Thursday Tales No. 2: Myno

  Some stories are not entirely ours, but are told anyways. Not because we are mere tattlers, but because they echo something we have lived, something we remember in the quiet corners of ourselves. 

  Back when the world went quiet, a friend once spoke of a bird. The moment passed, but the thought of the bird, and what it represented, never left. 

  As you read, I hope you too find a glimmer of something forgotten, something familiar, something your own.

Myno

  Thirty-seven hours from now I will be in India, being driven back home, watching the rising sun brighten my Saturday. To prepare me for the weeks of rest I would get under the service of my family — who for the sake that I travelled abroad would not allow me to move a pen — my last two days here demanded me to run about the streets of Portland and Sydney to fill my suitcase with things listed in my souvenirs-from-Australia-for-friends-and-family list. 

  At the seventeenth hour of the day, I was waiting for my cab under the shade of ‘A Little Decorum’, a compactly packed gift shop, from where my aunt had strangely yet very particularly requested me to pick up a vase. Having checked off the most specific items from the list, I was set to take my twelve-hour road ride to the airport. Holding the package of the vase, which could not fit into the two suitcases — one bloated with my clothes and the other with takeaways from here — I stood there inhaling a draft of the crisp late afternoon breeze, gazing at the saturating amber teasing away the rosied clouds. The last few mists of fragrance escaping the katsura leaves, in union with the wind of a sharpening weather, sweetened my tongue shut behind my parched lips. The tender earthiness enveloped in pockets of the early March air entered my trachea and re-traced the marks of fragrance and hues etched in my memories. For an instant, I was both a flâneur on Percy street and an eight-year-old at Kharghar, leaning from the parapet of my grandmother’s terrace. The breeze, the yellows and olives it carried, and the countenance of humans, although existing in a space miles and miles away from where my brethren reside, and at a time removed from a foregone era, flooded my lungs with the sublimity of the universe. Everything that engulfed me that golden hour were both here and there, different yet similar. 

  I continued to allow the breeze to drench me with its wonders, when a lump of brown plumage glided past my gaze, drawing away with it my focus across the street to a congregation of mynahs adorned in their yellow accentuated umber cloaks. As if they were waiting for the mynah to join them, they began their chatter, which rose from feeble whistles to vociferous trills and squawks over what appeared to me a very serious topic, perhaps loosely associated with the pretentious efforts taken by humans to curb climate change. They tilted their tiny heads, protruding them as they performed drishti bheda, majorly avalokita and pralokita. I had enough knowledge about mynahs to tell that, despite them being one of the most adaptable birds, they were not content coexisting with humans. As I continued spectating their discussion that early twilight, I wished one of the almond-eyed birds to fly to me; I wished one of them was Myno.

  It was the November of 2020, and the world was still trying to fathom the magnanimity of the stillness left behind by a choked clamour, and I was syncing my breath to the rhythm of a placid metropolitan milieu. I sat by the window, mentally photographing the hues of the horizon and the inconspicuous movements of the wind, when I saw it alight on my window sill. It was an Indian mynah in its black and brown drape, bejewelled in yellow beak, kanmai and kaalani. I limited my movement, not intending to force it back into flight. I watched it watch me watch it, with an awestruck smile. It scrutinised me – a 5’4 giant resembling its appearance in a few aspects, from black mane similar to its headgear to a skin tone that matched its plume. Having become familiar with my presence, it began to whistle me a song, wobbling its head from left to right and back to front. It hopped from one flowerpot to another, inviting me to join a duet which lasted for longer than a minute before the mynah hopped away into the dusk. I smiled the rest of the day recounting this tiny encounter. 

  In those days, it was easier to find me by the window on account of the abundance of time and the scarcity of engagements, and so I had a chance to see the mynah appear again the next day when I was watering my plants. I slowly placed away the watering jug and settled down to watch it whistle its melody again; I whistled along. Despite being terrified of any contact with animals and insects of all kinds, I gently extended my hand and unfurled my palm to the bird, neither expecting it to settle on it nor fly away from my advance. I held it out observing the mynah lift its tiny yellow feet and step into the bumps of my palm. My reflex tempted me to swiftly draw away my palm from the prickle of its feet, but I continued, not scaring it away. After examining my palm, the mynah flew away. I couldn’t contain the joy of having held a bird, and neither could I contain my excitement to talk about it for the rest of the day. 

