E-Paper
Spice of life | Flights of fancy with feathered friends
My elder daughter surreptitiously slipped into the kitchen and returned with a palm full of wheat grains and bajra to feed our feathered friends
The other day, I woke up just before dawn and peeped out of my window, which looks into a sprawling park. As I enjoyed the celestial solitude and surveyed the serene scene in front of me with a cuppa in hand, a little sparrow came and perched on the window sill.
Our lone winged visitor was soon joined by its flock. It was a rare sight indeed, as birds seldom stray into the area, which is surrounded by a cluster of commercial and residential buildings.
As they sat chirruping sweet nothings, I tiptoed to the bedrooms, careful not to disturb our feathered guests, and returned with my wife and daughters in tow. My elder daughter surreptitiously slipped into the kitchen and returned with a palm full of wheat grains and bajra to feed our feathered guests. She put them in a salver and placed it on the sill, much to the delight of the sparrows who pecked at the grains, frequently shooting furtive glances at us. As the Sun came out, disconcerting the birds with its imposing presence, the flock flew away, only to return the following morning. This became a routine, and each morning we would eagerly await their arrival and feed them grains. My wife also placed a flat earthen pot filled with water on the sill. As the days rolled by, our neighbours began joining us at the sill for a chirpy start to their morning. They even clicked selfies with the cute creatures.
This chance acquaintance with these winged creatures took me down memory lane and I was transported to my college days in the mid-70s. In those days, flocks of multi-hued birds and fowls were a common sight in Chandigarh as its population was sparse and concrete structures were yet to take over the open spaces. Our feathered friends were free to flit and fly in the open or perch on the tree tops along the spacious boulevards lining the city roads.I recall hearing the desperate howls of jackals, crooning cuckoos, and watching playful peacocks strutting with gay abandon while on our early morning promenades. They were not irked by our presence, and would allow us to feed them.
I felt another swell of emotion as a flash of memories took me Kangra valley, which is known for its sizeable avian population that includes exotic migratory birds that make an annual pit stop in the area, while flying to their winter sojourns. I miss the thrill of interacting with the birds whenever I visited my native place.
Birds no longer flit from one perch to another as the stately banyan trees that used to be their abode are gone, replaced by high-rise structures of concrete. With climate change and the ever-expanding concrete jungle threatening birds, returning to those utopian days seems like a flight of fancy.
dhimankramesh@gmail.com
(The writer is a Chandigarh-based freelance contributor)
