A noisy neighbor

 

A tailorbird may weigh hardly ten grams but its indomitable vocals surely weigh a ton at least. They can drill a hole in the armor of your patience. Similarly, a butterfly is almost weightless but doesn’t it carry tones of colors as it amusedly swerves around. Coming to the tailorbirds, maybe one of their chicks has jumped out of the nest and is hiding in the flowerbed to get training before full launch on the stage of life. I’m all for peace and I need just a couple of square yards in the corner to read my morning newspaper. But they are unsparing. The angry Papa almost crashed into my face. Given their situation, anyone’s presence in the yard is an offense to them. Taking me as a threat to its kid getting trained in the cluster of flowers, the angry bird flew into my face with furious yells of sippi-sippi-sippi in hateful plentitude.

Well, that makes it sound very close to my mispronounced nickname. My father, surely the most read person in the area, gave me the pet name Sufi. He understood the mystical liberal chimes emanating from the sect so named in Islam. The liberal philosophy of Sufism was close to his heart. But to the work-broken tongues of the farmers such soft cultural nuances hardly make any sense. Scarcely anyone had any clue to the exact pronunciation and meaning of the word ‘Sufi’. Most of them started calling me Suppi, Soopi, Sopi, or anything for that matter except Sufi. It just didn’t fit with the bucolic tongue. One tauji had firm belief that my name is ‘Sukhi’ meaning someone happy and peaceful. Well, that came nearest to the real word, at least in meaning. And now the tailorbird has devised a rapid-fired version in its own birdie language. 

The citizens of a lesser world

 

In a corner in the garden some dry leaves are self-deposited by mother nature in its very own bank of silence, solitude and stability. Slugs crawl over them in safety without getting trampled. They leave a slimy trail as they slowly move at their snail pace. This silvery slime shines later as the hallmark of a snail’s path well trodden, or a journey successfully completed. This is a zigzag pattern of silvery lines, notifying a slowly busy world of a tiny colony of slugs. Walk slowly but substantially like they do.

Tailorbirds use camouflage to good effect while making their nest. It thus comes almost with a sense of victory to discover a tailorbird nest on the older parijat tree. Parijat’s is a big heart-shaped hardy leaf and the tiny birdie tailors love the fabric for sewing a nest. But the parijat is usually a small tree and the nest is always under risk. But this time they have chosen well. It’s on a branch that protrudes away from the canopy and the bough is thin enough to deter a cat from risking a fall in order to reach the nest. The leafing is dense. Where you situate yourself in life means half the battle won. And they have done so. I hear the softest of jangling chirps in the nest. There are hatchlings.

Squirrels are the main egg-stealers but they stay away due to the roaming feral cats. As if to keep the cats around they have placed it very strategically. To contain a smaller enemy you need to somehow bring a bigger enemy into the picture. On top of that they keep tweeting throughout the day. The cats get confused and spend more time under the tree. Little do they realize that they act as nothing short of guards for the tailorbirds above. It further means that a lot many other predators are also kept at bay. The tailorbird couple successfully runs their show given their tireless vocal chords.

A red-vented bulbul was seen curiously peeking over their little leafy cup and one of the parents crashed its tiny body into the bigger bird, startling it and leaving it almost off-guard. It flew away in disgust. There aren’t many who would mess with parents turning suicidal in their bravery to protect their children.

A bully cat is snoozing in the damp, shadowed part of the flowerbed right under the tree. The tailorbirds are pik-pikking nonstop. They just love doing it. It seems their Ikigai. They seem to be vainly joyful while raising the ruckus even when they are angry over something.

On a neighboring roof a peahen gets fed up with the noise and takes to its cumbersome flight all of a sudden. Peahens can fly more than the males of their species. They hardly possess the burden of the tail fan like their males. Very common looking in comparison to the grand romeo, they but have the advantage of flying greater distances to flirt and seek love. Thus builds up another morning in the little garden yard of a small-time countryside writer. And the time slowly moves with its day-to-day irritants and pleasures laden on its mundane apple cart.

The milky white pigeon

 

The sun is setting and its tired rays fall on the carcass of a cloud sprinkling it with pale saffron hues. It looks like the skeletal remains of some cloudy elephant. Ribs are prominent on display.

A babbler couple has just set up a nest on the smaller parijat tree in the corner. A young tree really comes of age once a bird sets up a nest among its branches. It gives the look of a confident adolescent young man. It gives me shade also as I read newspaper under it till late mornings.

