Answers to 3 Questions No one Asked

I have been getting positive feedback about my previous post, and thanks for all the encouragement. Am having some problem with the blog...everyone except me, can open and read it, while I have to go to a cached copy to read and post something new! Guess only I am capable of such goof ups, but in time I will find out what went wrong and how to set it right.

Was quite surprised no one raised 3 questions after reading the blog. Who is this Batra...didn't you want to know? Well, he put me back on trail and asked me why I had stopped my postings, and the very fact that someone out there in Calcutta should remember and enquire, despite his own busy schedule, encouraged me no little bit. We had shred a carefree and funfilled fortnight long back in 1994, in Hyderabad, at the Bank's Training Center. 6 of us, Batra, Sridhar ( both from Bombay), Suman from Lucknow, Shashi from Baroda and Geetha from Ahmedabad! What fun we had! The rest of the participants, from all over India and with all sorts of hang ups, soon fell in line with us and a boring "Merchant Banking" Training Session became a lively one. We lost touch later and found each other again and have been communicating off and on( more off than on, I admit) . So when he asked me to keep writing, I was really thrilled, and sat down immediately to post that piece. It had been on my mind for quite some time.

The second question no one asked was about Marja of 79, Park Avenue. I confess I had to look up her name, but I don't think I am mistaken in the name of the book or the incident I referred to. Marja is a prostitute in the novel by Harold Robbins, and while waiting for a prospective customer, has to make sure it is not a cop who is approaching her. For some reason, even cops in plainclothes apparently wear a distinctive style of footwear, so her eyes automatically dart to the feet of any male approaching her, to check out the shoes. For some reason, this has stayed on in my mind, though I do not remember anything more about the novel, except that I cried over it.

Now for the other person mentioned...Basu. A friend of my daughter, and a PhD student at IISC, Bangalore, he has been very helpful and patient with me after she left for Germany. If you have read my other pieces, you will be knowing that she left behind a little mouse called Trans. Whenever we had to leave town, it was to Basu or my other daughter whom we would request, to take care of Trans, in our absence. Besides this, I would call him up every now and then to find out what to do about something or the other...from Trans not eating to when baby pigeons would start flying, etc!

Vaishnavi, who got time to read the blog just some time back, has asked me the questions to the firts two answers. She knew who Basu was, of course!

THIS IS FOR YOU, BATRA!

Hearing the unmistakable tinny pitter patter of pigeon feet on the balcony railing, I go out to shoo the pest off, but not before a quick look at its feet....A la Marja of 79, Park Avenue, though instead of men and their feet, I have started giving a quick look at the feet of any pigeon I come across. Could this be my Choppu? I wonder, and wish I knew if she was still alive.

