Special Edition: Malashri Lal

Malashri Lal

Unveiling Meaning: Avian Secrets

Robert Maddox-Harle’s photograph linked up with my recent visit to a site of avian secrets in Rajasthan. Water, birds crouching over wooden railings, hills silhouetted in the distance, a Warning sign which is meant for the human visitors who are absent from the photo frame. Is this a trick of time and geography, or a reminder that our shared home is planet earth no matter which speck of soil we occupy.

From the edge of the Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur, Rajasthan, I watch a tree that has more birds than leaves, and garlands of nests pendent from it’s stark branches. These are occupied mainly by young storks whose parents have flown away to forage for food the babes like. This surrealistic tree casts its reflection on the still waters beneath which occasionally bubble over with fish, the favoured cuisine of many young and old birds. Beaks dip, fins fly, and someone gets a meal. It’s cycle of survival and interdependency.

Such biodiversity is everywhere in the 29 sq. km. park, today housing over 400 avian species including migratory birds such as the Siberian crane stopping for a winter vacation. Local migrants nest and feed alongside them. Herons of many hue, coots, knob-billed ducks, painted storks, sarus, the great egrets and the snake billed birds are easily seen in the vast wetlands.

Avian secrets unfold before my eyes as I pass from the dry shrub area with giant anthills, to the haven of the wetlands. Earth mounds covered with white egrets appear like ‘bird islands’. Overhead, the kites circle like drones surveying the field. My journey through the sanctuary ends at the gemlike, Keoladeo temple with its three hundred and fifty years old Shivling that has silently witnessed many changes.

Today’s tranquil park has a violent history. It was developed as a duck shooting reserve in 1899. The royal family hosted bird shooting as recreation for visiting dignitaries. This included H.E. The Viceroy of India Lord Curzon on 14 December 1901 whose party bagged 2049 units using 46 guns. Cruel destruction by any standards, the carnage of birds carried on even in India’s post- independence era, for example on 16 February 1958 when the King of Afghanistan bagged 600 units with 77 guns. These figures, along with many more, are etched on large tablets near the temple— lest we forget our ruthless acts against birds.

Cutting to the present— sanity and remorse may have played a role in designating this unique geographical feature  as a protected sanctuary in 1971 and it being established as the Keoladeo National Park on 10 March 1982. Since 1985, this is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

What meanings can I take away from this encounter with the past and present of an avian paradise? “Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to a man,” said the Dalai Lama. The air is filled with bird language, poetry and song that my limited human capability cannot decipher. But I stand humbled by this reminder of ecology’s fragile balance and hope we can coexist with grace. I look once more at the mesmerizing photograph by Maddox-Harle and thank him for transporting me away from the city in my imagination and in actuality. The history of Keoladev grants meaning to the permanence of nature as opposed to the ephemerality of  human ego. The photo image reinforces the “Warning” that unless we hold back on rapacity, there will be no human being to read that message.

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Bionote:  Malashri Lal, writer and academic, with twenty four books, retired as Professor, English Department, University of Delhi. Publications include Tagore and the Feminine, and The Law of the Threshold: Women Writers in Indian English. Co-edited with Namita Gokhale is the ‘goddess trilogy’, and also Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt  which received the Kalinga Fiction Award.  Lal’s poems Mandalas of Time has recently been translated into Hindi as Mandal Dhwani. She is   currently Convener, English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi. Honours include the prestigious ‘Maharani Gayatri Devi Award for Women’s Excellence’

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Setu, March 2025