MY IRRITATING TENANTS

My mother and I were discussing the pigeons in our balcony today. We have better topics to discuss, but you cannot ignore the pigeons in Delhi. They’re everywhere. And I like to believe that most of them love my balcony. They shit there, on my clean clothes pinned outside for drying under the sun, they speak/sing/shout there and I feel like strangling them. They sometimes also come inside my room which is right beside the balcony, and sit on the fan and my bookshelf. If it’s not clear yet, let me tell you that I hate them. They’re annoying, irritating and not worth writing about.  But sometimes, I tend to find them interesting. These times, when I have nothing to do and stand in my balcony for hours, I stare at them instead of the sky or the road below. Now two of these pigeons, Mr. and Mrs. Feathers as I like to call them,did some family planning and coincided their mating dates with our holiday dates. So last month when my family returned home after a long weekend away, we were surprised (shocked and annoyed and irritated) to find that Mrs. Feathers was now a mother to twins. These two eggs were laid near a plant because apparently it was a cozy place and since there was no one to clean the place for four days, it was ample time for the Feathers family to plan their future and execute their plans. I tried to convince my parents to throw the eggs away but they won’t let me. They’re kind humans and all that. So now that our rent free tenants weren’t going anywhere for at least a month, I tried to befriend them. As a good neighbour, I would visit them in the evenings and get to know the family. Mr. Feathers, I gathered, is a dedicated architect. He has an impressive knowledge of different kinds of materials used in making a nest and definitely knows where to find them. Every other day, he would try to impress my maid with an abundance of dried leaves and thin tree branches spread in the balcony. My house help, a mother of two however, was not interested. She cleaned the mess and cursed the pigeons for increasing her work, in her native language. Mrs. Feathers on the other hand is dutiful housewife. She loves her two kids and doesn’t leave their side except in the evenings, when she goes for a gossip stroll with her friends. The Feather family though a little annoying, was a simple and happy family. In time, the eggs hatched and came out the twin Feathers kids, and it is now that my real bonding with the family, and real learning started.  I saw the kids grow up and observed that in order to spend more time with the kids, Mrs. Feathers had started to sacrifice her daily flying-stroll. Mr. Feathers started returning home from work in the afternoons and enjoyed the daily meal of water and snacks(that my father kept for them) with the family. Their little shoe box house, courtesy my younger brother was now a home with two loving parents and two babies dearly loved. I however, still not interested in helping them, just grew more and more impatient. Why were the kids not flying? Oh, they’re too young. Now? Still young. When will they fly?

I asked my mom the same question today as we observed the kids walking around in their verandah. “They can fly now.” My mother declared, in her motherly I-know-because-I-am-a-mother tone.

“No they can’t. They just walk around” I argued.

“They can fly now, they’ve grown up and their wings will support them if they take a flight.” She turned to me then, smiled and said “They just haven’t realized it yet.”  I was instantly taken back to a few months ago when I had graduated, was giving entrance exams for my masters degree and was scared out of my wits. The exams were difficult, the selection process more difficult. So one day when I was extremely nervous, my mother held my shoulders, looked me into the eye and said “You can do whatever you want to. You can walk this path. You have the capability, you just haven’t realised it yet. But you know what the good news is? It doesn’t matter whether you realize it or not, you just have to put one step in front of the other and keep going on without quitting.” Six months into my Masters now, I believed when she said the same about the Feathers kids. I wondered if Mrs. Feathers too had the same confidence in her kids.

After a few hours, I heard some commotion in the balcony and rolled my eyes. The Mister must have brought more stuff to build their nest. Why couldn’t they just be happy with the shoe-house? I went out and much to my delight, the noise was their wings flapping and the elder couple kissing each other before they flew away. I looked back at their house, and the kids weren’t there. All four of them waved me from a nearby tree later as they started flying in circles above my building. My tenants had finally left their temporary house for their endless one.

Hmm.

 I’m not in love with them or anything but I don’t mind when they sometimes come and enjoy the delicacies my father keeps for them on the handrail.

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TO LET: A Shoe Box, spacious and solid, overlooking a wide verandah. Meals provided, cleanliness taken care of. If you know any other Feathers Family looking for an accommodation, contact below.