Parrots and jackals represent two different ways that scholars can relate to the subjects they study: by faithfully carrying on their legacies (parrots) or by dishonestly exploiting those legacies for their own benefit (jackals).
Notably, Desai sets up this symbolism by showing Deven read his son Manu a book of moral fables about animals in Chapter Four. This is almost certainly a children’s edition of the famous Sanskrit Panchatantra, which includes many well-known stories (with different morals) about both parrots and jackals. A few pages later, Deven and Manu see a flock of squawking parrots on a nearby tree, and Deven picks up one of their fallen feathers. He feels a brief sense of peace and remembers his obligations to his son. At the very end of the novel, Deven returns to this spot, where he remembers the parrot’s feather as “a joyous, delightful omen.” Shortly thereafter, he realizes that his true calling is to be the “custodian of Nur’s genius” and represent his work and legacy to the rest of the world. The parrot feather leads Deven to identify his purpose as a father and a scholar. In this sense, Desai associates parrots—which learn to faithfully repeat what they hear—with passing on wisdom and fulfilling one’s obligations to future generations.
In contrast, “jackal” is one of the most common insults in the book: Deven and Siddiqui call the registrar Rai “Mr. Jackal,” and Imtiaz compares university researchers to “jackals” who “feed upon [poets’] carcasses.” In both cases, scholars become jackals—opportunistic dogs who eat anything they can scavenge—when they use others’ work for their own benefit, without producing anything of value. Deven gets dangerously close to becoming one: when he begs Siddiqui for funding, Desai writes that he “howl[s], jackal-like, on his knees.”
Parrots and Jackals Quotes in In Custody
The flock of parrots wheeled around, perhaps on finding the fields bare of grain, and returned to the tree above their heads, screaming and quarrelling as they settled amongst the thorns. One brilliant feather of spring green fluttered down through the air and fell at their feet in the grey clay. Deven bent to pick it up and presented it to his son who stuck it behind his ear in imitation of his schoolteacher with the pencil. “Look, now I’m masterji,” he screamed excitedly.
Yes, that was the climax of that brief halcyon passage. It was as if the evening star shone through at that moment, casting a small pale illumination upon Deven’s flattened grey world.
“You do not deceive me even if you have thrown dust in his poor weak eyes. I have made my inquiries—I have found out about you, I know your kind—jackals from the so-called universities that are really asylums for failures, trained to feed upon our carcasses. Now you have grown impatient, you can’t even wait till we die—you come to tear at our living flesh—”
Frantic to make [Nur] resume his monologue now that the tape was expensively whirling, Deven once forgot himself so far as to lean forward and murmur with the earnestness of an interviewer, “And, sir, were you writing any poetry at the time? Do you have any verse belonging to that period?”
The effect was disastrous. Nur, in the act of reaching out for a drink, froze. “Poetry?” he shot at Deven, harshly. “Poetry of the period? Do you think a poet can be ground between stones, and bled, in order to produce poetry—for you?”
Parrots and Jackals Symbol Timeline in In Custody
