Live Parrot Story
View(s):
(For Amara, Lakshna, Layla and Nayantara)
Pethammah made steady progress over Monday and Malar was delighted that she was able to feed herself. It was clear that she was partial to the papaw fruit. This also meant that Malar could get on with some of the work that needed doing in the house!
Pethammah’s mother brought a whole battalion of relatives to see her on Monday morning. They watched from afar while only the mother descended to keep company and on occasions would do a fly past as though to teach her child to do the same.
She, the mother, would often come alone and sit in the vicinity. As time went by, progress seemed slow to her. She was beginning to display a look of annoyance. The closing in of the weather compounded this as the peninsula was engulfed by a tropical storm that led to continuous rain for several days as it turned out.
Attempts at flying consisted of small, short hops that were not convincing. The old doctor, while pleased with the progress made by the head wounds, wondered whether a joint or bone problem could be the cause of this slow progress on the flying front. He shared the mother’s concerns and the lack of avian X-ray facilities at Chelvacot were not helpful.
The storms closed in with tropical showers, accompanied by thunder and lightning that seemed never ending. It became decidedly cool at night with a dampness that clung to your skin like a wet sock. These conditions were not conducive for nursing Pethammah outside in the courtyard. She was brought into the back veranda on Tuesday night for protection from the elements. The wet night continued punctuated by the noise of rolling thunder and the wailing of stray dogs in the distance.
The old doctor awoke to go to the bathroom at five o’clock on Wednesday morning. Across from his room was the enclosure housing Pethammah. He went to look at her and to his horror found her on the floor, eyes half closed but breathing. He did not like her breathing pattern at all! He feared the worst. Quick, he thought, must get her some fresh air. He flung open the back door and laid a cloth on the wet sand in the courtyard and took her outside into the dull grey of the impending dawn. Thankfully the rain had stopped. The poor old doctor had reached the limits of his knowledge of avian medicine. His father had been a vet and would have been the man for the job. The old doctor’s mind flashed back to the time when he was a boy living on the banks of the river Nile in Khartoum, Sudan.
During the rainy season Lake Victoria in Uganda and Lake Tana in Ethiopia would overflow causing the River Nile in the Sudan to flood. In Khartoum the river would be three times its normal width flooding the banks and depositing the rich silt on to the crop growing banks. As the waters receded large puddles would be left with fish trapped in droves. The old doctor recalled catching a catfish and bringing it home just across the road and putting it in the bath tub having filled it with water. Catfish have a round body and a flattish head with bristly moustache like hair around the mouth.
They have powerful tails allowing them to leap distances. The next morning the boy doctor’s mother summoned him from his slumber to explain why a dead cat fish was lying in the living room some twenty yards away from the bath tub!
As these thoughts flashed by, action was needed now. He called Malar on the phone. Pethammah is critical, I think she is about to die, he said. The tigress nurse reached the house within fifteen minutes. She took her off the floor and blew into her face. This seemed to bring a response. She then squeezed mango into a pulp and placed it into Pethammah’s mouth. After a while she began to swallow and gradually became livelier.
This was accompanied by further breathing exercises and attempts to make her fly.
Malar, fed her small amounts frequently. By the end of the day she began to feed herself and perched herself on the branches placed in her space. Pethammah’s mother visited several times and seemed not to be perturbed by the movements of human beings in the house. As night fell she was taken into the back veranda for the night.
At one o’clock in the morning, on Thursday, the old doctor was woken by a loud screech. He rushed out into the veranda. Pethammah had departed into the black Jaffna night sky only lit by the lightning from the electric storm. The old doctor was crest fallen. Her mother never came again.