I myself am counted a toad, and am nicknamed ‘cockroach’. Mainly because of I am average in height, weight, color and below average in the looks department. Maybe too, because I am really an amphibian or arthropod in anthropomorphic form. Either way, the point is, much to the utter amazement (and often, utter consternation), the ‘crow’ look-alikes of my college end up with the ‘swans’ of the campus. The population of the bevy of beautiful belles that hover round plainsmen, amazes.
I have a possible explanation for dichotomous crow-swan coupling.
You see, the crows, know they are crows and the cockroaches know they are just that, insects; vermin and overlooked: They have nothing to lose anyway, so, they dare to send the valentine card, or the bunch of roses or tinkle a bell - to the prettiest in the city. Rejection they can take, they know they probably will be, but they never give up trying.
Now the swans, all decked and dolled up, enveloped in a cloud of perfume, eyelashes aflutter, stand in vain for the never-forthcoming Lochinvars in shining armour. Instead, they have a bunch of Sancho Panzas, strewing petals at their feet, making them feel heady. The crows are born courtiers and wooers. They will boldly walk up to Aishwarya, sitting alone yonder, to ask for a dance: all the while, the handsome smooth shaven Gallahads, reeking of after-shave and dripping in gold necklace and bracelets, wait at the other end of the dance floor, and hesitate; Afraid of asking, for fear of being rebuffed. That is the key. They cannot take no for an answer, these macho types: their egos won’t permit them to take risks. But the cockroach, he is ready in approach, open in his admiration and genuine in his motive-and lo! The crows get the crown.
Next time you see an ill-matched married pair, the male Corvus splendens (common crow) with arms of the female Pavo cristatis (pea fowl) draped around him, don’t rant, just rationalize, and rue: it could have been you and her, instead it is her and ‘it’. The hare always loses the race to the tortoise. So said Aesop.
And so say all of us, the Periplaneta americanas (the roaches).
Amen!
(The article originally appeared on www.sulekha.com).
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