This year though the Cuckoo arrived in end February in Goa as if to caution us that enough was enough , stop cutting trees as one day I shall not be able to sing my painful song ! Beauty to us it may be , it is cuckoo’s cry , her lament and sorrowful call for company ! Cuckoos arrive as the spring’s warmth beckons them , but with early warming of weather she thinks that her arrival time has approached!

Why is it that the Cuckoo hides herself around the leaves of tree branches , prefers to remain unseen ? Is she shy? I look for her always and sometimes see her sitting alone singing her sad sweet song. Perhaps, enticing or cajoling her mate! Maybe she wants her privacy when she finds her mate. Does she know that how beautiful she sings? How happy she makes all of us ? How much music and comfort and joy she gives to the world , Is she shy because she is dark ? May be, but she possesses a beautiful heart and inner beauty and voice so soul stirring . I have been observing this sound since years . I am not sure if it is to herald the spring or the approaching summer or to announce the mango flowering and ripening thereafter or an advance notice, invitation or caution of the monsoons but there is melody and distinct pain in her call. Though it sings in spring the call can be heard even in early June. I have learnt that both male and female Cuckoos call , but since years I have perceived the cuckoo call with the female cuckoo only.
During my early student days I always connected cuckoo to summer and mangoes after having heard a classical song in raag ‘Malkaus’ during School Annual day function – “ koyaliya bole amuva ki daar par.”( Koyal sings sitting on the mango tree branch). In Kochi I was pleased to hear the cuckoo almost through the year as the mangoes are available on trees much prior and beyond the standard summer months. Could it be the mango which motivates the cuckoo to sing? And mangoes do appear by end March/ early April and keep us company till the middle of monsoon.
Strange it may appear I observe that the cuckoo- mango-monsoon have a link to the character and personality of us Indians. ‘Waiting’ ( Intezar) is the first emotion which the above process generates followed by ‘exasperation’, ‘hope’, ‘arrival’, ‘rejoicing’, ‘celebration’, ‘separation’ , ‘disappointment’. Like the twist in monsoon tale which sometimes approaches but retreats or withers our emotional cycle too behaves similarly. Mangoes rejuvenate wavering health, so do the monsoon. Therefore the emotional quotient of Indians is heavily hinged on cuckoo-mango- and monsoon. Year after year the wait and embrace makes our emotional system superior to the logical mind system, it also explains our variety of cultural expressions during the monsoon months. In addition to reviving our economy the monsoon-mango and cuckoo give us emotional therapy to sustain for a year.
There is one variety of Cuckoo/Koyal called ‘Chatak’ called Jacobian Cuckoo found in large number in Indian sub continent . This bird awaits for the monsoon rain to quench its thirst!

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CHATAK
Cuckoo not only resides in Indian subcontinent , but also in Europe . Wordsworth has written of her in his poem ‘To the Cuckoo’-
“ Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky. “
And so also other poets such as John Logan in his ‘Ode to the Cuckoo’ writes:
“Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome ring.”
Reference to Cuckoo is in abundance in Hindustani classical music , poetry . Hindi cinema songs are full of Koyal and mango references . Para Devi sings in 1947 film ‘Do Bhai’ song penned by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan –
“ Amwa ki Dari pe Koyal Bole Koyal Bole Re Koyal Bole
Prem Ki Nadin Mein Man Ki Nayya Dag Mag Dole Re Dagmag”
( Koyal sings on the mango branch , koyal sings
In the river of love my mind’s boat rolls and rolls)
–“ Abdul Majeed ‘Shams’ writes in his poem titled ‘Phagun’-
“Khushi se fazaa muskarane lagi
Nasime Sahar gungunane lagin
Papihon ne rat ‘pi kahan’ ki lagayi
Kahin mast koyal ne ku-ku sunayi”
( with happiness nature is smiling
The morning breeze is humming
Papiha ( a Cuckoo variety) is continually singing
Somewhere the merry Cuckoo is cooing ! )
She is known by different names – Cuckoo, Koyal , Kokila all names resonating with the song and sound she makes. Unlike Pigeons , Parrots and Blabbers who move in a flock Cuckoo remains in her own world , she perhaps stays single . In Kalidas’s famous Poem ‘Ritusamhara’ which has six Cantos each dedicated to a ‘season’ , in Canto six dedicated to Spring/Basant there are numerous references to Cuckoo, Mango and Bees . A few stanzas/lines are quoted below from the book , translated by Abhay K:
“ Crazy Cuckoo drunk on Mango nectar,
Kisses his mate passionately ,
So do the honey bees hidden inside lotus petals
Make love to their sweethearts”( Stanza 14)
“ and now the joyous Cuckoo with its sweet cooing
Seals the fate of young hearts lost to amorous women” ( Lines from stanza 20)
“ In Chaitra , Cuckoo’s cooing and humming of bees fill the air” ( Lines from stanza 24)
During the time of Wordsworth and John Logan the nature was close to humanity ,it was part of their world and they had leisure and inclination to observe nature and write about it. Kalidas was writing in a period about two thousand years ago, where there was abundance of nature and the wild urban life post industrialization was centuries away . From the poetic expression of Kalidas the progressive society of that time is reflected which we call the ‘Golden Age’. However we are lucky that we hear the Cuckoo still ; Sadly I fear that this sweet bird of spring shall appear less and less and shall soon disappear in the urban desert which we are creating . I end this article with my anguish in verse below:

“THE PAIN OF THE CUCKOO”
The cuckoo cried in passionate pain throughout the night.
Not a drop of water fell; though distant thunder felt.
Cuckoo arrives in early march and is heard till june-july end.
She searches for her mate and creates many symbols of rain.
Her song, her solitude, her plea goes unheard; in traffic din urbane.
Why is she here then wasting her voice on ungrateful citizens?
I have heard her song at all times during the day. But why is she so much in grief tonight?
Will she be able to attract her mate?
Will she be able to love once again before the season dies?
This sound is the nature’s blessing which we search in temples and tomb.
Those are blessed who hear her cry , those who don’t; remain ungroomed.
No scientist can create such soulful cry, it is only an artist’s inspiration.
Am I the lucky one who hears in this green corner of metropolis?
Have the concrete kept her away from her annual visits?
Deprived of destiny will the children of modernity never hear her nectar sound that nourishes their generation.
God they say lies in small things, small sounds!
Same sound with subtle variations is the source of truth and joy.
She is in perennial quest, in eternal pain, an emotional pain.
To make us happy.
To liberate us .
To redeem us.
To rejoice us.
Do we deserve her?
Worshippers of market!
Soldiers of wealth!
Ready to conquer the fertile for greed.
No! we do not
deserve her song; her sound.
No ! do not come cuckoo again.
This shall be our punishment; our penance. “