Sparrows & mobiles.

20^th Dec. 2013

From my childhood, through adolescent till now, the roof had always been my favorite place in my house. Counting from, my lonely personal moments, to numerous gathering and friendly gossips and endless sittings with my family, I had loved it because it gave me my own sunsets and own dawns.

The roofs of the five houses, I had lived in Patna, the roof of my school, the roofs of my college hostels. One life, different shades and multiple memories.

In my last two years in Delhi, I had stayed in a building, where the entry to the roof, had all its rights reserved with the landlord. Be it any weather in Delhi, I had always craved for my favorite place in the house. Goaded by the confinements of the four walls, I craved for the warm, mellow sunlight in winters, for the soothing, cool night in summers and for getting drenched in the rains.

On the 1^st of this month, I have shifted to this one room set. I was glad, because the roof was open for all here. After lunch, I went upstairs and as I opened the door to the roof, I found myself on a small 10ft*20ft open space. –yup, the room is small, but the tenant’s heart is large.- a substantial part of the roof was occupied by four 500l water tanks, which made the roof even smaller.

The small size of the roof didn't disappoint me. The fresh air and open space welcomed me. I accepted it with a deep breath, and looked around. The afternoon sun was smiling and there was a presence of mist in the air. In-numerous concrete structures dotted the canvas till the horizon, which was blurred by hazed visibility.

The presence of hundreds of BTS towers (mobile towers), jutting out on the roofs, appeared like big cactus plants in the concrete jungle. There was one tower for almost 10 houses, sustaining the burden of millions of mobile phones in operating.

I had read it somewhere, that, all the sparrows in Delhi have died because of the hazardous radiations from these towers. How many of them had been here? Millions or more than that? These small creatures, flying freely, cheering everyone with their melodious chirps, in their own righteous space allotted by nature. Contributing to the ecosystem, through their own little world. So little that, that no one even had the faintest effect, or idea of their disappearance.

They didn't die in ones or two, dozens or hundreds, but every one of them, the whole specie was wiped off. Do we all carry a portion of this sin, of making a creature of nature extinct? Has every mobile phone, the lives of few sparrows locked in it? With future technologies to come, and human race growing more self-centered, how many creatures on earth are going to be erased?

With the warm sunlight, infusing a gradual laziness in me, I was lost in these random thoughts that my mobile rang. The ringing mobile nudged me back and I kept staring at it. With the press of a button, will I be responsible for any death? I thought, and received the call