Telugu Original: Raamaa Chandramouli
Translated by Rajeshwar Mittapalli

Beyond Mulugu—past Lingampalli village—just at the turning where the dark Mahadevpur forest begins like a great gateway, there was a shack of a roadside eatery. Chinmayi stopped there, took a seat at a small rickety table, and let her eyes drift into the thick forest stretching far ahead. She waited for him. She placed her Nikon D7200 DSLR—favoured by the best wildlife photographers—carefully by her side. The boy had just set down a glass of tea. She sipped at it while the voice of Mukesh flowed into her ears through the buds.

Chinmayi was twenty-nine. Her skin carried the glow of freshly polished copper—bright, burnished, almost radiant.

Mukesh singing, a tale of sorrow heavy with longing.

Zuban pe dard bhari dastan chali ayi
(The plaintive tale pressed itself onto the tongue.)

Bahar ane se pahle khizan chali ayi
(Ere the spring dawned, autumn had already arrived.)

Does sorrow have a language of its own? She wondered.

The Indian philosophers had insisted that sorrow, when imbued with meaning, rises to a loftiness beyond pleasure itself. Let it be felt that suffering is not separate from joy—that awareness itself is constant bliss, the bliss of Brahman. So said poet Samudrala.

Why, she did not know—but her mother came suddenly to mind. At present her mother was a Professor of Physics at Queen Mary University in London. When Chinmayi was a little girl—barely five or six—her mother had worked as a Lecturer in Madras University. A genius. Her father, Govindarajulu, an IAS officer—was steeped in corruption, and a drunkard, a brute. He had no sense of decency, no code to live by. Always badgering her mother, forever suspicious, forcing her to quit her job, assaulting her daily. Chinmayi had watched in silence, helpless, inside that house.

Her mother’s name was Jnani—the enlightened —but courage? That came later. One day, she snapped, picked up a chopper, and split him open. She had said as she struck, “You’re of no use to this family, no use to society, no use to the nation itself. You’re a weed—and that’s why I’m plucking you out. This is a just killing, not murder.”

She had gone calmly to the police, surrendered, fought the case in court, laid bare her husband’s vileness, and served two token years in prison. After that she had flown to London. Chinmayi had insisted that she wouldn’t leave her country—and so her mother placed her in the Good Shepherd International School in Ooty. As she departed, she had said something unforgettable: When we know our worth, we must choose a path unlike any other and prove ourselves.

‘A person must prove herself’—Chinmayi had kept that truth glowing inside. To this day, her mother still pursued research in Physics—on the “Supermassive Compact Object at the Centre of the Galaxy.” A lifetime spent with a single, rare pursuit. And Chinmayi longed for something of that kind—something that stood apart, a life unlike others, an extraordinary field where she could prove herself.

And so—the result—she was now gaining international recognition as a wildlife photographer. After completing a B.Tech in Computer Science at Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering in Chennai, she made a deliberate turn. She enrolled in an institute unknown to many in India—'Creative Hut’ in Kerala—and took their course in photography with a special focus on wildlife.

Distinction—unattainable for most young women—that was what she wanted, nothing less. Like her mother, she wanted to achieve what others could not—even draw admiration with a sharp ‘Wah?wah!’ on people’s lips. That was the goal, the destination, the very zenith of life.

Creative Hut lay at Kareemphani in Mattakkara village near Kottayam. At that time its principal was Abin Alex. Students who came there—almost all of them—had the same urge to prove themselves in a rare field. Men filled the classes. Women were scarce. Her only female classmate was Punmia Jones, who had taken Wildlife Photography as an elective. Chinmayi’s own specialisation within it was Bird Photography. They belonged to the batch of 2017.

Bird study—ornithology—was a field in itself. Since childhood Chinmayi had adored those creatures. The sight of them lifting skywards—vanishing into height and distance—still gave her a twinge of wonder that words could not describe. She had studied many kinds of birds—loving each encounter, treasuring the mysteriousness of it.

