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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

The Asian Koel makes other birds raise its young—it lays eggs in their nests

When she is ready to lay her eggs, the female quickly tips them into the nest of other birds and leaves. Forever. That is the only engagement Asian Koels have with their offspring.

Many of us are forced to wake up at 5 am to the piercing calls of a bird. It’s like an alarm that has no snooze options. But that call isn’t for us. It’s for its partner of the moment.

For several years, my summer mornings began with this alarm from nature. Now, as Indian cities become more concretised, I feel grateful for their calls. The Asian Koel has taught me to wake up early with a smile, happy that a living creature has found a way to exist in the midst of our urban jungle. You have probably heard it too—a long, multi-syllabic cry, peaking at dawn and dusk.

Freedom fighter and poet, Sarojini Naidu, seems to have enjoyed listening to it. In her poem, Love Song from the North, she writes about missing the person she loved, alluding to birdsong:

I hear the black koel’s slow, tremulous wooing, And sweet in the gardens the calling and cooing Of passionate bulbul and dove…. But what is........

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