A flycatcher's dressing table

 

It’s Diwali, the festival of lights. The two parijat trees in the yard carpeted the earth below with so many flowery drops as to cover the entire yard. What celebration! The rains have been good and plants, especially tulsi, have acquired a bushy jungle shape. The tailorbird parents have their hatchling out, a greenish tailless funny guy almost as big as its parents. It hops around the leafy tangle during its post-nest training phase. It’s a mischievous guy. I saw it running after a good-behaved elderly Indian robin.

Everything is perception-based at this level of existence. So this particular section of the yard is their house, just like I have the same perception due to being born in the house. They deny my entry to their section. They raise a brain-hole-drilling din the moment I reach the spot. The wire-tail swallow couple does the same. They are agile fighter-plane type fliers. They dart with chipping sounds, coming dangerously close to my head whenever I happen to be near their mud nest on the ceiling in the barn verandah. I understand their position. We are also darting around with angry chipping sounds, insecure and afraid of losing our position, interests and stakes.

The white-browed fantail flycatcher is a distinguished bird having a white forehead with a black strip running from top to the nape, blackish top and milky white underside. It’s very lively and flicks and spreads its white-edged tail quite frequently. With its long broad white eyebrows, it flits around almost tirelessly. Flaunting white spots on its throat, it fans its tail, flicks its wings, giving quick hunting dashes midair. Fleas beware! It’s wonderful to have a pair of flycatchers in your yard. I love them for their midair antics and lively attitude. They look playing all through the day. They consume so much energy due to this tireless physical activity that the entire day is spent in catching fleas midair. Can I ask for more? Make your hobby your profession. Like they do their mid air antics while going with the profession of survival—playing and gathering food going side by side.

There is an icing on the cake as well—they aren’t too scared of my presence. Their confiding nature allows me to stand a few feet away and enjoy their fun as a spectator. Then there is cherry on top of icing—their song. It’s a melodious song comprising 6 to 8 notes, ascending, sometimes descending. Sometimes they stop it midway, leaving you craving for the entire performance.

Both of them look the same but with the spirit of an ornithologist one can spot the difference—the female is slightly paler with browner head, while the male is black with greenish gloss. I had to do a bit of research to find out which of them is doing this tireless exercise in front of the little old car parked into retirement in the yard. No wonder it happens to be the girl in the pair! Who else loves a mirror so much? The car is 21 years old and deserves graceful retirement as a vintage souvenir in the yard of a small-time rural poet. After all, it was with me during the challenging and complex cluster of life and events during my urban innings in editorial jobs. With our limited capabilities, both of us suited each other really well. Now it becomes the dressing table for the female flycatcher. She is such a narcissist. She spends her days ogling at her reflection in the glasses. It’s a rural set-up, so there is no problem of food, I mean fleas. Human to fleas ration is infinitely in favor of the latter. She can continue ogling coquettishly at her reflection and take little bites of food as fleas naturally happen to be within the range of her dressing table, dressing car rather. Such tireless flapping of wings requires lots of food. It means less fleas in the yard of a poet. I note that she drops her extras quite frequently. So cleaning the bird drops on my little souvenir at the day end is the service charge I have to pay.

She thus is a homely girl. Her husband, as can be expected, goes outside to loaf around. But he returns quite frequently to check on her. When he disturbs her dressing-car time she gives an angry, agitated, grating chuck…chuck…chuck…chuckrr reprimand. The moment he starts disturbing her self-loving ogling at her reflection, she throws these irritated notes and shifts to the other vehicle, a bit new and a tiny bit bigger than the one, which seems to be her favorite. I hope she isn’t fed up with this guy—or suspects him of double dating during his sorties outside the yard—and has fallen under the illusion that a handsome prince is imprisoned inside the car and thus goes calling from all sides, asking it to come out.