The Modern Crow:

The old and ancient crow was intelligent no doubt, otherwise how could he feature in Aesop’s Fables and The Panchatantra? This refers to that famous story about how the crow puts pebbles in a shallow pitcher and gets the water to reach up to his beak. Somehow the progress and development of modern cities has thrown up a New Crow Culture, and opened up new vistas for Crows’ Nest Architecture. We humans have always looked down upon these common black birds who are not great lookers like the peacock, swan, flamingo, painted stork, giant macau and cockatoo. They aren’t much of a singer either like the nightingale, cuckoo and such warblers. They are downright ugly, always cawing, doing their God-prescribed duties of scavenging– keeping themselves dirty so that the environment would remain clean and eco-friendly. In India, the Hindus feed them as a part of their post-funeral rituals, particularly after a death in the family. They believe that feeding crows would keep the departed souls in peace. So whats new? their new reinforced nests are new and need to be described.

Corvus Splendens Crow Nest Technology:

The Corvus splendens is the crow and their nest should not be confused with the Crow’s Nest, a watchout tower on ships. My city, Kolkata, ie. Calcutta of yore, still has a lot of trees, thanks to the Social Forestry programme aimed at making cities green and environment-friendly. City crows will always thrive so long there are trees to roost and build nests on. Despite the boom in construction of malls, flyovers, highways and skyscrapers there are plenty of trees. This scum of the earth, the crow, is also diligent in the use of littered construction material scrap to build it’s nest. Twigs and branches are old hat now. Crows now capitalise on the use of thin metal strips and wires that are used to bind steel rods. These wires and metal strips reinforce the crow’s nest that so long the tree stands the nest remains stable. No cyclone or hurricane can dislodge the nests or it’s contents. These 21st Century crows are as intelligent as Bill Gates in adapting new technologies for a better Crow Survival Rate.

Conclusion:

The crows are very social and are absolute do-gooders. Apart from their scavenging duties, the crows are good security alerters. Whenever outsiders intrude near their trees or near houses where they are fed, their Alarm Caws sent alerts which are relayed by other crows making a huge racket. Petty thieves, cats, snakes and other hostile elements get irritated by these caws and are soon caught on the radar of some alert neighbour who does the needful. Their squabbles with mynahs and cuckoos are legendary. Anyway, were it not for the crows’ nest, the cuckoos would have never been able to lay their eggs, as a matter of rule,  into crows’ nests on the sly! Their soulful mourning for their dead and departed is very noisy, particularly if it is a death caused by a two-legged man. Their weekly and monthly family get-togethers are also a high-decibel activity, and one of a kind. Caw-caw-caw!

The fable I first encountered was The Turtle and the Rabbit. Subsequently I was baffled that the same story had always borne the title The Tortoise and the Hare. I surmised that our teacher had wisely altered the title to better fit the Philippine backdrop where turtles and rabbits were commonplace while their larger-sized relatives called tortoises and hares were seldom seen, if at all.  Another reason the fable -altered title and all- stuck in my mind is the fact that in a dramatization in front of the class I was assigned the role of the turtle.

The story is about a rabbit who constantly needled a turtle. With contempt, it dared the turtle to a race. The turtle was constrained to accept the challenge. Our roles were real child’s play. All I had to do was crawl on all fours across the breadth of the classroom from the left side wall to the right. From the starting point, the boy who played the rabbit dashed swiftly to the middle of the room, stopped, glanced back to the turtle then lay down and fell asleep. I went on crawling with the slow steady pace of a turtle past the sleeping rabbit who later awakened and sprinted  to the finish line. The turtle had arrived first and won.

The moral of the story had been variedly expressed. Many interpreted it as proof that superiority in skill does not ensure victory. Others cite the pitfall of overconfidence and complacency. Still a good number point to the value of hard work and unwavering effort as a necessary ingredient for success.

Apart from the lessons drawn out of the story a significant facet of the episode had come to the fore. It was the realization that Aesop’s turtle and rabbit are there for us to see in the real people around us. We see them in erstwhile classmates and colleagues. We find them in relatives and friends. They are evident in the world of big business, in corridors of power, in circles of professionals and in the realm of the academe. They lurk even in the murky world of scoundrels and scalawags. They are everywhere. They inhabit places enmeshed with excellence and mediocrity they populate areas fettered with failure and success. 

