Dubai: A village in Pothakudi in Sivagangai district of Tamil Nadu, India, remained in the darkness without electricity or street lights for over 35 days to save a bird's life and its family. The social media users are applauding the gesture and hope more people would come forward with such kindness towards Nature.
A Facebook user@Rajakumar Santiagu posted: "Humanity at its best. Hats off to the people of that village."
The villagers together decided to save an endangered bird, an Indian Robin as it has hatched its eggs on the village's main switchboard and the people of the village decided to carry on without streetlights, to save the bird.
Another Facebook user @Nikita Gaikwad comments: "Hats off to the humanity exhibited to help …! Entire village with 100 families stayed in the dark to save a bird, and it's egg since they were laid on the electricity switch box. May God bless them."
According to a local news source, the generous idea of turning off the lights came from a 20-year-old student named A Karuppuraja who initially spotted the bird and its eggs.
Talking to a news channel, he said, "Nearly 100 families are there in this region, and we use around thirty-five streetlights here. One day, when we were passing by the switchboard, we noticed that a bird had laid three eggs. We immediately took pictures of them and posted it in our village WhatsApp group, and asked people to cooperate and not use electricity connected to the switch box so that the eggs hatch and the bird grows."
As all the street lights were connected to the switchboard, they disconnected the electric line and kept the streetlights off for nearly 35 days in Tamil Nadu.
Indian Robin is an endangered species and often found in Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan India and Sri Lanka. They are close to human habitation and will frequently perch on rooftops. The breeding season is December to September, but varies according to the region and usually begins with the first rains.