A tailorbird couple seems to have successfully hatched one chick among the leaves of the young tree. They are chik-chikking nonstop for the last three days. These tiny birds are illustriously valiant in throwing around their beak in raising a birdie din. It can easily give a headache to anyone not too good on the tolerance scale. That is primarily done to dupe and distract any predator. Since I look like the biggest predator to them, I have to absorb all the insulting torrent throughout the day. It makes me more tolerant.

A beautiful milky white pigeon landed in the garden. The owner clips their wings to give them a small struggling flight; just like we get clipped by customs, conventions and other hampering snares that curtail our free flights born of free will. The bird had beautiful pink in its tail. There are cats so I followed it. It walked very softly and allowed me to catch it. There is a tremendous feel-good element in setting a bird free. You get a faint trace of how mightily sagacious God must be feeling when he helps in our flights to fulfill our destines. I took it to the roof, held it in both hands and gave it a flight. It fluttered and rose high to fly for some distance and reached its perch platform at the end of a long pole on the owner’s roof.

My little grain of truth

 By the infinite, ever-transforming and interminable elements of the cosmic math, a mystic sees truth beyond all versions of the so called mind-created truths. It's never your, mine, his, or her truth. Or for that matter anything in the cosmos, including humans, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, or anything else we may not perceive, is as far from truth as a common misunderstanding between two human beings. The only truth is that 'truth' lies equidistant from each and every ounce scattered till eternal distances in the universe, multiverse or whatever it qualifies to be. Out of this infinite option to pick up and churn out individual truth, the so called perceivable reality, the human mind also creates virtual reality. Mind you, it's as simple as you see games in virtual reality. There is hardly any qualitative difference. So we have our realities, some of which have been gathered to form collective realities in order to run this society in the form of common belief, social norms and conventions. We can't help this. This mind has to churn out our own individual reality, the so called our very own dear truth. That can't be helped. Our own truth almost seems to define the meaning of our life. Well then here starts the real problem. One's very own truth may sound a character assassination to someone from his/her point of view decided by their own truth. Why do we hurl out our truths? Possibly it's a means of survival mechanism. We probably try to unburden ourselves by letting it out. But man, our truth, the jewel it may appear to us, may be a dagger to someone. Avoid unsheathing it! Even if it turns a knife inside your own self. And starts cutting your own self. But if out, it can hurt someone even more. Why should someone else be its target? It's the keeper's responsibility to manage it. Accepted that if kept inside, it will be painful, but it will cut many falsehoods inside your own self, side by side giving a few painful cuts to the softer tissues. It but saves you from committing a verbal manslaughter. Good people prefer injury to their own self, instead of harming others. And mind u this can be practiced. My new year resolution in advance! To keep my version of reality to myself, even if it hurts. It's my responsibility to keep it, to manage it, to nurture it. Our jewel may be dagger to someone else. Be careful about your simple statement that you may take as simple facts, for these might be character assassinating poison arrows to someone else. It's not about the other person. The onus is on one's own self. So guys, her I go and keep my truths to my own self. That's the path of solitude. Possibly it leads to a place where even the last doubts vanish! God bless you all!

The poor runaways

 It happened on a chilly winter morning in Delhi 11 years back. In the traffic chaos, a little ounce of tragedy was crying for a fleeting attentive moment from our big eyes. Delhi..a congested road with a multitudinous crowd hurtling to the never reachable destination. The beaten path almost a hissing snake eating into the last hidden holes of the rest of the non human species. The stompers in opposite directions separated by just 2ft road divider to avoid their collision head on. But we still bang into each other by the way. And there in all this chaos, lying like an unobserved needle in a hayrack, so inconsequential in its species and tragedy, a female dog with her tummy full of soon to be delivered puppies was desperately digging a hole into the little unpaved patch of soul in the middle of the divider to lie down for the moment of creation. Vehicles snarled by leaving angry plumes of smoke and torrents of abusive snarls. The unconcerned world just sped away. Most of us are running away from our own niggling bitter truths. We are addicted to our strife because this addiction helps us forget the subtle chiding by the all-seeing conscience. Ah, we the errant kids! We miss the direct effects of so many misdeeds born of our mindless development. We just prefer to dash ahead taking apathy to be strength of character!