~ II ~

In a person’s life, marriage looms as a central event. From studying many cases Chinmayi felt sure of this—couples in India mostly live by compromise—pushing through the mechanical adjustments of mismatched tastes and irreconcilable professions, rather than sharing companionship grounded in true sympathy. Her parents—her scholar mother and administrator father—stood as the starkest example. Their careers had never met, their temperaments never matched. That marriage had degenerated into a tragic farce.

She resolved not to repeat it. She placed notices in some well?known magazines and marriage bureaux of the country. Her advertisement ran like this: Marriage proposal sought. A beautiful twenty-nine-year-old wildlife/bird photographer of national repute, who wishes to build a distinct life founded on deep understanding, invites suitable matches. She holds a deep conviction that life is God-given and must be lived as a single, unrepeatable chance. She prefers a young man in the same profession—or in a closely aligned field. Proposals should reach this newspaper desk within one week.

But strangely, there was not a single reply to her proposal. Instead, a few sneers came her way: what kind of madness possessed this girl to choose ‘wildlife and bird photography’ as her career?

Yesterday, however, someone had rung. Shankar. He had said, in a steady voice over the evening call, “Madam, perhaps we should meet and talk once.” His fieldwork had taken him to Sukma district of Chhattisgarh—ornithology research. That was why he suggested meeting here—near the forests of Mahadevpur.

Her first thought had been, ‘Looks nice—all right then.’ She drove down in her Brezza by herself.

Shankar arrived soon after—in the Kia Seltos he’d mentioned. Introductions followed. Another glass of country-style tea. Then Shankar said, “We can walk into the forest and talk.” They both rose.

~ III ~

“Quite rare, isn’t it—women in bird photography,” he said, brushing past low branches along the path.

Chinmayi answered, walking beside him. “Rare, yes—but the goal is to live with rare distinction.”

Then she added, “There are three kinds of people, and three kinds of lives. The first—the ones who never ask why or how. They lead unremarkable lives and die just as unremarkably. More than ninety per cent fall into that lot. Then there are those who sink into corruption, chasing money, power, dominance—becoming criminals if need be. Politicians in our country—nearly all of them—belong to this category. Finally, there are those who refuse that mould. They live only the life they’ve chosen, the life they burn for. They don’t budge an inch from the path. People like us. Maybe two per cent. I think you get me.”

“Yes,” Shankar said. “In a sense, the field is one—we both turn to birds. I study their lives. You photograph them. That’s a wonderful pairing. I did my degree in Ecology at the Indian Institute of Ecology and Environment in New Delhi, then postgraduate work in Ornithology in Germany, and later a PhD there itself. Afterwards, I completed a postdoctoral programme in Alaska—on bird migration. That is my past. My mother is no more—I lost her when I was very young. My father is a senior scientist at ISRO. Our hometown is Warangal.”

Chinmayi spoke of herself—and of her mother—though only in brief.

Shankar stayed quiet for a while. Then he said, “Migration is common to every living thing—it’s coded into the DNA. Humans have forgotten that. When we learn of avian migrations, we stare in wonder. Out of 18,000 species, fifty-five per cent cross continents every year. Yet why do they fly so? We can’t answer fully.”

“Take the albatross. It is born over the ocean. Ten days after birth it takes wing—and does not land for six years. Each day it sleeps for no more than forty-five minutes. It has a split brain—one half sleeps, the other steers. Or the Arctic Tern—a bird weighing barely a hundred grams. It travels as much as 95,997 kilometres in a single year, on average. By life’s end it has flown eight times the distance between Earth and Moon. In Alaska, the hummingbird flies in strange ways—sometimes backward. And all these teach us one thing—never stop mid-journey.” He stopped there, his eyes on her face.

Chinmayi, who was looking at him at that very moment, said, “I’ve been to the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, founded by Salim Ali, India’s grand old man of ornithology. I’ve taken many photographs there. Photojournalism—that’s my special interest.”

Shankar had spent years studying the lives of birds—their discipline, their strange powers, their eerie sense of seasons. To him, Chinmayi looked like a child crawling towards her mother. As he watched her, an amused joy stirred in him. Her determination—to prove herself in a rare field—held him spellbound.

Birds feel the change of seasons long before men—sometimes a month early. Their sense of parental duty to their offspring is more intense than in any other species. Yet when the laws of nature called, when boundaries have to be crossed, they break ties and fly free. They seem to declare: Bonds are temporary—separation is certain. This thought thrilled Shankar again and again.

