Delhiwale: Living room of the pigeons

When an airy Central Delhi apartment doubles up as a second home for airborne creatures

The house is quiet — well, almost. The late afternoon sky is glowing with brilliant sunshine. The balcony is framed by a leaf-heavy kachnar tree. The mistress of this elegant Nizamuddin East apartment in central Delhi is presently enjoying an afternoon nap, while her cook in the kitchen listens to romantic Mohammed Rafi songs on his mobile phone. The volume is low, as if it weren’t a famous playback singer but a gentle father lulling his child to sleep.

Neither the mistress nor the cook immediately find out that a pigeon is trapped inside the drawing room, trying to find its way back to the great outdoors. The hapless creature is gliding about the book-lined walls like a shaky plane in massive turbulence, struggling to find a safe spot for emergency landing.

The bird flaps its wings repeatedly, as if in distress. The cook enters the room to check what the fuss is about. His gaze follows the haphazard movements of the bird, who is now circling about the ceiling, close to the fan. The cook shakes his head resignedly, as if he has seen this movie too many times. Even so, he comes to the rescue, and opens wide the door to the balcony. The bird quickly escapes, and the cook lets the door remain open—just in case there might be other birds trapped inside, he explains.

Soon afterwards, another pigeon now flies in, propping itself atop a bookshelf, directly above — believe it or not — The Book of Indian Birds by Salim Ali.

The new bird putters about and plunges down towards a settee, finally landing on the Kashmiri carpet.

This bird is bolder than the earlier one, and seems unmindful of the much-treasured Sadequain painting hanging just behind the blue sofa. Now it’s joined by another bird, and together they roam around fearlessly, as though they had established that it was their own drawing room.

The pair finally flies outside as the evening sun starts to burn golden bright.

Not long after, the mistress appears on the scene sleepily, muttering affectionate words about “these foolish kabutar who happily come inside the house but don’t know how to get out.” She shakes the curtains one by one to check for other birds, possibly hiding in fright. Finally, she asks the cook to provide her with chai and butter-toast.

The lady now settles down on the sofa with her mobile, her feet on the coffee table, as though by banishing the birds she had again rightly claimed back her undisputed ownership of the drawing room.