The one-legged mynah who dropped by one day – and now makes daily house calls
Living in an urban jungle tin be tough. You jostle with a huge population every morning commute. The curt uncle at the hawker centre is less than polite to you. At night, you roost nether your HDB roof, serenaded by the honking of cars.
Sometimes, all yous want to do is perch in somebody's window and stare into their house for hours on finish.
At least, that's the kind of existential crisis that seems to be facing the mynah who comes to my window every day to hang out.
THE Royal DERP
He started showing up a few months ago, a scruffy, beat out-up little bird. Nosotros soon had an inkling that he was non like other birds. For one matter, instead of spending his time doing bird-appropriate things, he preferred to laissez passer his solar day on the ac condenser unit just outside the window, preening, chirping and staring into our flat.
For another affair, he had simply one leg. The other is badly maimed and he walks with a limp.
He was a funny sight: A brawl of black feathers perched on a single yellow stem; a one-legged fighter who was small and runty, but obviously a survivor.
After weeks of the same routine had passed and we had established that neither of u.s. was going anywhere, I named him Raskolnikov; he had a defiant withal curious stare in his beady eye, a signature look that a friend describes as "majestic withal derpy". He definitely looked capable of offing his landlady earlier becoming an anti-heroic paragon of redemption through suffering.
Raskolnikov has at present fabricated himself entirely at dwelling, progressing from spooky on the condenser exterior to actually sitting in the window. He's a regular guest and hangs out for hours on stop, chatting loudly, clucking his little remarks sotto voce and doing a lot of derpy-royal staring. He no longer flinches if we come up besides close. Instead, he cocks his caput curiously when nosotros talk to him. Yes – he seems to actually like u.s.a..
When you adopt a bird, you are a person who loves birds. When a bird adopts you, you are the chosen ane. An imaginary sunbeam of light with advisable bokeh shines down upon your head. The realms of all nature ascent upwards and call you blessed.
MYNAH YOUR Ain Business concern
Of course, the Javan mynah is, equally a collective species in Singapore, a known pest, roosting in huge congregations and feeding off scraps at hawker centres. Merely, as is often the case in life, once you are acquainted with one individual out of a vilified grouping, your perception of their community inevitably starts to modify.
In one case, Raskolnikov arrived wearing a large red ant on his head. It was perched at a jaunty angle in the scruffy feathers above his nib. The accessory, it appeared, had called him, not the other way effectually. We fretted virtually whether information technology was hurting him every bit he tried unsuccessfully to milkshake information technology off, but knew better than to attempt to impact him. He decided he had to see a man nigh a equus caballus and cut his visit abruptly short that day.
To whence did he fly off? How did he eventually persuade the ant to disembark? What does he practice with the residue of his time, when he'southward non paying usa court? A wise bird knows never to reveal too many mysteries.
Some other time, he didn't testify upwardly three days in a row. On the get-go day, we speculated about the reasons for his leave of absence. The 2d day, we were a little worried. By the third day, we began to wax philosophical virtually mortality in general, nature red in tooth and claw, and the vagaries of life.
Later all, we're always aware that each day we run across him might be the last; that at that place will ineluctably be a 24-hour interval when he doesn't come again.
Only he returned on the quaternary 24-hour interval, squawking obnoxiously, preening his feathers and pretending nothing had happened, similar a fellow who doesn't desire to apologise after a fight.
If you lot'd told me how much the regular visits of a little bird could brighten up our household's day, I wouldn't accept believed you.
Simply Raskolnikov has demonstrated how truly delightful it is to live in a garden metropolis, where a one-legged bird might spend his nights in a big tree several storeys down and his days singing little ditties on his chosen window ledge.
He's a daily reminder that liberty isn't about escaping but near finding the place you want to exist. That fifty-fifty if your pocket is empty, your middle is weary and yous're standing on your last leg, life goes on, begetting usa all on its wings. And that even if you're the commonest of mynahs, there's no reason why you shouldn't be the sort of little bird who inspires people to write you maudlin tributes – just past beingness your ain quirky, funny, majestically derpy self.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/one-legged-mynah-neighbourhood-stories-singapore-195796
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