ambalapravu... my mother's house had an inner room, which we used to call kizhakemuri which was used by my uncle, who was then in college. he was quite naughty, and was a rebel, more so because he was affected by polio when he was just nine months old. in his room, on the ceiling, which was done up in wood, there was a puttering sound heard and elders at home said, it was the ambalapravu that has nested there. "Oh, remove it, else, it will bring the house ill-luck," many said. I was just five and remember, some men climbing on to the ceiling and pulling the nest down. "Oh, ithu muttayittu," they said. It had two small birds, newborns, and a few eggs. I saw a big bird, looking at the men doing all that from a distance. It kept puttering in a low sound. I asked grandma what will happen now, She didnt say anything. The men there said, the young birds either will die of starvation or will be taken away by crows or other birds. The eggs, they didnt know. May be eaten by reptiles. The mother bird will not come claiming. As once touched by someone else, it'll abandon its eggs and little ones. That was the law.I suddenly remebered the mother bird sitting watching her young ones being torn apart from her. Did her heart cry when she witnessed men and the law tearing her kids from her? How must she have felt at the men and the law? She must have cursed the moment when she found the attic the place for a good home. Where must she have gone? There was a story of a bird my grandma once told me. Of a mother bird who asked her little one to fry cherupayar, after counting the total number of grains. The little bird dutifully did it thinking her mom will be happy. but when the mother bird came back she found the number of grains less and began to peck her little one to death. then she counted a fistful of grains and began frying it, only to find it reduced. when she found she killed her little one for no reason, she beat herself to death. there was this poem by vailopilly on similar lines called mampazham. it talks about how the mother stopped her little son from playing with unnimanga. But when the fruit ripened over the season, the boy was no more. the mother thinks about it with a bleeding heart. Did that ambalapravu's heart also bleed when she found the men taking her nest away into the backyard? Did it cry thinking the dirty hands of law will prevent it from feeding its young ones even though it sees them dying of hunger? There is no bigger pain than watching your loved ones suffer. I think of the atrocities some heinoius men do on others in front of their kin and shudder. Imagine how the mothers must have felt when their daughters were raped in front of them in Gujarat. How the men must have felt when their kids and wives were burnt before them, how the brothers, the daughters must have felt when their... i hate to think of it. why can't we put ourselves in other's shoes to experience their pain? Why do we have to hurt, by word or deed? Is it necessary that to exist we must hurt? Why can't we be in a more sensitive world?

We walked all within ourselves.
The night was around us
And silence in every corner.
He kept talking and I listened.
There was no glances, no gasps, no holding hands.
He talked about lost love, his childhood, his unfinished book,
And in his every word, I found another me.
My past unwound, the lost love, the childhood, the book that lay unfinished in my mind.
And finally we parted; the night was growing.
I took an auto and he to get money
But I was still walking...
In it I found a friend, a soul sensitive, a mate
Or nothing… It’s beyond silly confines
Back home, he messaged to find if I reached safe
I did feel safe finally… with myself.
It isn’t the person, the talk, the walk…
It is what made me feel me
Somewhere within, a new me dawned,
Me that didn’t have the dark, the tears and the fears,
Me for whom love isn’t a territory…
It is itself, a free space, a voyage to infinity
I floated, amidst stars, with nothing to pull me down…
With the darkness of space around me
And the light from yonder stars…
Happy, easy and quenched I was
For I found love… which isn’t for a person or a thing
It’ll be in me till I live
And die with me when I die
I am glad I found it…albeit for a moment