Brahminy Mynas used to be so very common once upon a time, and here I am searching for weeks and months and then chance upon one in the outskirts of Bangalore. A handsome looking bird with black tuft and penetrating eyes they are found (or should I say “used to be found”) in groups. I am wondering since these birds too are omnivorous why they aren’t found in abundance in cities as is the case with common myna.
The name Sturnia pagodarum is from its early abundance in and around temple domes ‘pagodas’ in south India. Not strictly arboreal they could be seen foraging on the ground.
Desanka Maksimovic: I seek amnesty
Through night and moisture
Wild geese go south
Crying in painful glory.
I feel like writing
A dark story:
Them carrying away
On their two white wings
I don’t know where,
I don’t know what
Of my soul’s dearest things
That was the English translation of Serbian poem “Migratory Birds” by Desanka Maksimovic (1898 –1993), a professor of literature and a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her poetry dealt with love and patriotism, exuding youthful enthusiasm yet they were serious and sensitive. A very popular figure, so much so they made a statute of her and installed it in centre of the city despite her fervent protests. It is said that the Serbian language is best sung in the poems of Desanka Maksimovic. When she heard of German soldiers shooting primary school children in Kragujevac, she wrote "Krvava Bajka" ("A Bloody Fairy Tale"), a poem that speaks of the terror practiced by German army in World War II. The poem was not published until after the war had ended.
Bloody fairy tale
It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on one single day.
They were all born
in the same year.
For all of them, the school days were the same:
They were all taken
to the same festivals with cheer,
they were all vaccinated
until the last name,
and they all died on the same day.
It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on one single day.
And only fifty-five minutes
prior the death moment,
a small troop of fidgets
sat beside their school desks
solving the same hard math quest:
“If a traveler goes by foot,
how much time he needs to rest...”
and so on.
Their thoughts were filled
with same figures and tags
and there was a countless amount
of senseless As and Fs
in their notebooks and in their bags.
They were squeezing
a whole bunch of secrets that mattered--
either patriotic or a love letter--
on the bottom of their pockets.
And everyone of them supposed
that he would for a long time,
for a very, very long time
run under the blue sky--
until all math quests on the world
were done and gone by.
It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on the same day.
Whole rows of boys
took each other’s hands
and leaving the last school class
went to the execution quietly,
as the death was nothing but a smile.
All friends in rows were,
at the same moment,
lifted up to the eternal domicile.
I don’t have any more time
I don’t have any more time for long sentences,
I have no time for negotiations,
I type messages like telegrams,
I don’t have time to ignite flame,
now I bury handfuls of dying fire.
I don’t have any more time for pilgrimage,
the path to estuary is suddenly getting shorter,
I have no time to look back and return,
I don’t have any more time for small things,
Now is time to think about eternal and unembraceable.
I have no time to think on crossroads,
I can arrive only somewhere close.
I don’t have time to study anything,
now I don’t have time for analysis,
for me water is just water
as if I had drank it from a well;
I have no time to split the sky into pieces,
I see it as children see it.
I don’t have any more time for foreign gods,
I haven’t even got to know mine well.
I have no time to adopt new commandments,
the old ten are already too much for me.
I don’t have any more time to join
those that are proving the truth.
I have no time to fight against chasers.
I have no time to dream, to walk slowly.
Joy
I no longer watch the hands turn,
nor track the sun’s hot path;
day is here when his eyes return,
and night again when they depart.
Joy does not mean laughter, and
his yearning outweighing mine;
joy to me is when we’re silent,
and our hearts in tandem chime.
I do not rue that life’s rivers
will carry off my own life’s drop;
now blast youth and all to smither’s;
enthralled beside me he has stopped
I seek amnesty
FOR THE NAIVE
For those who believe
that all are equal,
poor and rich,
weak and strong,
the untired and the untiring prisoner,
the armless and the man with both arms,
the absolved and the man who has lost his faith,
the invited
and the one who waits at the door,
for them, for myself,
for everyone,
I seek amnesty.
There are many more beautiful poems of her that can be found in the net, this blogger requests all the readers of this blog to go through them
From my scribble pad…
The coral jasmine at the temple courtyard
(ambalanadayile parijatha pushpam)
The lone coral jasmine at the temple courtyard
has an expression of amusement
at the passing devotees.
The boy in blue shirt rather watch
the flower’s merriment in the passing zephyr
despite mother’s insistence.
