A Laotsian Bird

A master camouflage. The smallest of a rag tag inconsequential nest. Almost like the few remaining sinews of an old old nest. And a pulse of life throbbing to bide precious time. Each beat counts. It means a huge step towards free-winged flights in a few days. Here each second counts. It's a laughing dove hatchling.
Well, a dove is a dove indeed. A silent most stoic bird. I always wonder how come they even survive as rest of the birds appear to be angrily, enthusiastically and energetically competitive. Doves look like the ascetics of the birdie world, always sitting silently on the laid back sidelane. I even laughed at them as lazy ones, having witnessed seemingly half-hearted attempts at patching up a famished little nest that would allow the mother to put merely paws in the middle, leaving rest of her body out. But then i also had an inkling about mother existence's ways of squaring up things even in those apparently weak cases where the odds appear terribly against them. Now this hatchling clings almost unseen, barely at a height of 8-9 feet. Cats have been duped. Even a greater coucal, ill famed for spotting tiniest of nests in the foliage, sat a few yards away on the wall and missed it. Wonderful!
Well, these are Laotsian birds. They win by not fighting outrightly. Their strength is their patience, composure and calmness. They go about their nesting business almost imperceptibly. After the hatching, the already famished nesting hut has lost many more sinews to make it look like the useless wreckage of a many season old little nest. And on its edge, lost in the colours of deception, throbs the prospect of a life. The only clue to what is going on is the laughing museful song of the laughing dove parents now and then from a distance. They hardly raise a ruckus when i check out their little household, as if under a mystical realisation that that which can't be cured, must be endured. They stoically do what they can, and watch over the unmanageable without that typical browbeating.
Imagine, last season an oriental white eye had patched up the littlest of nesting cup. It was a wonder of nesting architecture. So small, hidden under the leaves. But its symmetry turned it outstanding. The predatory caucal spotted it, leaving me flabbergasted how come its radar caught this few grams of grassy cup weaved with such effort. And now this apparently clumsy jottiing of few dry twigs and pieces of dry grass, in the branches of a small tree, barely 8-9 feet above the ground, and not even hidden too much in the foliage, carries its success story so far. The altruistic attitude of doves takes them onto a path of surrendering spontaneity, a sort of open hearted acceptance, which hardly creates ripples on the stage of life, allowing them to carry out this cute coup. Well, may be they laugh so cutely to be named laughing turtles. Possibly, they laugh at this world competing on the scales of complexity, while they laze around in the hazy sunshine of early winter and laugh out into the cool air.

The Broken Egg

Pre-script: How I wish I could hold the monkey and give some exercise to my grandpa's oldest walking woody aid to gift the monkey the reddest bum on earth!
A bleeding crack that robbed a winged prospect of airy swirls by a life. The broken spotted munia egg. For weeks the parents matched the human efforts in building a skyscraper and built a safe globular grassy nest. Their feeble preening chirps looked up to upcoming more onerous duties of raising hatchlings. Then the storm came. Well, not windy. It was rather let loose by our genetic ancestor. The errant kid on the ladder of evolution, presently at a stage where we homo sapiens were a few millenium back. The monkeys. While rest of the species, fight merely for food and procreation, our genetic match goes beyond these two essentials to jump into mischief, fun and revelry. Out of a big horde that has raided the village, and most of the females proudly carrying their little ones, one gallant jumped into the Soft Parijat tree. The wood is soft. It must have enjoyed the breaking sound of its funstry like we humans do. The poor tree severely jolted. Some branches broken. The nest unhinged and scanned for some morning fluidy lollipop. I am sure it must have hardly the patience to even look seriously inside and take out what it intended to do while breaking the nest. A monkey carries the feeble imprint of human tendency to play errant to draw a strange sip of gratification. So the nest was blown apart. The eggs tossed around like tiny plops and shelled projectiles. Here lies the cracked egg. Out of instinct, the parents still flit around the broken nest entangled in branches. This is loss. Just that they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they do all this without any sense of gain. Minh Ngo there is a difference between pain and suffering. They feel the instinctual pain of it, of course. But they don't suffer like we humans. Simply because they just follow the call of cosmic intelligence while putting that selfless labour in setting up the nest. They don't have a sense of gain guiding their routine unlike we humans. As all experiences stand on the duality, so in the absence of a clear cut sense of gain and profit, the sense of loss can't sustain beyond the momentary instinctual pain. And that saves them from the perpetual agony and suffering of humans, whose major portion we hurl into our environment and society. A major portion of what mankind does to nature is born of his own inner discontent and suffering.

