Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sparrow watching..

Its quite difficult to trace back my interest in sparrow watching. With whatever leftover in my brain cells it links me with name Dr. Salim Ali .
When I was 10 year old , we had a small chapter about this scientist. His madness for birds , his keenness to know them and his ability to feel them. Whole chapter would be 2 page long but it impacted me lifelong. That chapter turned my neck towards window of our classroom. Teacher was constantly explaining something around the topic but I was not there I was outside ,looking for traces of birds.
During my Engineering study leaves I used to Rugdofy a lot. In all that tiring days, one of my soothing time pass was to watch sparrow playing in dusty road in front of our building while sipping Ginger Tea made by my mother. I loved them while they were chirping, fighting with all their might with their mate (Which was Pity attempt) and hiding in leaves and coming back again in battle field. All they wanted is to enjoy Sunlight in playful mood.
My bird watching curiosity got doubled when I moved to UK. No doubts, geographically this place is quite different than India and thus lays the reason for me to look for more surprises on trees, grass ground and in the sky. I feel strong bonding with them which made me many time put my friends on hold. Thing is My Camera has Mobile phone attached to it..sorry sorry my Mobile has camera attached to it and while talking to anyone obviously I can’t take pictures.(It has not touched Technical paradigm called Multi tasking OS ).I get over excited when I see any rare(New for my Indian eyes) species of bird playing in our apartment garden.
One of those job hunting days when I used to be busy in telephone interviews and watching them a lot. I saw one small bird with 2-3 colours just splash on it to make him beautiful. I tried to capture him in my camera but it was all in vain. Same Night I had this.
I strongly believe dream is something you experience in your life or while experiencing something thoughts that HITS your mind subtly. So on same line I had one dream .Dream where I was carrying my LG View T mobile + Camera and walking on secluded road, highly influenced by Bright sun Over it and Dessert around it. For Mile & Mile you could just see dessert and Zig Zag way which gives you Illusion of touching Horizon. Partly familiar with such experience in Rajasthan and Partly Unaware of Magical vibration that road carried along with its Black Colour, I was humming and walking.
Suddenly my eye spotted quite unusual bird pair on barren Tree top and looking all over the place. Both of them not by any chance were looking like a pair as small bird supposedly female was black and blue in colour wherein Male bird, long one was in brown and gray cover.
I started struggling to get my hold of my camera. I tried to zoom in but bloody Idiot my mobile stopped working. I could barely see them through its lenses. I confirmed their presence on tree by my taking camera off. HUSH..They were still their admiring or laughing on my efforts. I resume playing with my camera. Still no clarity in vision, in frustration I clicked 2-3 times still no images were clear enough to see their lovely appearance. I stopped.
When I look up to see them, first Male bird flew in the sky and then Female. I was disappointed. I had just lost my only company in dessert. While I was mourning about it in my mind I heard somebody tapping on my shoulders .I looked back one couple was standing just behind me with saintly smile on their face.
All was ok. I smiled back & then all spoiled. They asked me why you want to click those birds. In that HOT whether it was likely to get HOT Head and same happened with me. I got super irritated and reply them “IS that your business “. He smiled back again and asked same question. Meanwhile I tuned back to them and start walking. After hearing him again, I paused and start saying “ I liked them & just feel like making them part of my memories in dessert .(By taking snap).”
I started walking again .Gentleman replied “IS that necessary .Why don’t you just watch them and capture in your memory & cherished them whole your life”. I was stunned because when I was answering him same thought came in my mind. In effort of capturing them I couldn’t enjoy real beauty of them with my naked eyes.
I halt and looked back. Man was wearing clothes similar to Male bird’s feather and Female was as stunning as blue sparrow I just witnessed .I smiled.
All of sudden Dust started rattling in the air & both figures were disappeared.
Before I could think anything further , I again saw on tree top hoping they might have taken their old place to watch me. But they were not there .In Lesson learned mode I started walking again and what ......Both birds were chirping and playing in that hot dessert road. Sometime falling in love with each other ...Some time just tried to follow their shadows.
I was happy and this time my camera was totally out of question .I was just happy watching them as I used to do in my study breaks in Mumbai....

5 comments:

SparkleSupi said...

Chaan watla wachun!

Shweta Tarkar- Narvekar said...

Nice :)

POONAM said...

chaan lihile aahes...Salam to Dr. Salim Ali .

POONAM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Priyam Dutta said...

Read this just now... really well written!