A little bird that came to stay...

Ten years back we brought a flat in an apartment building in Baroda. The twenty acres of Sarabhai Chemical was flanking the back of our apartment. This long closed factory plot was with heavy plantation of various trees. Looking thru all our windows we never felt the concrete jungle around us.

From our third floor windows we could see the crown of the trees. In monsoon it was in various shades of green and in summer a deluge of colours. From the bright yellow of 
peltophorum and fistula, red and orange Delonix regia to princely purple of Jacaranda, all were there. The first thing I did taking the flat was to remove all the metal grills of the window. A mistake I can never forgive myself for. (May be this I can talk about some other day.)

The huge garden was a playing ground for hundreds of birds, squirrels, mongooses and monkeys.

The monkeys would jump to our building and sit on the window sheds, their tails going ‘tic-tac’ like a pendulum across the window glasses. They would often lean down and take a banana or a biscuit we offered. Sometimes they would even steal vegetables from the kitchen top. The small open window was the gateway for them all, except for the huge alpha male. May be the sneaking thru the window was far below his dignity.

He would open the latch of our grilled door. Walk across the living room to the kitchen with an attitude, and open the fridge.  Or he would sit on the dining table and confiscate the fruit basket. Much time the bread basket would be attacked. Gracefully of course he would spare the butter and cheese tray. Maybe he was calorie conscious.

Unlike the complaints of many they were never aggressive toward us. We enjoyed their simian antics.

A pair of squirrels had made the kitchen chimney pipe their home.  May be they liked the aroma of our Daal makkhani. We can hear them play in the pipe over our kitchen cabinets. Probably they had babies inside the pipe.

One evening a little one came inside the house and began to run all round. Finally he jumped on to our son’s bed, crept under the sheet and slept. We kept a line of pillows across the bed that Mimo won’t roll over in his sleep and make a pancake of the little fellow.

We thought the poor chap had lost his way. But to our surprise, he came again for next quite a few days and slept in the same place under the sheet!

A brunch of a peltophorum tree, touching the boundary wall was growing into our kitchen. We kept that window open and let it grow in. We had to fight with the occupants below our floor ant the maintenance team to stop them from trimming this branch.

We called it our tree.

One day we were startled by a sharp “chip chip” sound of a very small bird jumping on that branch. She was little bigger than a humming bird. May be it was a sunbird. She became a regular visitor and we named her Chipley.

Chipley built a nest on that branch. Every evening she would jump on the brunch outside and go ‘chip- chip’ till we leave the kitchen.  We come back only after she would enter and sit in her nest. Use of the fan was stopped in fear that she might get into the blades. Slowly Chipley got used to us and stopped flying out of the kitchen in our presence.

Chipley laid two eggs in her nest and we were jumping in joy like family expecting the arrival of a child.

One evening as we returned home, Chipley came flying to us and began to chirp. Astonished we began to wonder what she was doing. Was she playing with us? How did she all of a sudden become so bold?  Or did we do something to anger her?

She kept on flying over our head for quite some time going ‘chip chip’ endlessly. We just could not understand her.

Not till next morning!

We were woken up early next day by a huge rumbling nose behind out apartment. We rushed to the window to see a devastating sight. The Sarabhai Chemical plot was sold off to DLF. They are coming up with a mega commercial project in this plot. 

With tens of bull dozzers and diggers all the trees are being uprooted.

We debated amongst ourselves whether to bring down Chipley’s nest.

No, they will not cut our tree. It is touching the boundary wall and far away from the build-able area. I am an architect and I know they will have to leave this margin.

Our tree will not be harmed.

How wrong we were.

That evening when we returned home our tree was gone.

So was Chipley, her nest and her eggs.

Did Chipley sense it? Was this she trying to tell us and asking for help?

We felt so helpless.

Dinner remained uncooked that evening.

I fail to understand why do we want to destroy every beautiful thing nature has so graciously given us.  How long is it before we lose all our ‘Chipley’s forever?

Today I want to ask Barnali and all people who love this world of beautiful birds and animals how do we help them  survive?