Once upon a time, in the small, little garden in the front yard of our home, all sorts of birds used to build cute little nests. Once there was this lovely blue bird with beautiful blue eggs. I remember literally guarding the nest throughout the day.
Well, now a days, it is mostly pigeons with their shaggy nests which are neither neat nor shapely. These nests are mostly some sticks put loosely together. Before they vanished from the cities-transforming-themselves-in to-metro like Pune, sparrows used to regularly build their nests in the patio.
It used to be a very chirpy flurry of activities. Aai-Papa would always tell us not to go too near, not to get up-n-close with the chicks because sparrows, if they sense the human scent on a chick, treat the poor thing like a pariah, and apparently kill the birdie, it seems.
Most probably, it must be their worry that we might fall down and hurt ourselves in the process of climbing up to peer in to the nest. May be, the mother sparrow might get aggressive, and hurt us. Apparently, hence, we were told this make-believe myth.
Many people believe in this tale of 'sparrow killing the chick' very strongly though. I find it to be a process of pariah production. That makes me think a lot through this process of pariah making. Why do people treat others as pariahs?
May be, they are extremely selfish and self- centred, and are comfy with others if and only if or when/where and only when/where people are useful to them. Such 'use-n-throw' mentality may make them find friends as pariahs when powerful people are in the vicinity. Either they think that the pariah may steal the focus of attention away from them or they may be afraid that the powers-that-be do not like the pariah, and hence do not want any contamination.
They might find a person inconvenient in a given context/scenario, and hence may look through such a person, making her feel a pariah. May be, a person encroaches their or their friend's turf unknowingly, and hence needs to be put in to (actually, rather out of!) place. Hence the look-through treatment, may be.
Well, I do think that actually they are the real pariahs as they are absolutely outside the sphere of decency and ethics. Thus they make themselves pariahs. Their behaviour reflects extremely poorly on their self worth as well. If they cannot own up a relationship, be it a colleague, a friend, a relative (whatever be the reason behind their apparent exclusionary behaviour), they are that much small, mean, and diffident!
How to behave with such people? Plain ignore their small time and cheap villainy? Best response, I would say, would be 'wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh' to quote a phrase from T.S.Eliot's "The Preludes" because such weirdos are hardly worth a thought!
Pratima@ How you treat others reflects on who you are!
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