Birds Forever

My interest in birds dates back to the 90s, when I was a mere teenager moved by the musical notes of the MagPie Robin. Back then I had restlessly looked for the name of the bird and even assumed it was a 'Lark', a name I had read in a bird book.

Joining BONC- "Barn Owl Nature Club"- took me miles ahead in learning about nature and birds and nurtured my interest like never before. I felt like I must maintain a log of all the birds I know and still remember and can identify (amongst the hundreds of other birds I once knew). With this blog post I have promised myself to rekindle my own interest in bird / nature watch and pursue this passion with a renewed energy.

And I must thank my husband for getting me started on this once again. (He saw a bird perched on a tree and took the effort of finding it's name. And that was enough to get me reminiscent and enthusiastic all over again....)



Magpie Robin

Green bee eater

White breasted kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Red Wattled Lapwing

Yellow Wattled Lapwing

Pond Heron

Cattle Egret

Little Egret

Water Moorhen

Purple Rumped Sunbird

Barn Owl

Golden Oriole

Black Hooded Oriole

Rufus Backed Shrike

Blue Jay

Rufous Male Paradise Flycatcher

White Male Paradise Flycatcher

Pied Mynah

Iora

Hoopooe

Emerald Dove

Spotted Dove

Jungle Crow

Brahminy Kite

King Vulture

Pariah Kite

Flamingo

Brahminy Duck

Baya Weaver Bird

Tailor Bird

Red Vented Bulbul

Red Whiskered Bulbul

Woodpecker

Coppersmith

Sandpiper

Spoonbill

Great Hornbill

Great Indian Bustard

Nightjar

Swallow

Olive backed sunbird

Bald Eagle

Guinea Fowl

Humming bird

Cuckoo

Black Drongo

Racket Tailed Drongo

Ashy Wren Warbler

Fantailed Flycatcher

Painted Bunting

Northern Cardinal

Crow Pheasant

Rose Ringed Parakeet

The treasure is mine...

His mother had always loved him. Shankar knew he had never done his duty as a son. He never spoke loving words, never cared for her health. Having lost his father at a young age, his mother should have been the only parent to look up to. But he could never feel anything for anyone, for any human being or living being for that matter. That was the only reason he had never married. But he couldn't deny that his mother's supposed vast royal wealth was too appealing to his greedy mind. It was a well known story in the family that there had been an enormous royal treasure that the ancestors had hidden away to prevent it from being acquired by the government. It was also a practice to disclose the location of the treasure only when the eldest member is preparing to depart. Losing the eldest member to a sudden accident and forever losing the secret of the treasure location was a risk they always ran. But he was also sure that his mother would disclose the location in her later days.

He still remembered the day his mother had had the paralytic stroke. She was nearing 90 and was utterly helpless, so much like a child. One part of him was shamelessly excited because it envisioned the prospect of inheriting the enormous wealth his family had always passed along. At the same time his world had come falling apart, not because he couldn't bear to see his mother helpless, old and weak. But because, being the only son he was expected to take care of her. His sister was a widow with a daughter Rekha who loved her ailing grandma. Although he was not ashamed to admit it, he felt a twinge of guilt realizing that she had been taking more care of his mother than he did. She made sure she visited every morning before her college classes began and fed her grandma delicious breakfast that she prepared with her own hands. She took care of her morning chores, chit chatting with her about little things that made the old lady smile. She then visited her every evening before going home. Shankar would often return home from the library to find his niece either playing the Veena for her granny, or reading out an article from a magazine. His own sister didn't do half as much. The young girl was everything that he and his sister were not. And he couldn't help but think that she was going to make things difficult for him in future.

His malicious mind kept imagining prospects of his mother choosing to bequeath everything that belonged to the family to his intelligent and loving niece, instead of this uncaring and distant son. He didn't know what to do to prevent such a thing from happening. He also knew that he wasn't such a fiend to resort to foul play to prevent a disaster of that sort. He simply wished to defeat his niece with the same intelligence and smartness that she possessed.

