Birds 19 - Birdbrain Poem by Unnikrishnan Sivasankara Menon

Once upon a time
there lived a pigeon
in the dense concrete jungle
of Bombay City.

It was family season again
she started to build her nest
on top of a rolled up chik
on the balcony of an apartment.

Through the entire morning
she worked collecting twigs
paper and cloth shards,
in the afternoon the sun was hot
and the chik was pulled down,
down came the nest incomplete.

When the sun was down
and the chik was up
back came the pigeon
to start building again.

This routine was repeated
everyday for weeks together,
until she gave up the idea
altogether, of raising a family.

Sad it may sound,
but never did it occur to her
to look for another site
to build her nest.

Note
This is a first hand experience often narrated by the famous Indian ornithologist and bird-watcher Dr Salim Ali. I just tried to colour it as a fable.

Glossary
Bombay: Present day Mumbai
Chik: (Hindi) rolling vertical blind/curtain made of bamboo or reeds