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The Crow from Pakistan

Crows are black in color. They look pretty alike don't they? Unless of course there is some distinguishing mark in them like, a damaged beak, or a blind eye or something like that. Surprisingly the crow I am talking about looks pretty Indian. The same beak, the same black feathers, similar prejudices, same habits, same way of living. He had just flown across Lahore over the fence by South of Wagah to the wheatfields to the south west of Amritsar. The tresspassing crow was hungry and had started feeding on Indian wheat. I wonder where he will defecate. Was Pakistani crow shit considered bombing when the food is Indian? I didn't know. I pressed my binoculars close to my eyes and wait but my hands are aching. So I took out my tripod, keep the tea plate on top of it and rested my hands on it. Then I again held my binoculars and focused the crow. The crow was dutifully eating the wheat grains as if that was the only thing he was born for this purpose only. This continued for around 15 minutes as he kept eating the grains flying from one stalk to another. Enemy grain must taste different does it not, I wonder. Or may be, just may be he finds no difference. Nah, that would be treason, a Pakistani crow could not commit treason so easily. He must have got orders to cross the border to harm the efforts of Indian agriculture. I found the thought funny and chuckled to myself, amused.

The farmer arrived. I was waiting for this. Basically on an inspection and so fix a new scarecrow. The last one was lying half damaged in yesternight's rain. He uprooted the old scarecrow for repairs and fixed the new one. While returning he chased the crow who was then just sitting quietly, his hunger probably extinguished. The crow then flew a little back, then making up his mind, felt he would be better off making his sortie home. He looked up at the sky, it was the final hours of the afternoon. Darkness was about to fall soon. He took off and flapped wings and moved up.

No not exactly this crow. Taken from
http://aishaevamarieogradyali.blogspot.in

I took my jeep to follow the lizards that move from Pakistan to India during the day and return to Pakistan at night. I would click a few hundred pictures as these creatures make their leasurely troll towards the Electirified Indian Border Fence, crossing it stealthily as if it didn't exist and then moving throught the No Man's Land. They would then stop for a while near a small embankment and then cross the much smaller Pakistani Un Electrified Fence. They don't require much protection, historically all attacks have flowed from the west to the east.

The crow flew in suddenly. Came close to the Indian fence, had second thoughts, then took to higher up again and finally rested on the Pakistani Border fence. In the distance a Pakistani Rangers jeep could be seen throwing up a cloud of dust in its trail. It could clearly see me taking photos. They completely ignored me. Another Nat Geo maniac, they must have known. Spies don't and even don't need to take pictures of this God forsaken terrain. Google Maps would do as well anyway. The crow must have looked at the cloud of dust. He had had his rest for the rest of the journey to the West. He flew right into Pakistani airspace - without any formalities, no passports, no immigration nor any security checks. Indeed as it flew it dropped an ample amount of crow shit that fell in a tangent, a good 20 to 30 meters inside Pakistani territory! How irresponsible! How could he eat in a foreign country and shit in his home country without any regard for national sensibilities? Anyway that was for Pakistan to care about. I was surprised no SAM took down the tresspassing bird. He flew as if he did not care, as if the International Border was just a fence between two neighboring houses in a crowded city. As if you could do anything you please. I took out my hand book and scribbled 131. All previous 130 intrusions of the same crow had been neatly recorded before.

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