Her Full Smile even with a Broken Self

Look at its injury. The spine almost broken. Forgetful and forgiving, it decides to move on. A little leafy bandage of hope and resurgence sprouts around the wound. A sort of bridge to keep the juice of life eager to move on and realise its full blossom. It's the flagpost of life and living. The accidental storm had snapped her spine. It but decides to live.
The brave Pink Purslane (Portulaca Pilosa) aka Kiss-me-Quick has her last smile. She has won it. She has retained her smile and pouts forth with an inspirational 'Kiss-me-Quick' tale of forgetting pains and conquering blooming heights.
What an inspirational story portrayed in a small corner by this tiny strand of this pink ground cover flower. A clear winner. The snapping, breaking tragedy has melted into the background. She has claimed her canvas to paint her bright smile. Well, that's a humungous life lived. What a smile against the breaking odds.

Her Reddest Lipstick and the Himalayan Yogi

A blissful creative moment and a babysoft sapling of life, love and living holds out its tiny baby finger to hold onto the mighty, grand old hand of mother creation. Well, all is well that ends well!
Actually, the brooding banyan plant appeared to have gone into an otherworldly detachment. Rains lashed. I also showered my affection. The sun also beat down nutritional beams. It but won't come out of its trance. Like a famished yogi in a Himalayan cave, it shed all its leaves. Keeping just one leaf as a sign of its still remaining attachment to this world. And then the yogi slowly opens its eyes after many months and sees this fleeting world through its softly sprouting eyes. The tiny shoot is now cradled in the care of fabulous September end breeze. Welcome back to this sweet sour worldliness Yogi Maharaj!

She has the reddest lipstick...ladies stay away...no competition at all...she is a winner all and out...keep smiling my girl, Canna Indica aka Keli....you win the pageant!

The Infantile Wings that would never Kiss Free Air in the Open Skies

The parents will miss a new life's eager chirps to take an independent flight. In the indifferent womb of mother nature, such stories are ever unfolding. The globular grass house of the Spotted Munia will be emptier today. For the last one week it sounded a house full of noisy toddlers as parents cargoed baby food throughout the day. From the jingling notes emanating from the grass house, I could make out around three kids. One has toppled down today. Its shape of matter is melting into thousands of ants as they jump onto the stage of infinite series of matter/energy transformations. I could hear a lone, almost sad, note from the nest. There is supposed to be at least one birdie toddler there, wondering why the house has become silent and emptier. In this ever flowing stream of energy, the selfless love, like here shown by the birdie parents, creates temporary loops of thriving lumps of life. Out of many possibilities, the impenetrable, secret doctrine of mother nature unfolds endless pictures on the fluid canvas whom we, due to our limited sense perception, see through the prism of pleasure, pain, agony and ecstasy. Well, that's what makes us humans. A sad interjection in the tiny birdie phrase here. But then I would be happy if at least one hatchling takes on the journey of an adult, crossing the grassy threshold and fly into the uncharted skies. Like a huge breech tree in pristine forests produces millions of seeds in its lifespan of a few hundred years. Out of all these possibilities, if even a single seed germinates to be an adult tree like the mother tree, it's called a successful reproduction cycle. Similarly, multiple chirps jingle musically in a nest, and at the most one note carries the song ahead to keep the story alive and kicking. Well, that's how life is my dear friends!