He knew his mother was riding out the last few days of her life. She was bound to let out the secret to her darling granddaughter sooner or later. So he bugged the room his mother slept in. He listened daily to the tapes that recorded the ladies' conversations all day long, then erased and reinstalled the tape, before he wound up to go to bed. This went on for two months but not once had his mother mentioned the treasure.

Then one day, as he played the tape as usual and drank his warm milk, the conversation happened. He casually listened and his mother talked.
"My dear, my last day is coming closer. I want you to know something. There is a secret treasure this family has hidden for many generations."
Shankar sat up straight.
"I know, Grandma" Rekha said.
"Today I want you to know where I hid it after your grandfather died. Look for it where the years discern the quality."
Then there was a silence.
"It is where the years discern the quality" she repeated.
Then Rekha exclaimed "There!!??"
And the old grandma said "Yes" with a kind of euphoria in her voice.
Shankar couldn't believe it. In less than a minute the secret was out and Rekha had already guessed the hiding place. He banged the table he was seated at. Smart Rekha had probably anticipated her greedy uncle to have bugged the room and had simply pointed out the place rather than say it out aloud.

"I will take care of it Granny."said Rekha much to Shankar's annoyance.
"Don't let my son know" said Granny and Shankar's blood was boiling.

He stopped the tape after he realized there was nothing more useful in it.

"It is where the years discern the quality." his mother had said. How on earth did Rekha know immediately where this place was. He couldn't even imagine what she was talking about.

He spent all of next day trying to think what could years discern- time? clock? He checked the grandfather's clock in the living room, but there was nothing in it at all.

Within a week, his mother's health started deteriorating. He knew her time was running out and started to feel very guilty and sorry. But it was too late. He couldn't do anything more now.

He sat next to his mother on her last day. And apologized for being an imperfect son. As the mother forgave him, he felt relief. But it didnt last long. Next morning, she was gone and Shankar felt worse than ever.

He didn't shed a tear but felt terrible. But now he was more worried than ever about not finding the treasure. He knew that Rekha knew. And he was racing against time, her time.

The good thing was he had completely barred Rekha from entering the house now that Granny was no more. He tried to rack his brains in his solitude. Rekha had asked her granny "There?". This meant that the place was most probably in his mother's room itself. Or atleast in the house.

He quickly went into the room and started scanning the place for anything that looked like it may hold a treasure. There was the bed his mother used to sleep in, the cupboard, music system, instruments, laptop, window, curtains, attic, washroom....he couldn't even start to imagine what Rekha could have pointed at.

He still spent the whole night ransacking the place and combing every nook and cranny- to no avail.
Exhausted he went to bed at 4 am. The next morning when he woke up, he decided to give it a fresh attempt. He thought he could google the phrase "It is where the years discern the quality." May be it was a famous quote or a dialogue from a movie that indicated something he may be missing.

As he opened his laptop and started typing, he realized he was unable to type the letter 'S'. The key was getting stuck and he knew he had hit on something. He immediately started to play with the key, wondering how on earth his 90 year old mother could have gotten hold of the laptop. He removed the key and sure enough there was a note there. A tiny folded piece of paper. Excited, he started opening it, but he was not entirely sure he was on the right path. The paper seemed white, not yellow (pretty new in look and feel for something passed on from generations). He opened it to find this-
"Look where the sounds reverberate."

It was the Veena. He knew it now. How could he have missed it the last night.

He ran into the room and started uncovering the Veena that was lying in the corner at its usual location. He was glad he had stopped Rekha from entering the house the very day his mother passed. He knew now that she must have guessed the Veena and pointed out at it.

He reached for the resonating chamber and started feeling the edges. He found a small square of wood that looked chipped at the edges. He moved it and a small piece of paper stuck out. He carefully pulled it out. This one also looked pretty new and he wondered if his mother had left a treasure hunt for him.