Suddenly Chinmayi swung forward, grabbed her DSLR from the strap at her shoulder, arched back flat, and clicked. The shutter cracked in the quiet. Shankar startled, turned—and saw. On the branch of a high tree there was a young kite chick. In the next instant a hawk streaked like a missile, claws outstretched, and snatched it away. Chinmayi caught the moment in her frame. Shankar’s skin bristled with delight.

She ran to him, breathless, childlike. She pressed the camera display before his eyes, her face lit with excitement.

“Telephoto—zoom of 300 mm. Long-distance maximum aperture, f/2.8. Shutter speed one by two-thousand,” Chinmayi rattled it off. As she showed him the image, she almost rested her weight on his shoulder.

Shankar marvelled. Such clarity—he had never seen anything like it. The eagle had snatched away the fledgling kite. The chick writhing. The talons glinting sharp. Every line crisp, every feather captured. The picture was finer than anything an international photographer would have taken.

In sudden wonder he clasped her close and kissed her, wet and fierce, full on the lips.

From somewhere—deep within the thickets—a burst of wings, a chorus of calls. Birds ruffled and shrieked as if in celebration. A minute passed before the clamour ebbed.

“Our marriage has just taken place with that kiss, Chinmayi. We’ve become husband and wife in this moment. A splendid future awaits us. You have a rare brilliance in you. That’s what I like most,” he said, wiping his damp lips.

‘Kuhu kuhu—the forest bustled with the music of wedding. The woods stood witness. The birds became the kin.’ That was how Chinmayi felt as she clung to him, her head resting against his chest.

~ IV ~

Six years flew by. They lived in a world of their own making.

To live one’s allotted “one?time life” with awareness—that itself is an art. God grants but one birth—whether to man or creature. Never again would it come.

Chinmayi had long ago told herself, ‘Life is what each person shapes for herself.’ Shankar, too, held the same creed.

They had two children, born a year apart. They both believed childbirth was not in itself extraordinary. It was a gift, yes—a gift carrying the weight of meaning, a God?given chance to keep creation in balance. Their children were now safely tucked away in residential schools.

Work gives shape to a person’s very conduct. At this moment, Chinmayi was in the Spiti Valley—a cold desert valley in the Himalayan north. The village of Langza lay ten kilometres away, among the conifers. She was preparing for an international bird photography competition. Only five days prior, she had returned from Bharatpur, where she had spent a week in Keoladeo National Park—trying for unique images of rare birds. But—nothing, not a single shot to hold the prize. Yet she would not let disheartenment touch her.

Shankar, speaking from Tanzania, had told her of a bird. He had urged her in the direction of Solan in Himachal Pradesh, and then on to Spiti Valley. He had advised her to consult one of India’s eminent ornithologists, V.S. Vijayan—a native of Kerala—who happened just then to be attending a conference in Delhi. So Chinmayi had left Bharatpur straight for Delhi and met him there—introducing herself as a former student of Creative Hut. Vijayan spoke at length—at least half an hour—about the Bar-Headed Goose Shankar had mentioned. He gave her tips and asked her to work on a special video project.

By fortune’s hand it was the season of egg?laying and incubation for the bar?headed goose.

Chinmayi gathered her kit with resolve and set off for the Spiti Valley, alone. Those like her, who brave the daring path, bear within themselves the strength to face circumstances without anyone for company.

The bar?headed goose is an oddity among birds—of the duck family, yet far removed in nature. It is said to fly at the highest altitudes in the world—higher than 29,000 feet, above the Everest itself. The bird grows to about 75 centimetres, and Indians call it the “bar?tailed peacock.” Its weight ranges from 1.8 to 3.2 kilos. During its Himalayan flights it consumes only a tenth of the oxygen that ordinary times demand—yet it manages without stop for eight days and nights, pressing on until it reaches Tibet. By the end of that gruelling journey its body shrinks to 110 grams!

Why do the birds choose such extreme migrations? The question gnawed at her. Was it as Shankar had said—that migration is an instinct built into all living things, an irresistible urge to shift place?

