The beginning of a new day

 

In the pre-dawn silence of a cold morning, a laughing dove sadly coos her dissatisfaction about love. A broken heart that wants to be heard in the eerie silence. A puppy barks. Someone clears his throat loudly. A jungle crow caws. A tailorbird picks up his notes. A shoal of house sparrows sings morning prayers. The day has begun.

This is the first week of December. There are no farm fires now but the air quality index (AQI) in Delhi is still hazardous on the pollution scale. The narrative about the farm fires helps the politicians in hiding their failure year after year. During the winters, the AQI becomes more important than the Sensex. It should nail down the fact that we are now at the edge of a painful fall. Take climate change seriously.

You realize the real worth of sunshine after a few overcast days in the winters. Sunless days in winters stare at you very snappishly. And when the sun shines openly one fine morning, you welcome it with gratitude. It heals you like your frozen hands get a lease of life on a warm hearthstone. You run to put the damp clothes to dry. In my enthusiasm, I hang clothes on the line and block the little aloe vera plant’s share of the golden rays. The plant must have complained for I realize the mistake. I remove the hurdle and warm sunrays kiss its green spiky sturdy leaves. Soak your part of the sunrays but take care not to block others’ part.

Another little family of honeybees came scouting for a place to pass the winters. They hovered over the little clump of trees in the garden. The resident honeybees must have objected to another hive so nearby. There was a lot of confusion for some 15 minutes, or maybe even some scuffles and heady altercation. The visitors agreed to the objection and settled for the giloy-covered acacia clump outside the fence.

The little sapling of peepal is doing well in the nursery bag. It was a tiny sapling, dusted, crushed, barely visible among the cracks in the yard bricks. I retrieved it and planted it in a little nursery bag. Bathed it with tiny water droplets and the dust came off its half-crushed little leaves—just three of them. The thin stem was almost mauled. It barely held onto life for two-three weeks, neither dying nor growing. And then one fine day a new leaf shone under the mild winter sun. Let’s hope it will be a majestic, massive tree one day.

A blue monkey from the blue dye factory enters the village. It’s a small unit a few kilometers from the village on the road to the town. The monkey made its territory there and maybe loved the heady smell of the chemical and the blue-spattered compound. But it lost the red of its face and bum in the bargain. Then getting bored of the monotony there, it left the place and entered the village. The rest of the monkeys are scared of him. He has come seeking company but they run away. I think he better approach the ladies in the dark. He can claim to have descended from the heaven and try to be their King by default for being completely exclusive.

Granduncle’s Labrador Tuffy has a gruffy bark now. It seems his throat is overused. Actually, a rascally young monkey sits on a tree overlooking the terrace. He keeps teasing the dog. The latter keeps barking. By this time, there are too many simian residents in the village. Almost every roof has a claimant. It seems there has been mass emigration to the village. They love the concrete jungle. Tiny baby monkeys have nice play-spots on the roofs. They slide down the slanting rooftop solar panels. They are learning to bite properly also. They practice on solar-system cables. 

Well, coming to some warmth in the chilly days of December. A cat comes with a lot of warm flattery—if you feed it well—and lots of purring around your legs. But you cannot avoid some extras from the feral cats who pay you visits and get friendly. They arrive with poop as well. Maybe they think they are paying you back for your kindness. It forces you to be more tolerant. Small-time writers can learn to share the sun-bathed terrace with cats. They love sleeping as much as I feel like writing. So I try to draw better inspiration and ignore the drying cakes of cat poop. If you cannot do that then stop pretending to be a writer and be a cat-beater.