This not an indictment on people who tumbled into the predicament that had befallen the rabbit of Aesop. On the contrary, this is an attempt, however puny, to motivate the “rabbits” of the world to change and re-form the direction of their life. Surely, the real world does not pit turtles against rabbits. They need not run a race. They can instead join hands, work side by side and together - as many had already done - make the world a better place to live in. Fables are stories about animals or things that do what people do.

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The fable I first encountered was The Turtle and the Rabbit. Subsequently I was baffled that the same story had always borne the title The Tortoise and the Hare. I surmised that our teacher had wisely altered the title to better fit the Philippine backdrop where turtles and rabbits were commonplace while their larger-sized relatives called tortoises and hares were seldom seen, if at all.  Another reason the fable -altered title and all- stuck in my mind is the fact that in a dramatization in front of the class I was assigned the role of the turtle.

The story is about a rabbit who constantly needled a turtle. With contempt, it dared the turtle to a race. The turtle was constrained to accept the challenge. Our roles were real child’s play. All I had to do was crawl on all fours across the breadth of the classroom from the left side wall to the right. From the starting point, the boy who played the rabbit dashed swiftly to the middle of the room, stopped, glanced back to the turtle then lay down and fell asleep. I went on crawling with the slow steady pace of a turtle past the sleeping rabbit who later awakened and sprinted  to the finish line. The turtle had arrived first and won.

The moral of the story had been variedly expressed. Many interpreted it as proof that superiority in skill does not ensure victory. Others cite the pitfall of overconfidence and complacency. Still a good number point to the value of hard work and unwavering effort as a necessary ingredient for success.

Apart from the lessons drawn out of the story a significant facet of the episode had come to the fore. It was the realization that Aesop’s turtle and rabbit are there for us to see in the real people around us. We see them in erstwhile classmates and colleagues. We find them in relatives and friends. They are evident in the world of big business, in corridors of power, in circles of professionals and in the realm of the academe. They lurk even in the murky world of scoundrels and scalawags. They are everywhere. They inhabit places enmeshed with excellence and mediocrity they populate areas fettered with failure and success. 

This not an indictment on people who tumbled into the predicament that had befallen the rabbit of Aesop. On the contrary, this is an attempt, however puny, to motivate the “rabbits” of the world to change and re-form the direction of their life. Surely, the real world does not pit turtles against rabbits. They need not run a race. They can instead join hands, work side by side and together - as many had already done - make the world a better place to live in. Fables are stories about animals or things that do what people do.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Ayurveda is India’s 3000 years old system of medicine. The word ` Ayurveda’ has two words ` Ayur’ meaning `life’ and `Veda’ meaning `knowledge’.

Charaka, ancient Indian physician, knew thee fundamental of genetics some 2,000 years ago.

Susruta, the father of plastic surgery, devised an artificial nose more than 2,500 years ago.

Prafulla Chandra ray is often called the `father of modern chemistry’ in India. He converted the waste cattle bones into a medicinal compound from which a nerve tonic was made in 1896.

Brahmagupta – (AD 598) was the first to use mathematics to solve problems in astronomy.

Arthshastra, written by Kautilya or Chanakya in the 4th century BC, is considered the oldest treatise on government and economics. 

When Kalidas’s drama Abhijnyan Shankuntalam appeared in Europe in English, it created a sensation of sorts among the intellectuals. Subsequently it was translated into German, French, Danish and Italian.

The Mahabharata is considered the longest poem in the world. Vedavyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, is said to have had the service of Lord Ganesh as his scribe!

The Gita was first translated into English by Charles Wilkins in 1785. It has been translated into about 60 languages of the world.

The Bhagvad Gita is a poem of seven hundred verses, written in the form of a dialogue.

Panchtantra is the oldest collection of fables in Sanskrit. Among its two hundred versions are the famous Aesop’s Fables, which were also based on the Panchtantra stories.

The animal fables of the Jatakas recount the previous births of Lord Buddha.

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Image via Wikipedia