He opened the note and read the following words:

"If you thought you'd get away with greed

and reap the benefits of others' good deeds

Well you're in for disappointment indeed

For I always knew where the treasure was buried

Grandma loved me more than you. When she said 'It is where the ears discern the quality.', she meant the Veena. Because the last string of the Veena was always off tune and Granny and I always critiqued it while I played. You would have known if you had spent more time with her. But I discovered the note rolled into a groove of the Veena, the day before Granny passed. The note pointed to the backyard. Hidden deep under the banyan tree was what I now possess and what once belonged to you, but I earned it with love rather than entitlement."

Truer words were never spoken, Shankar thought. His niece had left a mocking note, that too an artistic mockery what with the poem and the accompanying lecture. He had to accept defeat at the hands of his smart and wise niece. What he had thought was "years discern the quality" was actually "ears discern the quality", which meant the musical sound of the Veena. He deserved the defeat, he realized. But he hated to admit that the younger and much smarter girl would either put the wealth to good use or many years would pass until her children could have it.

He didn't have a right to know. So he put the Veena back in its place. With nightfall, he lay in his bed thinking what he would have done with the treasure if he had it. Just then he heard something drop in the hallway. He was worried that there were burglars in his house. He didn't have anything today that was worth robbing, he thought with irony as he inched towards the hallway. He saw moonlight seeping in from under the main door that was entrance to the house. And part of it was blocked with a packet that lay in front of the door. Someone had dropped it from the window that lay open next to the door.

He rushed to the door and grabbed it open to see who it was. His faint and old eyes caught sight of a girl wrapped in a shawl rushing away towards the main street away from the house. He knew it was Rekha. May be she had decided to drop in another poem to ridicule her old uncle he thought and picked up the packet.

It was a simple envelope with something bubble wrapped on the inside. He opened the wrapper and was dazzled. In his hands lay the most exquisite necklace he had ever laid eyes on. And next to it was an enormous finger ring with a bright blue stone shining in the moonlight.

An accompanying note said "For the son a mother always loved".

Shankar felt sad. But within a moment his smile shone brighter than the jewels.
"Bless that girl" he thought as he headed back to his room, missing his mother more than ever.

One cursed dance

It was that season again...Dance and music practices filled up our post-work hours. The biggest benefit seemed to be the free workout that entailed. There was one particular dance item we were doing that seemed so harmless and simple, that it almost seemed juvenile attempting it. It was called the 'Kolaata'. A South Indian folk dance, it is particularly famous in my native state Karnataka and some other places like Tamilnadu.

It involved the presence of a bunch of village girls, playing with sticks similar to the Dandiya ones. A lot of 'hitting around' was a part of the dance. The only danger I saw in the dance was of accidentally knocking out someone's front teeth or something. But apart from that, it almost seemed innocuous enough to smoothly sail through with no glitches in the performance. In fact, I firmly believed that blundering it up would have needed an enormous effort. Little did I know how wrong I was.

We were supposed to perform the dance at two consecutive occasions. The first was at the Durga Puja celebrations where we were representing Karnataka in an inter-community dance festival. Because, this was a competition, we should have been a little nervous. But owing to the fact that we were only 6 ladies who had practiced the simple-easy dance a million times, we knew nothing would go wrong.
Packed with confidence, we drove to the venue in two cars. I was driving mine, giving a ride to 2 others, while our choreographer drove her car riding the remaining half of our group with her. I remember beaming as I passed motorists who were glancing with weird expressions at the 3 girls dressed in colorful village sarees tied up above the ankles(which they couldn't see of course), with hands adorned with colorful bangles, long jhumkis dangling from the ears and hair loaded with fake flowers. In short, they could witness what probably looked like 3 village girls who had fled with a stolen vehicle :P. I know for sure that it was the most mismatched attire for the urban woman driving on US roads.


But I felt no embarrassment. I couldn't wait to go and win the competition. Once we reached the venue, nervousness and adrenaline kicked in together. The sounds and sight of jostling crowds, settling down in the rows of seats set up for the audience at a school auditorium was unnerving to say the least. Our confident group chose to have our photographs clicked as a means of relaxation. Although far from soothing, it atleast distracted us from the constant thought of our impending performance. And we also got some nice pictures before we became sweaty, dislodged our jewelry, spoilt our make up  (these things were bound to follow our performance).