  The mynah appeared the next day and the next day, and the next, with an elated tone of familiarity in its chirps. Each day, it would stay a little longer than the day before. As a sign of gratitude, I began welcoming it with a fistful of grains. It soon became a routine — It would arrive, we would sing, it would grab a bite, we would talk, and it would fly away. 

  One day I ran out of birdfeed. The mynah inspected my empty palm, yet decided to stay, singing and talking for longer than usual. The following day, it brought me a tender peepal leaf, as if consoling me for the tinge of guilt I had incurred from not being mindful of the empty grain container. Another time, it brought me a yellow bell, and once a tiny pebble. On one of those days, I pointed my index finger for it to perch on, and said, “Hey! I don’t know about you, but on the very first day I knew that we’d be friends. You know why? Because, you are mynah and I am Myna too! Interesting, isn’t it? …. It just occurred to me, how about I call you Myno – my Myno? Do you like it, Myno?” It nodded with a whistle, and there we were, I and Myno, singing and talking as the year wound up and the new began. 

  There were days when one could find me watering the plants and waiting till dusk with no sign of Myno’s visit. The first time it happened, it left me wistful, even though I was aware that Myno belonged to the vibrance of the horizon. I told myself, “It was not meant to stay.” But the next day, it would appear, with a new melody, and we whistled off our day. Eventually, this intermittent absence bothered me in descending intensity. 

  One day, Myno returned with a dry leaf in its tiny yellow beck and ventured into the parts of my window which it had until then not regarded for even a glance. Wanting to know what it willed to accomplish, I let it scamper till it found a corner to place the leaf. When I extended my palm, it flew away. It repeated the same procedure the next day with a beakful of twigs, when I understood that Myno wished to nest there. I spent an hour reading about the nesting habits of mynahs, and another cutting and gluing a few slates of cardboard, filling it with a generous amount of hay, which I obtained from our Christmas crib storage box. The next day, Myno arrived with more pieces of scrap to the sight of a nest situated in its desired corner. It bedecked the corner with what it had brought and chirped gaily from the comfort of its new nest. I looked for eggs, expecting none, given my freshly acquired knowledge about mynah’s breeding season. 

  And it was April 2021. It had been three days since Myno had not returned. I looked at the empty nest, considering the tiny moths stirring in my abdomen suggesting the most appropriate possibility of its long absence. “It belonged to the vibrance of the horizon, it was not meant to stay,” I reassured myself but the brooding thought of harm having occurred to my Myno was unignorable. I whispered a prayer for its protection before returning to the multiplying momentum of the city. The north-western winds that rose and ceased the following Novembers brought with them the echoes of Myno with no sight of its tiny brown feather and yellow almond-like eyes. I smiled and carried on. Then, the day before yesterday presented to me two dozen of mynahs. 

  I walked towards the congregation of mynahs and playfully held out my hand in imitation of myself from ages ago, unintentionally scaring away a few. Sensing no threat, a few re-joined the assembly. Smiling at my silliness, I lowered my hand, when a mynah perched on my shoulder. I looked at it whistle melodies after melodies to me. It allowed me to take it on my index finger and caress it. Feeling graced by its tiny gesture, I wished no more and indicated it to take off. It flew away to the far end of the road and disappeared into a lining of trees. 

  I returned to my belongings with a grin, checking the phone for my cab’s status. The cab was a lane away from my location, and was scheduled to reach me in a brief moment. I quickly reviewed my travel list and checked for my passport, my wallet and my air ticket, when I caught a glance of the same mynah re-emerging from the trees and wafting towards me. I lifted open my palm and bore its delicate landing. It offered me a yellow bell and chirped unceasingly till I whistled along. I stared into its almond eyes, caressed it one more time, and I held my hand higher into the air, submitting its comfort and freedom to the sky. Seeing the familiar joy in my smile, it looked ahead, stared back, stared ahead, spread its wings wide, and soared into the vibrant expanse of the horizon. I waved and cheered, “Bye, Myno!” beholding it disappear into the colours of twilight. I inhaled a gush of woody air, boarded the cab, and floated away into the present. 

- Mercy Rebonica