What began as childhood visits to the zoo for most children might have meant lions and leopards — but for Shaurya Goyal, it was all about a parrot named Hiraman.
“I didn’t go for the tigers or cheetahs. I went to see a bird… He could talk, he’d hop and squawk when we came near,” recalls Goyal, a mechatronics engineer by training. “Then one day, he was gone. The zookeeper told us he had died. I never went back.”
That loss left a quiet space in Shaurya’s heart — one that would remain until, years later, while birdwatching in Dol Ka Badh forest in Jaipur, he spotted a bird that seemed to bridge the gap between memory and moment: an Alexandrine Parakeet, known in Hindi as Hiraman.
Though Goyal once built sophisticated robots and worked in cutting-edge labs, it’s the call of the wild that now moves him the most. His fascination with the natural world, especially birds, has transformed him into a passionate urban ecologist and amateur ornithologist — someone who now spends weekends mapping bird calls, photographing migratory flocks, and even volunteering in wildlife awareness campaigns in Rajasthan.
“There’s poetry in the way machines move. But there’s mystery in the way birds fly,” he says.
In recent years, Shaurya has begun integrating his technical knowledge with his love for nature — designing sensor-based nest monitors, building AI tools to track bird migration, and creating awareness among schoolchildren about urban biodiversity.
Shaurya’s journey from circuitry to songbirds is a testament to the human need for connection — not just to technology, but to the living world around us. And while his engineering roots remain strong, it’s the memory of a talking parrot named Hiraman that still guides his flight.