Having clicked a million pictures and gotten tired, we were left with no option but to take our places in the audience and ride out the extreme anguish of seeing the other performances. The effect of seeing another artist perform is very overwhelming for any artist. Depending on the nature of the artist, it can infuse any feeling ranging from extreme inferiority/superiority complex to sudden stage fright. In my case, looking at the bunch of beautiful girls perform a nice Kerala dance gave me an immense inferiority complex. Despite the fact that our dance was entertaining, I could see that it was no way difficult. It required hardly any footwork, evoked no facial expressions, didn't have any marvelous foot tapping rhythm....In short there was nothing extraordinary in our dance. This was the conclusion I came to after witnessing the Kerala dance.

Before I could digest this, it was our turn. As we reached the dias we realized that there was no comfortable way to enter the stage except climb on to it. With our tightly wrapped sarees, we clumsily climbed on to it and checked a zillion times to verify that our costumes were still secure. The awkwardness of standing ON the stage before the music even started, waiting to enter (technically we had already entered) was terrible. Every second seemed like a year. Just then my teammate whispered from behind "how are we supposed to exit?" Before I could process her question, the music blasted and we entered merrily, with an enthusiasm that translated into "We are better than the Kerala dancers". Dancing our way in, we understood what a tiny stage it was-10 times tinier than the basements we had practiced in. We tried hard not to collide into each other.

30 seconds into the song and BANG- the music stopped. And we stood there sheepishly, 6 ladies flashing 6 foolish smiles. After an entire 15 seconds passed we started looking around at the sound guys when the music abruptly began again and we were caught unaware.

All synchronization went to hell. 2 ladies forgot their steps, one was running a beat ahead and the other running a beat behind. Rhythm was a joke. And we happily laughed to encourage ourselves, not realizing we were the joke.

The disastrous performance came to a close with the ending tune and we eagerly made our way to the exit. Only then did I understand the gravity of my teammate's question - how were we supposed to exit? Because our exit sequence had us disappear backstage as the music kept playing. And there was NO "backstage" here. The entertaining performance just took a leap with 6 ladies leaping off the stage in their fancy sarees and jewelry.

We made a beeline for the nearest door that could take us far from the audience. I couldnt look anyone in the eye and wanted to change into something unrecognizable. I hated to hear "Oh there's the girl from THAT dance".

The Durga Puja performance was decisively proved to be a disaster. But we had another performance waiting for us the next day. We had to perform the same number the next day at the Diwali festival of another local community- The Kannada association- that was solely for people from my native state Karnataka. I knew they would be more welcoming towards their own folk dance and it lifted my spirits.

The 6 of us got together the next day for a pep talk. Our choreographer reminded us the code words she had devised to remind us our dance steps. "Straight line", "Circle", "Rainbow", "Rocket" were just some of the names to remind us of the formations we had rehearsed umpteen times. I knew very well that our first stanza started with a 'Rainbow' and the second with a 'Rocket'. She had us revise them and reminded us that she would prompt us the names on stage.

Our turn was the first this time around. There was no other dance group to pull us down. There was also a backstage and curtains to hide our entry. So we entered with confidence and danced away. The music didnt stop in 30 seconds so that was an added bonus.

Before the first stanza started we were split into 2 straight lines, 3 ladies on each. Our choreographer was on the line opposite mine. Just as everything was going smooth, the ill fated dance disaster struck again. For some reason our choreographer shouted 'Rocket' instead of 'Rainbow' and had her entire line swinging in full speed like a rocket, while the 3 of us who didn't hear her, correctly did the 'Rainbow'. The audience had their share of merriment as 6 grown up ladies made fools of themselves (second day in a row) with 3 of them dancing like a Rocket and the other 3 as Rainbow. Realizing something was amiss, one of the Rocket girls changed to Rainbow and collided head on into another lady. As the choreographer tried to mend things following her tiny oral mistake, the dance fell apart. The entire stanza went by in utter chaos with 6 ladies running around trying to find their spot and look like a dance formation.

