FLAP! FLAP!! FLAP!!! There.. my head gets hit by the noisiest thing that could ever have inhabited( or annexed?) my room(excluding the fact that i can be a wee bit noisier than IT at times). The flitting and fluttering of the dear li'l symbol of PEACE and DOCILITY in and out of my room dint really bother the tip of my hair till i saw myself literally being enriched in the middle of guano!:-O
No prize for guessing, yes, i'm talking about PIGEONS. Even before some of you can assume me to be a hostile, bird-unfriendly homo sapiens, i must clear to you that there was a time when I was amazed at the beauty of these creatures(I still am) and Trafalgar Square is definitely on the list of my must-visit-places. Going back to the times when I'd just got shifted to the place I presently stay at, a place whose atmosphere smells of various stuffs like yummy burgers, cement, birdies, fragrant flowers, smoke, sweat, dust, fresh and dry leaves etc.. (depends on the requirements of YOUR olfactory receptors).This is just to let you know I stay at an apartment facing the main road of a busy place in Hyderabad, with the balcony of my room almost protruding into the hustle-bustle of one of the most polluted areas of the city, with some heavenly inclusions(or intrusions?) called pigeons.
I wonder how much of their intelligence( I wouldnt mind disclosing to you that they not only have Intelligence Quotient-IQ, Emotional Quotient-EQ but also Spiritual Quotient-SQ) is exposed to humans. There are various stages of 'living with the pigeons', my life-span with them is not yet over, so I probably dont know the last stage.
1. Stage of Enchantment - The time when you are amazed at their beauty, subtlety, the frill of which thrills you. The time when their fluttering wings compose the finest of natural music you've ever heard. The time when you feed them with all possible grains you find at home(some may even go to the extent of buying the Pigeon Grain Pellet). The time when you think you own one of them :)
They've never let the feeling of loneliness seep in me during my exams when I used to stay up late during nights, continuously hooting(not me, the pigeons!). The attic of my room is their Pavilion of Refuge :)
2. Stage of Exasperation - This is the time when either they are bored of you, or you get vexed by them, or when they show their real colours(Sometimes I wonder how every creature on this planet has a bit of Chameleon camouflaged in him/her). I know some of the pigeon owners will not agree with me for disclosing some of their hidden vengeances which maybe mainly due to the shit-ty mess created by the creatures. At a juncture, when the pigeons get a li'l too nosy (I'd love to let you know that these pigeons know the way to EVERY entrance of my place, which includes the doors of 3 balconies, a couple of windows in every room, the inches' space in the exhaust fan hole. Thank goodness they know that the main entrance is meant for humans. You'd be surprised to know the observations of some of my experiments on them. Yes, pigeons are my guinea pigs!). Imagine finding yourself in a boiler room, as a result of which you eventually open the door of the boiler room's balcony, only to see a pigeon fluttering in even before an iota of fresh oxygen can dance within your nostrils! Imagine playing catch-me-if-you-can with something that flies, periodically dropping the things(its metabolite :D ) you've given it(in a different form though), like its time for bitter gratitude! Imagine trying to scare away a pigeon from your table, and even before you turn back, you hear its flutter nearer to you!
3. Stage of Compatibility - Well, this is just my anticipation. I'm not against pigeons, but I'd like to have a PEACE treaty with them and live happily ever after :)
Some facts about them that surprise me :
* They usually appear to have the Centre of mass in one of their limbs(The child in me mistook them to be ready to play hop-scotch with me :P )
* In ancient days, they were used as messengers. Can we STILL use'em that way?(Is that why the doves are released at the start of the Olympics?!Hats off to their 'homing' instincts, which is due to their ability to detect the Earth's magnetic field, yeah, an in-built compass u can say! They are known to have saved the lives of many French soldiers during the World War-II by carrying messages faster than the airplanes, since they dint have to tax on the runway!
You'd be surprised to know that the military toy called G. I. Joe was named after a pigeon which saved many a soldiers and was also honoured with The Dickin Medal for his bravery :] )
* They are the symbol of PEACE and DOCILITY. It sounds like an oxymoron to me :-|
* The weaker of the two baby pigeons is killed by the parent pigeon. Do i call it selective grooming?(An example of homo homini lupus, just that homo can be replaced with columbia livia)
* A pigeon can drink water like a human being, it need not lift its head for swallowing it, unlike the other birds.
* A baby pigeon is milked by both, its mother and father!
* If you are an eggitarian and in dire need of food, you can just touch the egg because the parent pigeon will make it a point not to ever come back to its egg, if its seen you touching it.(I'd beg you to keep some tinned food at home for such emergencies, even before you get such criminal ideas :P )
Well, this is just the result of a pigeon-shitted mind. I guess half of this was being designed in my mind today morning while I was cleaning my attic.The baby pigeons are still there, making noise. I just hope this parent pigeon goes against its nature, and doesnt kill any of these. As is already known about the extinction of the passenger pigeon species, I just hope all the readers will join hands with me in helping the pigeons grow against the approaching extermination threat and see to it that other pigeon species(and other creatures too!) will not meet the same fate. So, let the pigeons poop, lest the future will give us a coup :-P
Song of the day: My immortal.. A dedication to the pigeons in my attic ;)
