#15 Different
Bhopal - 26th October 2021
The crow believed he was different.
He didn't spend much time with other crows, as he didn't fit in well with them. The usual crow stuff like hanging around humans fighting over leftovers bored him. He prefers to hunt for insects on the tree - like his friend, the woodpecker.
He had met the woodpecker one afternoon while resting on a tree branch. It was tapping away its head on the trunk of a tree. The movement fascinated him, he had never seen crows do that and wanted to learn it.
One day the crow asked the woodpecker to teach him to peck on wood.
The woodpecker agreed because he thought it would be interesting.
Hence the classes began.
The woodpecker showed the crow how to claw onto the trunk and move it's head swiftly back and forth, hitting the same spot every time. The crow observed.
At first he couldn't balance himself on the side of the trunk, so he just stood on a branch and started to peck on the trunk. But his hits were all over the place, and his beak and head hurt from the jerks after doing it for a while. "He is not built for this" the woodpecker thought to himself, but didn't comment, as he didn't want his friend to feel bad.
But the crow knew he wasn't built for this. It wouldn't come naturally to him, and he needed to put in more time and effort, and so he did.
He tapped on wood everyday with his beak for a whole year.
By the end of the year, he had become quite good at making holes in the wood. Even the woodpecker was surprised at the progress of the crow. However, it was still nowhere close to the speed and accuracy to what the woodpecker could do. His beak had broken in parts from all the stress, but that had only made the beak sharper and easier to peck with.
The other crows found it quite amusing.
Two years later, heavy monsoons in the area resulted in a massive flood.
Humans moved out, and low places lay submerged under water, many animals died.
The crows didn't die. But they were hungry and many of their nests were destroyed. They had gotten used to humans, and they suffered when they went away.
The crows, now in trouble, looked up to the one crow that was seemingly unaffected by the floods - "Can you help us?"
"You guys can stay in the holes I have made in the trees while I was practicing, there should be enough for all of you, and I'll teach you to hunt insects from the tree" the crow replied, feeling sad over the plight of his fellow brothers.
The crows crowed, "Thank you! You are truly one of us"