For quite sometime now, my wife has been sparring with me over what she calls mushrooming of unwanted “maternity homes” around our house.
These are not brick-and-mortar structures as one might believe them to be. These are nests assiduously made by wild grey pigeons outside the windows of our bed rooms on the first floor, on the cornice of our bathrooms and on the top of room coolers. Even the top of some carton comes handy for them.
My wife calls them derisively “maternity homes” as they have been home to many a pigeon which have been laying and hatching eggs unhindered. Whether you like it or not, it is not always possible to keep an eye on the activities going on behind the grained windowpanes. You can’t see the birds and they can’t see you.
Pigeons in pairs keep flying in with twigs etc. Some times, we discover the nest only after the job is accomplished. Or it comes to our notice when two or more pairs descend and fight for the same cozy space. The flutter of the fighting pigeons is too annoying for any body, particularly because they kick up all the smelly dust and feathers into our house.
This is raising temperatures in my family. I plead my inability to do anything tangible, but my spouse does not agree with me. It is all the more irritating when the eggs are hatched and the hungry chicks on sighting their mother make noise with open beaks for food.
My wife says she can’t stand the groans of the adult pigeons which almost takes you to a hospital ward full of crying, groaning or sobbing patients.
The phenomenon is not confined to our house only. With rapid deforestation having taken place everywhere, few trees have been left in our housing complex. Despite growing awareness about environment, there is a pathetic apathy towards it.
Instances are not lacking where men from public works department recklessly lay bricks and mortar on the pavements, not leaving even breathing space for the trees. Absence of watering or too much of watering kills the trees in no time, depriving even the sparrows the privilege of their modest abode. I feel sad about the state of affairs, but there is little one can do about it.
Back home, my wife keeps nagging and asking me to shoo them away and throw out their nests lock, stock and barrel. But my thinking being entirely different, I just can’t do it. I would want the chicks to grow and fly out on their own. I bluntly tell her that I can’t be inhuman and would not uproot the helpless little chicks.
Trying to reason out with her, I pointed out how the birds had chosen such safe places to raise their chicks and it would be highly immoral to dislodge them. However, my plea fails to move her and the sparring continues.
But as luck would have it, my wife’s prayers were answered one day — something that I had so studiously tried to avert all the time happened. A feline made a high jump to the cornice, grabbed the two grown-up chicks and made a meal of them in our bedroom.
Blood-smeared feathers and partially eaten up flesh were strewn in our room. My wife was red-faced and shouted: “I told you ... I told you so. But you would not listen. This was bound to happen one day.”
I was speechless. From then onwards, I took care to see that no “maternity home” came up again in and around our house.
Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
