Kabootar Ja Ja

Sometime ago when ludwig had these things to say about pigeons, I was of course mightily amused. But lets say I did not believe in his thesis, per se. I have semi-noticed that they look dumb, but hey, looks are not everything, no?


Anyway we returned triumphantly from the airport last week, the husband and I. I was still worrying about how Hancock ends. I had managed to catch all but the last half hour of the movie (on the flight; thanks to the lucky provenance of my laptop battery running out and preventing me from doing anything constructive). Considering how reviewers are careful about these things they call 'spoilers' I was really worried about this, how to figure this out now? (if you know, please write to me? Its killing me. I am trying hard to ignore it, but its there, gnawing, so to say). In case you were wondering. Yes, I liked it. I like the grubby look. Will Smith. OOOH.


My plan was to dump my suitcase, pee, change my t-shirt, and head off downstairs to the neighbourhood Subway, pick up lunch, and head over to Pune. I was chaotically collecting somethings I needed to take to the kids - stuff I bought in Bangkok airport and so on, when the man came up with one of his AXN movie dialogues. "I suspect something is in the house"


Ooh. I was tempted to say I don't really care, need to get a move on it, gotto get to Pune and back by dinner and so on. But years of being a supportive wife imply that one suppresses such urges, resists the temptation to laugh, and plunges into the practicality of discovering what on earth he means. Thankfully enough, he bravely ventured forth looking from room to room, sort of too cautiously for my liking, but at least, it allowed me to look around some more for stuff to take (like my textbook, my IPOD, a bottle of water).


The study, it seems, was invaded by a pigeon. A regular resident of our building of course, but generally to be found outside the home, making that guttural throat noise pigeons are famous for. It was hiding behind the curtains. Making those noises and flutterring its wings against the curtain and the window glass - the noise that alerted the raised-on-a-heady-dose-of-scary-English-movies fellow. Frankly, I would have just ignored it, let it wallow in its misery, and gone away. At least, since the plan was for me to get going and for him to return home and spend a few hours before his flight to Hyderabad, I did not really think that that would have been too cruel or anything. I trust that he is fully capable of handling a pigeon-breech by his own self. But I was reluctant to suggest it. Plus my computer is in the study. God knows I cannot live without it, or suffer the consequences of pigeon-poo on it, given my current cold war with the maid...

To ludwig's point, the window was open on the other side. The idiotic bird had walked on the ledge over to the closed part of the window. All it had to do was, what we call, in common parlance, to 'hook a U' Turn around, retrace its steps, go back to the open part of the window, and fly away to where-the-fuck-ever it wanted to go, and leave me alone, and let me get on my way already. But no. It hung out, making its silly noise, and try as we might, we could not get it to stop knocking on the glass with its beak. Finally, I fetched an iron rod from the back of the flat. And no, we did not whack it or anything. We used it to open the window latch, somehow (this is where the skill that the man is born with - and I am not - came in real handy). We opened out the window on the pigeon's side by accessing it from the other side (this is where the long hands the man has - and I do not - came in real handy). And finally the bird flew away. Meanwhile we had tried tapping this side and that. Speaking to it in all the languages we knew. Putting our hands out to through the open window and waving. Trying to enlist the help of a fellow pigeon that landed on the air-condioner during our mission. Oh hell, everything we could think of. To no avail.

Yeah, I do think they are really deviod of brains. Anyway it all worked out finally. I had the aloo-something or the other from Subway. My car had a flat tire near Vashi, which the driver fixed. My ride was fine, I did not read more than half a page of my textbook, but did not lose my long ruler or pencil either. And we have securely closed both sides of the window and are not, in the near future, engaging with pigeons in any meaningful way if we can help it. The beak is sharp, even if the brain is not. It has gouged holes in my nice antique computer table, though it seems to have spared my new LCD monitor....