Crowing about an uncommon bird

A file grab from wikipedia

Raju Korti
When you have precious little to do with a mind desperately seeking to go into an overdrive, your eyes look for something that you have been seeing ever since you can remember but never actually registered. It is better to have a fair intellect that is well used than a powerful one that is idle.
So in tune with my latest talent for discovering engaging pastimes that don't cost a dime, I have found one that consumes most part of my day wherever I may be. The object of my riveting attention these days are the much reviled, despised crows, especially the ones that flit around and perch themselves on the huge tree that faces my bedroom. It is extremely rare that you get to look at a crow straight in the face, eye-to-eye. But having encountered its X-ray gaze on a numerous occasions, I have come to the unassailable conclusion that much of the revulsion people have for this condemned species of birds is misplaced and unfair. It is actually a sharp, intelligent and quick-on-the-uptake bird that has a canny knack for survival compared to the songbird variety that corners all the admiration.
I am pretty sure that those who look down on crows as intellectually-challenged birds have had a lost childhood and since my adulthood makes for no concession of my kid years, I will recommend crows like I am their hired attorney.
My respect for crows grew when as a growing kid I first read the meandering stories of Pandit Vishnu Sharma's celebrated work Panchatantra where he dedicates one full technique of existentialism and life to the philosophy and intelligence of the crows. In my prime stage of youth, I read writers who often compared the hair colour of beautiful women with that of a Raven.
Wittingly, I became more conscious of the ubiquitous presence of this bird with a petite 7-inch frame and it became a hobby of sorts to try and look at it straight in the eye. It was both knowledge and revelation that it had many feathers in its smooth pate visible only to the discerning like me.
Mark Twain took my esteem for crows to the next higher level although his famed eulogy has frills of derision to it. I will reproduce his words to allow you to draw your own conclusions:

"In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a loyalist, a democrat,, a practitioner and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. He does not know what care is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and will go to his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an author or something, and be even more intolerable capable and comfortable than he was ever before."

Quite a hefty package that! Twain has actually used "he" in place of "it", which to my understanding is an indirect admission of the crow's ability to stand heads and shoulders above the man with the love-hate traits that he so profoundly describes. And mind you, the icing on the cake comes when you realize that it is the Indian crow, not the American crow that Twain is at pains to labour over. You can decide finally which is the variety that eats the crow. In my kindergarten days I learnt it through a simple but lasting legend of a thirsty crow who stumbles upon a pot of water at its bottom. Unable to draw water, "he" puts pebbles to make the water level rise and then quench his thirst. There cannot be a better example of wit and brevity than this justified fable:

Ek kawwa pyaasa tha, ghade mein thoda paani tha
Kawwa laaya kankar, paani aaya oopar
Kawwe ne piya paani, khatam ho gayi kahaani.

For those who are vocal in their discrimination of the two poor cousins koyal and the crow -- there is little to discriminate on the colour of their skin -- the latter has a range of cawing vocalization. After hours of careful observation I have found out that "he" flies with a minimal movement of the wings and caws hoarsely with the throat puffed, head bowed and tail dipping. Ornithologists may not have been able to decipher "his"calls and postures, but I am sure "he" has an equally derisive thing to say to the man: Kawwa ban ne ki koshish mat karo (Don't try to be smart like me).
Just one word. If your head is reeling after reading this great piece of literature, please pop a Crowcin.