The Healer of Broken Things

 

The Buddha, when he was a small child of seven or eight, was once taken to watch the annual Ploughing Festival, where his father, the King, ceremonially guided the bullocks in plowing the first furrow. At the end of the day, they find the little child seated upright in the same position they had left him, deeply disturbed by the plight of the tiny creatures who lost their homes and their lives in the plowing.

It is this story that came to mind when you spent a morning with Saleem, who runs the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. Day in day out, he looks after wounded animals brought from all over the city and outside, with an indescribable gentleness. Hardly anyone to help him, practically no comforts in this remote overgrown small place near Banngerghatta National Park. But he lives there all by himself, facing the dangers of wild elephants and hostile villagers.

You first met him when you went there to transport a wounded kite with a friend. The image of Saleem calmly putting his hands in and lifting the huge wild bird whom we had spent 30 mins gathering the courage to touch, never leaves your mind. You know you will return.


On that Sunday morning when you land there at 8 AM with 5 kilos of fish for the kites, Saleem has already been at work, with a fever. You give him a Crocin, and watch him as he carefully cuts the fish, bananas, papayas, guavas, vegetables into many sizes - for the monkeys, the various kinds of birds, the mongoose, the small snake, the big snake, the fox kid, the tortoise, the baby squirrels - he knows them all individually and makes sure each one gets the size that fits its mouth.

"This bird is a little psycho, he keeps pulling out all his own feathers." So says Saleem as he closes the door on you - you in the cage with a psycho kite, armed with broom and water!!! You are terrified, but trying not to be, can birds smell fear like animals, you wonder. You wash the birdshit on the rubber sheets, clean the water bowl, refill it, hardly daring to breathe. The bird just sits and watches you from its perch. When you come out you realize that Saleem was probably testing you, checking whether you would chicken out too fast to be a real volunteer!

You are soon ashamed of your fear. You watch Saleem take out a small little snake whose jaws are broken. It cannot swallow, so if he doesn't feed it, it will die. He makes the tiniest slivers of fish, and with a forceps gently pushes the pieces in the snake's mouth. A ritual he repeats every single day. A small insignificant-looking snake of no use to anyone; no one will ask or care if it died. Watching the gentleness and care with which he feeds it, you walk out of the room, because you are in tears.

Fondling the abandoned monkey baby who is thrilled to see him, he says - "I suppose in the rush of modern life, we learn not to be affected too much by the suffering of other beings - otherwise we won't be able to live. But I don't know why, I can't. I don't know why this little monkey still moves me so much. There must be something wrong with me", he laughs.

Later, having the cheese and chutney sandwiches I had brought, [the only food he has had since morning], he says - "I complain so much about lack of volunteers, the hardships - but there are moments that make it all worthwhile. I once had this wounded baby mongoose in a cage someone had brought in from another village. Every night an adult male mongoose would come from the bushes around, feed it through the cage bars. And one night when a snake tried coming into the cage, the male mongoose waged a fierce battle until it went away, and stayed guard the whole night. See, I get to see these things too!"

In the small guest room, there are two tiny little abandoned bird babies. He has made a mixture of seeds and flour, and he carefully feeds each one with the tip of the forceps, while they jump around chirping all excited to see him, their mother for all they know.

Indeed there is a God for small broken things. He sent them Saleem.

Asha
Nov 1, 2006