and bread and went upstairs to look up a vet. Through our family vet, I was referred to a number of people before I finally came across a lady who said she knows a kite specialist. She said she would call me back with his contact details. When she finally got back to me, I was surprised by the strange address. ‘Nandu’ the kite specialist worked in a garage near a fish market. But this lady seemed to have complete confidence in this man. So we set off, address in hand looking for him. There was no clinic, so there was no hoarding; just the reference name of a shop. After much looking, we found the shop and sure enough found Nandu there chatting up his friends. When we told him that we had brought a kite, he walked back to the car with us to see it. I was surprised when he lifted up the kite skillfully with one hand and started walking off in the direction of his house across the street, where perched on some bamboo sticks were at least 10 other kites! I was sure at that point that we had brought our kite to the right place. Nandu wasn’t the typical vet, but a simple man who cared for these numerous kites just for the love of them. As he walked back towards the shop, he smiled at us pleasantly and reassuringly.

Thanks to the caring hands of Nandu, the kite is now faring well.

I’m happy to have met Nandu, an unassuming, unexpected animal lover, who, with no attitude or show, continues to do what he loves. It was nice to learn about the boy who cleans our cars-who would have thought he would be an expert on kites? Life sometimes throws these situations at you and it’s amazing to see how much you can learn from them.