The Gang Mentality vs. A Baby Sparrow

It was a sparrow. A common variety that we, even in our handful of years had seen so many of, flying, on discreet tree branches, lined up neatly on telephone lines like so many snippets of Morse code. Normally, we wouldn't have thought much of it.

But this bird was different. It was a fledgling,  and it was on the ground, half-hidden by the tall grass that grew everywhere. We approached it, more out of curiosity than anything, but it hopped away from us. Intrigued, we increased our pace and again it flapped awkwardly, barely lifting off the ground and landed a few feet away. The more we tried to get close, the more it tried to get away from us, until it managed a short flight upward that got it onto a low-hanging branch of a Gulmohar.

We got under the tree and stood looking at it. We waved our hands until one of us flung a stone in its direction. It missed the bird by a few feet, but the sound it made as it ripped through the canopy scared the bird off of its perch and it fluttered down to the ground again only to flap its wings hurriedly as it gamely tried to get away from us.

We started chasing it. And it was getting better at flying away from us. By now, we were grabbing stones and pebbles and twigs and whatever our hurried, little hands could find and flinging them at the bird.

The bird now was able to stay perched on branches as we chased it from tree to tree.  It was doing its best not to land on the ground. And in its panic, the bird was making longer and longer flights. We too ran like the wind. Leaping over open storm-water drains that normally seemed to be too wide for our legs. Usually dry, and empty but for dead leaves, these drains filled up during the monsoons with clean, sparkling rainwater that run off the roads of the neighbourhood and was channeled into the river.

Screaming shrilly out to each other, we were determined to not let this curious creature get away from us. A couple of us fell because none of us was looking at the ground, but that stopped nobody.

Suddenly and finally, one of the pebbles found its mark - it could have been mine - and the bird was knocked off its sheltering branch and fell like the very pebble that had hit it - into the drain underneath.

Whooping jubilantly we ran up to the spot. And saw that it was being carried away swiftly in the water. We ran alongside the drain, scampered deftly over the culverts, managed to race up ahead of the bird, and I hopped into the drain just in time and scooped the little bird up as it came rushing towards us. Everybody gathered around to look at it closely. We were panting and a little tired but we were pleased with ourselves.

It was cold and shivering with shallow breaths. Its wings were wet and heavy. I cupped it between my palms and climbed out of the drain. We were so young, but we knew that the bird was dying.

Still, holding the bird I ran, exuberantly with a few others along with me, towards the nearest grown-up I could see.