Chiku is your standard crow. He has a gray body with slick black wings which sometimes seem to come alive with all the colors of the rainbow if you look close enough, especially when he gets wet in the rain like he is now. His long, slightly hooked, nose-like beak hints at a profound wisdom behind his opalescent eyes. He does not hesitate to share this wisdom by means of a very human voice box which has somehow jammed itself in his throat and shows no signs of coming out. I'm serious, he just won't shut up! And you can't do anything to make him shut up! You remember the first time you met him and he introduced himself. But only after you were done freaking out about the existence of a talking crow, of course!
"I'm Chiku! Like the fruit, sapodilla. No last name. No middle name. Just Chiku, yes sir! I don't remember the name I was given in my previous life as a human. My crow parents didn't give me a name in this life. So, I picked out my name myself. You can call me Chiku." He twittered like an excited budgie while zip-zapping in the air with the energy of a bird half his size.
"Why Chiku?" You asked.
"I beg your Pardon?" He sqwaked.
"Why did you name yourself Chiku?" You enquired again.
His fluttering body came to halt. He settled down on the hanging light in the Chai stall and paused for a moment before answering with a grave face, "It was the last thing I smelled before I died."
His death is the one topic Chiku becomes silent about. But, through your conversations up till now you have managed to piece together the important things.
Chiku was born and raised in Bhopal sometime in the late 1900s, back when the air still rang with old film songs and dreams crackled on reels of film. He had a love for Bollywood that bordered on obsession—so much so, that even now, he sounds like he's stepped straight out of a vintage script.
But there is one memory that dims the sparkle in his eyes.
The Bhopal Gas Tragedy occurred in December 1984—a night that split the city's history into before and after. It was one of the world's worst industrial disasters. A silent, invisible poison crept through the alleys and homes, leaking from a pesticide plant, stealing breaths and lives without warning. Thousands died because of the gas leak at the pesticide plant. Some say the gas had a strangely sweet, almost fruity smell. Like chikus.
It was the last thing Chiku remembered before everything went black.
His voice grows quiet when that memory surfaces. You've never pried—his silences are sacred—but you suspect he hangs around you hoping that on one of your adventures, one day, he will manage to catch a glimpse of a reality where the humans were a little more careful. A reality where a young boy was still alive. A reality where he a lived to chase stardom beneath studio lights