As You Have Gone Far Away From Nature Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

For us
Morning, afternoon,
Evening or night
Makes no difference
We realize the part of day
From the sun light

And we remain in the same cage
Which has been so carefully designed that
We cannot find a way out
However difficult we may try

We are tiny little creatures
True, we look cute and colourful
The nine of us in cage do not have the same colour shade
Some of us shine in multiple colours too

We fly with the help of our short wings
Within the one metre cube cage
With a closely knit thin, of late rusted, iron strings
In all directions, sides, bottom and up

Your children stand around the cage
And get excited at each small flying jump of us
And at each chirping we make

Initially, we too got excited at the kids’ excitement
But, as of now, we are in pain

Will you keep your kids in a cage
And get elated at the sight of their
Crawls and cries inside

You feed us, thank you for that,
But you have missed to note
You know only some fruits
Some grains and nuts
And you give only those things
Which you eat and which you think
Are nutritious to us

You do not know we have a lot many natural things
To choose as our food
We relish eating that red cherry fruit
Of the tree just across the road in front
You are not aware of this simple thing
Your bananas and red chilies have become monotonous

Our younger ones get a better nutrition
If they are fed with that red winged insect
Which sucks nectar from jasmine
We are afraid that they would never get a chance
To have that taste

We are missing a lot of natural things
A free 20 metre fly against wind
A balanced perching on a tiny still fresh neem twig
A heartful search for insects in your domestic wastes
A scratch of your lawn with our tiny toes
And catch of a few winged ants

It would be a very long list of things
Which we miss because of
Your so called love for us
We know you would never understand these
Natural ways of living
As you have gone far away from nature