In Langza village, Chinmayi struck a deal with a farmer named Dabra. Together they searched, and found a nest—twenty feet high in the hollow of a thick conifer trunk. The bar?headed goose had made its home there.

The villagers would never harm these birds. To harm them meant earning sin—that was their belief. So the birds were unafraid of humans—truly human-friendly birds.

The nest was twenty feet high. At almost the same height, about twenty feet away on another conifer, Dabra rigged up a grass platform—thin sticks packed with dry grass—broad enough for someone to lie flat. A bedroll on top. A container of water. A sturdy wooden ladder for climbing up and down. She had paid him for his help.

By the time Dabra had secured the platform, the goose had already hatched two goslings out of the six eggs she had laid. The gander stayed in the nest as well. Their incubation lasted twenty?eight to thirty days. “Perhaps the remaining eggs were taken by some animal,” Dabra said, shrugging.

For Chinmayi, this was thirst of a kind—an artist’s thirst for inner fulfilment. If anyone asked why, there could be no real answer—only this.

Within about six days, Chinmayi had formed a bond with the pair of geese and the goslings that sometimes poked their heads from the nest. She noticed their steady routines—which bird flew off at what time, when it came back, what it carried in its beak. The female brought food for the baby birds. The male gathered soft strands, down, feathers, sometimes fruits. Chinmayi recorded every movement and mannerism with her special camera—filming them with zoom systems fitted with special lenses, shooting stills late into the night, taking video as they guarded and cared for the young. She watched their devotion as parents—their gestures tender, their protection unceasing—and she felt thrill after thrill run through her.

The nights were moonlit. The jungle brimmed with silver light—fresh, clear, clean. The air, the water, the whisper of trees, the steady song of the stream running below—everything was pure. No taint, no stain.

And yet—in the cities human society seemed poisoned. A pollution spreading like death itself.

Here, solitude and seclusion gave her contentment. She had chosen her path—her work—her calling. And the unseen joy of sharing her days with this bird family—that too.

After those twenty days Chinmayi grasped something. She felt there had formed between herself and the geese a bond she could not name. Each day that bond grew stronger. ‘What are bonds, after all?’ she wondered. ‘Are they not immaterial experiences—forming, breaking, thickening, thinning, always in flux?’

Another week, and through her zoom she saw the younglings sprouting new feathers. She felt astonishment: what a change—what an event—for a bird to grow wings. And because she was a woman, and because her gaze reached even the smallest tremor, she sensed the mother bird’s ecstasy at the sight of her goslings’ new feathers.

Six days more. The baby geese clambered from the bowl of the nest to its very edge again and again. Each time, the mother pushed them back inside with her beak. Chinmayi guessed her fear—if one fell from twenty feet without yet knowing flight, death would be certain.

It was a night of the full moon. The forest glittered with an extra brilliance—as though shivering in delight.

Past midnight, Shankar rang from Tanzania. She woke with a jolt.

“Chinmayi, how far have you got with it? Did it work out? Have you got any good shots? It’s just after midnight here. Must be past half?two there for you.” His voice ran on across the crackle of distance.

“It’s going alright,” she said. “I’m still trying. I’ve become friends with the family of bar?headed geese. But I’m beginning to wonder—has it turned into a bond?” She wanted to say more—but the line went dead.

Her eyes lifted at once towards the nest. The male and female were busy—darting in and out, working without pause.

And then the indistinct apprehensions she had once felt in her dreams came, replaying in her head.

This civilisation—for centuries, human wisdom and discovery had shone in India: scientific triumphs, architectural marvels. Someone had once forwarded her a message on WhatsApp. ‘How was it,’ the message read, ‘that ages before radar, microscopes, instruments of astronomy were invented, people had built the five majestic Shiva temples—Kedarnath, Kaleshwaram, Ekambareshwar, Chidambaram, Rameshwaram—directly along a single line running the length of the subcontinent? How did they achieve it, and how do those temples still stand strong, unshaken, to this day? What kind of technology had obtained then?’