As we exited following a sober second stanza, we flopped into chairs and looked around. We couldnt help but laugh at the situation. Not once but twice were we let down. By fate, by the stage, by the sound system AND by ourselves.

My teammate who had questioned the exit sequence the previous day looked at me and asked "What do you think about it?"
I shrugged and looked at her for a long time.
"I think that is one cursed dance" I finally said as we all burst out laughing.

The Separation Saga

Solitude to her was synonymous with peace

Although living by herself was no easy feat

But she could sing, dance and do as she pleased

Yet she'd spend hours dreaming of turning a new leaf

With a fairy tale wedding her dream came true

She gleefully watched as life changed and time flew

Her heart was joyous that she'd never again be blue

Worries and troubles were finally far and few

Little did she know what life had in store

Her lovely companion had a world of science to explore

She wanted to accompany him but she was so unsure

Before she knew it she was left alone like before

Peace and solitude were no longer the same

Leading life alone was now a depressing game

But she watched and beamed as her soulmate rose to fame

To admit that she needed him, she was not ashamed

She thought to herself-"It's time for action"

Her time was up weighing her emotions

He welcomed her to join his exploration

And her resolution finally ended the saga of separation

Dream Chronicles: Psychic Tendencies

Umpteen times I have noticed that I get bizarre dreams and eerily similar incidents happen in my real life the next day. It has always intrigued me as to whether this qualifies as pure coincidence or something paranormal, something like premonition.

Some such dreams and the corresponding life incidents I still remember. Last year I dreamt one night that I was in Mumbai, resting in the sweet comforts of my home, laying on the couch reading a book while my brother watched cricket. I further dreamt that my parents came home from somewhere and had loads of bags in their hands. Groceries, I supposed in my dream.

My mom started unpacking the bags and stuffing the fridge while my Dad dumped his share of bags next to Mom's and sank into the couch next to my bro watching cricket. I lectured my Dad in my dream that he should help out Mom as I went in to fulfill my girly duties helping her out, while the guys of the family assumed the roles of couch potatoes.

When I awoke the next morning here in US, I wondered what a weird dream that was. I spoke to my Mom that night and our conversation went around our daily routines just as usual. I asked "What else did you do all day?". She said "Oh we went grocery shopping. I had a big argument with your Dad. I was as tired as him when we came back home but he asked me to put away the items while he rested." I heard with eyes wide open. I asked her "What was bro doing?" And she replied "Oh when he watches cricket on TV, he doesn't hear anything. I didn't expect him to help in the least."

I told her about my dream and she was dumbfounded. She believed me but most people wouldn't. It's just like hearing ghost stories.

Although this was the only incident bearing the most uncanny resemblance to my dream, most other of my dream-life correlation occurrences share only a character or place. Most likely it happens that I dream of a person whom I haven't seen or heard from in a long time, and I either see/get news of/meet/get a call or email from that person the next day.

Last night I dreamt of this lady, whom I haven't spoken to in a year. She is on my facebook friends' list and I haven't interacted with her there at all. I got a dream last night that she sponsored a honeymoon suite for me and my husband as a wedding gift (We got married 2 months back). She gifted us a suite in Courtyard Marriott, a very plush hotel with a chauffeur driven service for the newly weds. I was thanking her and asking her not to do it for us in my dream when I finally woke up. I literally laughed thinking of the ridiculousness of the dream.

Today I go on Facebook and I find that she has 'liked' my wedding picture that I uploaded last week. And 'commented' on my wedding life event wishing me and my husband a very happy wedded life. It struck me once again that this is probably the second most stupefying dream-turning-into-reality event for me (the second most significant one that I can recollect). Not only did the lady appearing in my dream communicate in real life, the situation involved me, my husband and her. And it involved something along the lines of a sweet wishing gesture for my post-wedding time.

So in my dream chronicles that I record from time to time, I have decided to put down writings of all such crazy deja vu dreams too along with describing the masala-movie type dreams I get often.

Looks like dreams hold a very special place in my life. No wonder then that I love to sleep. It's like going to a cinema free of cost. Only the movie never reaches 'The End'.