 We have had a lot of trouble with these pigeons, and have tried all sorts of things to keep them away from nesting or even resting in our balconies. For the record, we have 4 balconies, and it is no fun doing this patrolling work. Every now and then we decide to close up the balconies, glass shutters, bamboo drapes...discussions go on, but at the end, the loss of the open spaces, which was the original purpose of any balcony, is too much to bear, so we put it off.
 It was on one such patrolling and shooing off session that I realised that the pigeon had been up to something. Experience with them gives one these hunches. I brought out the ladder, climbed up to check, and aha..there was this gleaming white egg, on the shoebox on the top rack of the shoe shelf behind the door. Now there was nothing to do but to let the mother come over, brood, hatch, etc. I persuaded my husband to let it be, and promised to clean up every day after the birds.To my amazement, they stopped dirtying the floor! Whether it was because they had free access and did not need to wait around to check if the human pest was around, or whether it was a gesture of gratitude, I do not know, but they no longer dirtied the floor.
 At long last the egg hatched, and now we had to wait for the little one to fly away. I looked up Wikepedia to see how long it would take, and would keep a check on the little one, keeping track of her, talking to her....Choppu, I would say, do eat well and grow strong and fly away...the suspense is getting to be too much. She would not respond, as she always sat facing the wall. I realised later that it was so that she could shit right down the floor instead of dirtying her bed! She did not have the niceties of her parents, but that was ok, she was just a baby, I told myself. But they were all too quiet, perhaps not wanting to attract the attention of the human pests or the ravens that flew by every now and then.The constant regurgigating sound that drove one crazy, or the chirping of the little one could never be heard, and the only sounds I could hear were the fast fluttering sounds of beating wings, a desperate attempt to fly. Whether it was the adult bird or the baby I could not make out, and once in a while, I would move the old shoe box slightly to see if Choppu was still there. There was a lot of unwanted stuff heaped up there , and sometimes she would be hidden under some plastic bag or so. One morning, opening the balcony door, I saw her down on the floor, and not wanting to scare her, I quickly shut the door. The next time I opened the door, she was at the farther end of the balcony, and the fibre bag I thought had fallen off when she flew down, was also with her. I realised that her claws had got caught in the fibres, and that was why she could not fly. The bag was preventing her, and perhaps it was this that had delayed her flight. Even the parents, I realised, had been giving up, with fewer visits every day. I had to free her. Getting a pair of scissors, I went up to her, and softly assuring her that I meant no harm, cut off the strands, leaving her feet free. I noticed then that she had cleft feet...only a big claw and a little one at the other end.She lay there still, realizing that I was only helping her, though I knew not what else to do. I called up Basu, at the IISC, my guide when it came to animal matters and found out that the lack of the other claws would not prevent her from flying.

The parents too came back and fed her once in a while. I hung up saris from the top of the clothes line hanging right down, like curtains, so that the ravens and crows or the occasional kite would not be able to spot her. The next day, she flew up to the balcony railing, and kept walking up and down, then flew just a little higher to the rose planter. The parents once again lost interest and started planning another offspring! I was shocked and angered but Choppu would hop up to them, force them to pay attention and get fed. I tried keeping some soft food, rice, idlis etc, but it was the parents who would feed on them. She was however safe as the saris hid her from any aerial view, and I had to be content with that. That night, however, she gave me a lot of worry. She would go to a corner of the planter and put her head out, as if wanting to breathe in the fresh air. After scolding her a couple of times, I tied up the sari tightly so she would not be able to poke her head out. I knew that on their early morning rounds, the bigger birds would make mince meat of her if they spotted her. Even after going to bed I came over a couple of times to check and the little fool had found another gap to put her head out. It was getting late and I was getting tired, so I finally I gave up, and went to bed. All my thoughts on her, I prayed that nothing should happen before I got up and that I would find a way to keep her safe in the morning.
 Early next morning, I rushed to check, and was amazed to see her resting calmly within the sari folds, out of sight of the circling ravens.Talk of the survival instinct! Since she was no longer in that corner, I decided to get it cleaned and requested the apartment sweeper to clean it up. He eyed her suspiciously, but I told him not to worry, neither she nor the parents would give any trouble, and left him to his cleaning job. "Amma," he called out after some time. "See, I have finished cleaning. Shall I take all this away?" I went to check. He had a gunny bag, filled with a lot of what we had stored on the rack and I told him to take it away. But Choppu was no longer there. "Where is the bird?" I asked him and he said it had flown away. This was a bit hard to swallow. "Did you chase it away?" I asked, to which he replied that he had done nothing of the sort, and that his movements may have scared her to take to wings. I had to leave it at that.
 After he went away I kept wondering if he had chased her away, whether she had become easy prey as she flew off, if she had fallen off the balcony down into the next floor...but no answers could be found. My tortured mind even wondered if he would have just caught her, wrung her neck and stuffed her into that bag? Do people eat pigeons? I didn't know and there was no way to find out. The serenading parents were kept away again, but if any pigeon comes and sits on the railing, I check its feet before shooing it away.