When The Sound Of Your Voice Grates Your Ear

‘Hoopoe, hoopoe, hoopoe’, an unmistakable cry tore the silence of a quiet summer sky announcing the flight of a cinnamon pink, black and white bird. She was quite stylish with a naturally formed mohawk.

The Hoopoe for that was her onomatopoeic name landed on a branch and snorted, rustling her feathers slightly. She hated her sound. Or more precisely, she despised the fact her name exactly corresponded with her cry.

She wondered who thought of this stupid idea. It was fine if the other animals followed the same rule. She wouldn’t have complained if the owl was called Hoot, the tiger was baptised Roarr, the woodpecker was named Tap-tap, the bear was branded Grunt and the hyena Ha-ha-ha but that was not the case. Only she was saddled with a name that imitated her call.

Hoopoe wasn’t one to take things lying down. She had begun practising to change her voice. Morning, afternoon and night she would try to make different calls but only a ‘hoo-poe’ would emit. This confused the male hoopoes terribly though for they heard her cry and thought she wanted to make babies. The males would fly to her, eager, happy at this chance of an off-season fling and she, instead of returning their overtures would peck viciously at their romantic feathers and chase them off.

She tried every single thing in the book to change her voice. A mean owl had told her the secret of its hooting was swallowing mice live. The poor Hoopoe had tried to catch a tiny mouse in her long beak. When she tried to swallow it, the wee thing got stuck halfway in her throat and almost choked her. A coughing fit released her and the mouse, who swore that hoopoe breath was worse than owl breath and it rather be eaten by a Western Screech any day (or night).

Poor Hoopoe, in spite of her best efforts when she opened her bill, the only sound that would come out was ‘Hoopoe, hoopoe, hoopoe’, always in sets of threes or fives. One day, after having tried to remain underwater for a minute (on the advice of a salmon), she gave up just before she drowned herself. She decided never agin to emit the cry that defined her. This momentous decision had far reaching consequences. As her mating call was on mute during the breeding season she never found a partner and had babies. She finally died just as she lived – silently.

When she fell to the ground, her stiff feet up in the air, the jungle folk echoed ‘The Hoopoe is dead, hoopoe dead, hoopoe dead’ and once again it seemed like the sound of her voice, which carried her name had been spoken.

Moral: Nobody likes to be slotted.



Sus is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com