Chinmayi drifted off to sleep halfway through her cogitation. What is this idea of Shiva? Is it only the symbolic manifestation of a force? Is the thought of Shiva’s dance nothing more than a graphic representation of shifting energy levels? Is the whole of creation speaking only in such graphic forms?

How much had humanity learnt in this endless flow of time? As Einstein said, is our knowledge no more than an iota, while what remains unknown is like an ocean? The inventions multiplying. Stephen Hawking’s theory of black holes. A Brief History of Time. 4G. 5G. Corona. Wuhan. Vaccine controversies. The pharma mafias that shook the world. Humankind split into two groups—haves and have-nots.

But is it some supernatural force—God? Devil?—that drives the cosmos so unerringly?

And where had the brilliance gone—the clarity that shone through ages past, the thinkers who had seemed titans of mind?

Garalakuta vineela kantaya shambhave madanantakaya namah Shivaya.
Kumbhini dhara suta kucha kumbha parirambha mahalolupaya namah Shivaya.
Shivoham. Shivoham.

Sunrises. Sunsets. What are they? The upsurge of force, and its waning. What is it?

Chinmayi opened her eyes.

Something had carried her out of a semiconscious state, drawing her towards consciousness.

In front of her—the conifer tree—an avian flurry.

The mother goose stood on the edge of the nest. With her beak she steadied the fledgling beside her whose wings had just begun to sprout strong. She peered down—her face tight with fear.

Chinmayi snapped into action. She switched on her cameras, her video set?up—and looked down.

Below, the gander had laid out soft feathers, cotton?fluff moss, dry leaves, filaments from plants—an entire mattress made ready during the night. He looked upward, straight at the female—his eyes urging, now push.

In the gosling’s gaze there was joy—the strange joy of entering the wide world. In the mother’s—fear. Would her young one fly with proper beat and balance, or plummet to earth and die before tasting air?

The father stayed waiting on the ground. His form taut.

In one quick motion the mother pushed the gosling off. It floundered. Fear convulsed its body. Wings flapped in panic—its first attempt in life. It rushed downward—yet in the act of falling it learnt lift, following the ‘drag and lift’ principle. The wings bit air—and instead of striking the earth—the bird rose and then it darted with a hiss into open sky.

At once the mother turned to the next. Pushed it, too. The young bird flailed—its wings uneven, beating wild. Chinmayi gasped. But just before it struck ground, the wings caught—a surge of air lifted it, and it skimmed away, veering into the distance.

The father leapt upwards. He joined the mother at the nest. Both stood side by side, staring into the sky where their loved ones had vanished. Peace lay heavy upon them.

Chinmayi’s high-power cameras caught even the mist of tears shimmering in their eyes.

The fledglings had flown. They wouldn’t return—perhaps never again.

But if bonds arose from rearing, from feeding, from guarding—had that cord not snapped in that instant?

Do bonds always break? Or must bonds, by their nature, one day break?

What endures? What perishes? What is eternal, what only transient? O sage, O great soul!

Down the ages, ties have twined and knotted—then frayed and broken, again and again.

And before Chinmayi—the sun rose crimson.

‘It’s time I left,’ she thought.
 

“Why…What…Don’t Know” (titled “Enduko...Emito…Teliyadu” in Telugu) by Raamaa Chandramouli was first published in Swathi Weekly and later included in Nirvana (a collection of short stories), Pustaka Digital Media, 2024, pp.?110-121.

Translated into English by Rajeshwar Mittapalli.

Raamaa Chandra Mouli (b. 1950) is a distinguished poet, novelist, short story writer, and literary critic from Telangana. A postgraduate in Mechanical Engineering, he has authored 78 books, including 35 novels, 437 short stories, and several volumes of poetry and essays. His works, translated into many Indian languages, have earned him prestigious honours and awards such as Swarna Nandi Puraskaram (2011), Kalaaratna (2018), Telugu University Kavitha Puraskaram (2007), Cinare Kavitha Puraskaram (2008), Gunturu Sheshendra Sharma Kavitha Puraskaram (2015), the international Nmaji Naaman Literary Prize (2019), and most recently the Ajo-Vibho-Kandalam Foundation Award (2025). He represented India at the World Congress of Poets and has also made significant contributions to Telugu cinema and engineering education.