Lessons from a flock of feathery friends
Ever since I saw a cat pounce upon a pigeon feeding on grains spread in the courtyard during childhood, I got attached to this messenger of peace. I kept wondering why it didn’t fly away but instead closed its eyes upon spotting the cat? Was it praying to God to save it from the clutches of sure death? Or was the cat too near and it did not have time to open its wings? My impressionable mind could not forget the scene.
As I grew older and heard this sad song from a Punjabi film ‘Dulla Bhatti’, ‘Vasta-erab da tu jaeen we kabutra, chitthi mere dhol nu puchai ve kabutra,’ I was awestruck to know that my friend was an excellent carrier of letters and the bird had the uncanny ability of joining the hearts of love birds wary of the insidious and insensitive ways of ‘zamana’. To this day, the navigational abilities of pigeons are a subject of research. No GPS can match their homing skills.
The relations with my winged friends got stronger when after marriage; I found that my young brother-in-law was an expert in pigeon-flying, a sport of bygone times. He had a flock of white, grey and spotted pigeons in a room on the roof. Come morning and he would release them in the wide open sky. In case a bird was too lazy and wanted to sit on the parapet, Pappu, as we called him, will show it the stick so that it takes to its wings. There used to be a competition among pigeon-keepers in which the winner will be the person whose pigeons returned after clocking the maximum air time. The sky over the house remained aflutter the whole day with birds trying to come back to pick grains and the keepers not allowing them to sit longer than required.
Later in life, the empty nest syndrome was proving too much for us after the children had taken flight. The boredom was proving hard to bear, till an idea struck. We used to keep a bowl of water on the pillar of the main gate in summer. On the opposite pillar we started keeping another bowl full of grains and lo and behold! The house was abuzz with the sounds of ‘Gutar-gu’. The childhood friends flocked in. Though each one tries to pick its own share by hustling through the crowd, they are never seen to fight. The day my wife forgets to replenish the stock in the bowl, the pigeons gather around the kitchen window, as if reminding her of her sacred duty. As she goes out with the can to refill the bowl, they hover over her head with a grateful look.
We now have a large extended family. Though my first teacher in ornithology, Pappu, is no more for he died young, I’ve learnt a great deal from my feathered friends about being patient, about not fighting, about being grateful and above all about facing death stoically when it comes, remembering the Creator with eyes closed upon this mortal world.
I’VE LEARNT ABOUT FACING DEATH STOICALLY WHEN IT COMES, REMEMBERING THE CREATOR WITH EYES CLOSED UPON THIS MORTAL WORLD