A Poetic Moment In Life: Rescuing An Eagle

Have you ever found poetry in things ‘not poetry‘? I keep doing that so often! Is it just me… I guess not. No. I know not. A poet is always a poet, no matter what.

So here’s what happened the other day.

I could hear the eagles screaming in the tree right behind my window as soon as I woke up. Or perhaps, it was the screaming that woke me. I thought they had probably found a big meal. Anyway, there was no time to loiter as it was time to take my dear fur-baby for a walk. The night had been too long for him already! But I hadn’t forgotten the eagles, so I went up to the terrace for a better view as soon as we came back. And there it was, the reason for the screaming… a poor young eaglet was caught by the wing in a kite flying thread. It is a regular menace. These sharp, glass-powder sheathed threads snag the poor birds who often die from their wounds. But not this one. Not if I could help it. I knew I would never rest as long as the poor baby was hanging by a wing, waiting to starve to death because one thing was certain, she would never be able to break away from that thread on her own. She was trying hard to flap her way to a branch for support but the thread she was caught in was too short. The other eagles had gone away, deciding that they couldn’t do anything more. The screaming had turned to silence, except for an occasional frantic flapping of wings.

The eaglet was hanging about 60 feet above the ground and about 30 feet beyond my reach. There was nothing easy about this situation. I woke up my entire household and we tried to snag the thread and break it by sending hanging missiles made from anything and everything that could be tied to a thread and thrown. Or perhaps just bring a branch closer to her so she could rest on it. Nothing worked. Two hours later, we were tired and hungry and dehydrated in the terribly hot sun and so was the eagle, but still no closer to anything resembling a rescue. We called all the wildlife rescue numbers that we could find on google but it seemed on that day, everyone was on holiday. It was Holi, the festival of colours, and nothing opens at least till the afternoon. Finally, we called the firemen. We figured that if they could rescue cats from trees, they could probably rescue an eagle. Of course, the eagles live on the highest tree they can find which didn’t help matters.

Well, to cut a long story short, they found a tree they could climb with their ladder and sent a long pole from there to the eagle. The eagle was smart and quickly grabbed the pole and came down along with it to the firemen who untied the thread and gave her a drink of water and many loving pats. Miraculously, she had no major wounds and soon enough, she was ready to fly back into the tree that was home.

I saw her again today, perched upon a pole on my terrace. We are kinda friends, she has been my model for a million photographs taken in the last few months. We looked at each other for a while, exchanging silent pleasantries, until she got bored with a heavy, grounded human and flew away, claws tucked in delicately, riding the wind… her flight, sheer poetry in motion.