With great sadness, we report the loss of Sangeetha (aged 91), who made the bird calls.
She thought it would only be until spring—just enough to keep the nectar trees in flower and our community thriving until the birds returned. That was sixty-three years ago, and she continued calling every day until her passing.
Those of her generation will recall how the Great Fall began with the wilting of the blueblossom, and how her voice rang out like a ping-throated weeper, causing drooping petals to twitch and closed buds to unfurl. Although the last of the remaining birds had only just departed, we had not heard a ping-throated weeper since our childhoods. We rushed to milk the flowers and ate to brighten our eyes before the nectars could evaporate.
Sangeetha considered this a one-off, a clever trick, her moment of heroism. But the caw of the glossy-winged snake-eater had also vanished from the skies, and as a result, that same season, all the purple moon-daisies dropped from the trees, followed by the moss lilies, and nothing sweet remained to us. She later speculated that if it had been bitterness that we lost first, there would have been no panic. Instead, she would have been married with children by the time we came to her, and perhaps she would have been more willing to sacrifice her remaining future for us.
Her discontent was justified: it was non-stop labour to walk the forest on behalf of all the birds. When she took a rare sick day, we were all cold, unnourished, and lost. At night, she stayed up late with the harvesters of the tricky giant touch-me-not, calling so that they could gather us warmth for the morning. She rose early to sing in multiple voices for the missing dawn chorus, bringing us light, joy, and much more, and no one resented her occasional grumbles.
In later years, her optimism grew legendary, and as we awaited the return of the birds, she clung to other ambitions for her future: classical music, nectar-hunting, family. For most of her life, she sought an apprentice to assist and take over her work, persisting even though no one could mimic the birds as well as she could. The search became harder as her elders and peers passed on, leaving little knowledge of the calls, or of when and where they should be made.
Sangeetha sadly passed away after a catch in her throat interrupted her triple-beaked pheasant song, preventing the gathering of the medicinal wood-lotus whose nectar she sipped daily for her heart condition.
She is survived by a community who loved her deeply, most of whom have never heard the morning warblers or the night hooters, or any other bird, sing—only her renditions of their voices.
We will call as best we can until all the flowers fall from the trees, and all their nectar fades into air, and we with them.
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Ⓒ Tehnuka
Originally published in If There’s Anyone Left, June 20, 2023. Reprinted here by permission of the author.