“Hush…Bhurrr…Fly away you moron…Off you go….Don’t come back ever again.”
But it came. Everyday. Every hour. Every minute. If you thought only dogs have curled tails, think again, because pigeons are worse. They just do not understand that I did not want them to come back. They act purely on instinct, on habit. They are stupid. So however much I would intimidate them, they would come back as if nothing had happened a minute ago. I got tired of running over and again to the balcony to shoo them away but it did not seem to matter to them. They were stupid. How could it matter to them? So, this ritual would take place everyday, every hour, and if I had the patience, every minute. It was all about my patience because they shamelessly came back. No self respect, absolutely.
Then I had to go to Mumbai for four days. Of course, it was more important than shooing pigeons. So I went. When I was travelling, I read this poem by Robert Frost – something to do with a minor bird. Let me quote it here:
I have wished a bird would fly away
And not sing by my house all day
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear it no more
So far so good! I could perfectly identify with Robert Frost. An honour, I must say! I share same feelings as one of the greatest poets world has ever produced. But then he changed his track. Why this sudden change of heart, I did not understand.
The fault must have been partly in me
The bird was not to blame for his key
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence a song
I couldn’t identify with him any more. Two reasons for this: First, it was a bird which sang not a pigeon which irritatingly gutergooed all day. Second, he was Robert Frost and not I. So, not even the great Robert Frost could change my heart. I still loathed the pigeons. I was just hoping to get a surprise when I return. I would close my eyes, move towards the balcony, slowly open the door and voila! No pigeons!
It was wishful thinking. The pigeons had been family planning in my absence. And, now there were these two eggs nicely planted in the corner of my balcony using twigs, straws and my slippers (yes, really!) as an excuse for nest! Pigeons are not only stupid, lame, shameless but also extremely lazy! But I could not do anything now. Their conspiracy had worked. I couldn’t shoo them away with the eggs in my balcony. So I gave up.
I just persevered till the eggs turned big (This is what I thought, the eggs were too small for the babies to come out) and the pigeon-lings hatched into the cruel, competitive and merciless world (And, because pigeons are also an integral part of the world, the world is also lazy, shameless and stupid). So, one not-so-fine day, the eggs hatched. The chicks were ugly with ugly being used a very euphemistic word here. They had nothing of the pigeon gray on them, they were yellow. Now, I got another reason to hate pigeons. They show their true colours, quite literally, when they grow up.
I saw them grow. It is amazing how fast they change. On one day they are ugly, yellow, mangy, little lumps of flesh and the other they suddenly turn noisy and irritating while maintaining their ugliness, yellowness, manginess and bigger lump-of-flesh-ness. So, they grew uglier by the day. They started changing colors now with a tint of gray, shade of white and patches of blue all over them. My friend found them really endearing and cute and he fed them. They could not eat, so the mother ate everything.
The pigeons are also always hungry. Try this. You throw a teaspoonful of grains; they are eaten up in 2 minutes. You throw a fistful of grains; they are over in 2 minutes. You throw a bag full of grains; they are over in 2 minutes. I did not try this, but I am sure, if you throw a sack full of grains and they will be over in a jiffy. The pigeons just don’t know how much to eat. They eat like there’s no tomorrow. I have been told there have been cases when pigeons died because of over eating.
The chicks became bigger and the feathers grew out of nowhere. The yellowness was almost gone. They were becoming tolerable to look at now. They could not fly but always fluttered their wings. This annoyed me but when they would unfold their feathers, the sight of the inner darker version of their feathers was amazing. Mom would still feed them. They looked big enough now but were still flightless. Just a few more days and they would learn to fly – to explore the exciting limitlessness of the sky and to hunt for food through tree tops and dust bins. About 5-6 days was my surmise. Of course, with this they would become independent and away from the protective shield of their mother. Every day would be a fight for survival. I suddenly did not want these pigeons to go in to the cruel and competitive world.
But they did and not in a way I had anticipated or wanted, despite my hate for them.
The earlier night, I had slept a little too late. I had no morning classes the next day and had plans of sleeping through the breakfast and getting up just in time for lunch. But the pigeons had other plans for me, as usual! They had conspired to ruin my great plans for the day. The next day early morning they fluttered and flapped so loudly and so continuously that I had to wake up, go to the balcony and ask them to shut up. Well, they did not listen and resumed as soon as I got back into the room. I tried hard to sound proof myself with the help of not-so-efficient pillow but all in vain. The fluttering continued and I could sleep no more. So here I was, wide awake at seven in the morning with absolutely nothing to do. I had breakfast, watched a movie, had lunch and attended the afternoon classes all the time cursing the pigeons.
The same thing happened the next day. I was foolish enough to sleep even later than the previous night only to be woken up by the continuous flutter of the most irritating birds on the planet. This time the flutter grew louder. I had decided not to get up no matter what! I pressed the pillow hard against my ears and tried to sleep. But the pigeons, being pigeons, did not give up so easily. I felt the flutter growing and coming closer towards me. I must have left the balcony door open, I had thought. I could almost feel the feathers of pigeons near me now. That was it. I could take this no more. I had to teach them a lesson now. I got up in anger from my bed. My eyes which were red with anger suddenly did not know which color to assume as they saw the silhouette of a cat expertly carrying two continuously fluttering pigeons in her mouth out of the main door…
