Page 14 - XITE Magazine 2019

Annual Magazine Habitat on the Edges!

Sanchita Ghosh Chowdhury
Assistant Professor, XITE

Morning or evening, if you walk through the city's streets, you will find them full of makeshift
eateries, one every few metres, selling all sorts of foods and not a single one would be without
buyers! In fact, you will find several people competing for the attention of the seller. What is it that
draws us to these places? Is it the comfort that the food oers to compensate for a sedentary
lifestyle? Or, is it the warped sense of saving time and money? An upset digestive system and a visit
to the doctor do not help in saving either. Look around you, you will find that most kids are wearing
glasses and have more resemblance with cabbages than with carrots! Sadly, diabetes and heart
diseases are no longer an ailment of the old; they have established their hold on our young too!
You know all this, right? But what I intend to tell you is how, through our food habits, we are
impacting the animals, birds and insects who share the planet with us. Allow me to tell you a story!
There is this crow which comes to my in-laws place for its breakfast. It comes early, at a fixed time
every day, rain or shine! How it does that though is a mystery to me! It will perch on its allotted place
on the window sill and expect to be served! So, that day we were having noodles for breakfast and I
with true concern for the bird, kept a few pieces of raw meat aside for it, thinking that it would be
inhuman to serve noodles to a bird. But having served it to the crow, all my benevolence took a
serious hit when I got a sharp caw and a reproachful look in return! More shocking, the food was
refused and the reproachful
cawing took a turn for the
worse. I quickly oered
some noodles which were
then gratefully gobbled up
in no time. I'm sure I'd have
got a “thank you” if it could
speak! Can you imagine, a
crow refusing its natural
diet in favour of junk food! I
also know of a parrot,
whose owners are so fed up
with it that they would
g l a d l y g i v e i t t o a n y
passerby! Why? Every
morning, sharp at 4.30 am
(that is when birds wake up
probably) it expects to be
served a cup of milky tea
When we heal the Earth, we heal ourselves - David Orr with 2 biscuits and would
make quite a racket if its bed tea is delayed! The owners ruefully accept that it is they who introduced
the bird to tea but then they never expected their kindness to backfire in this particularly gruesome
manner. There's more! I have another friend in Jamshedpur itself, whose dog is addicted to

12 Volume-VII, 2019 Transformation is an ongoing process that tends to appear ordinary, when, in fact, something
extraordinary is taking place. - Suzy Ross