Up with the Birds

Though every morning I wake up much before the birds do I do not get the opportunity of watching them closely for long. Once a month though I deliberately set aside my morning routine and go to the Necklace Road where I spend sometime in solitude by the lakeside. Since the past month I’ve taken to a kind of bird watching. Even before the sky lights up with the first rays of the sun several kinds of birds, especially geese, begin to fly in towards the city from god knows where. They come in waves, one after the other, some waves made up of just two birds and some consisting of more than a dozen. But the birds are something worth watching if only for their fluid grace. They first appear as specks on the horizon growing larger and larger as they come closer to the lake. Wings flapping gracefully, the geese fly in formation sometimes descending low just inches over the surface of the lake and then soaring up again to fly onwards. Then there are the birds in the water gliding around smoothly. There are other birds, nervously darting around their cries filling the silence of the morning.

But somehow, on this Sunday I felt that some of the usual magic was missing. Adding to this feeling of disappointment was the unwelcome presence of a young person. I sat at my usual spot on the lakeside, on a bench just near the edge of the lake near some kind of a tower that was overgrown with weeds. This youngster fully dressed in jeans and shoes at that early hour (six am) ambled into the till then idyllic scene speaking loudly into his mobile phone. Still talking into the phone he looked around and parked himself in such a manner to block my view of the lake. He stood there leaning against the metal fencing. I got a little annoyed by this invasion of my privacy. The whole of the Necklace Road was empty and this guy chose that very spot to carry on his conversation on the mobile phone. After he finished talking he stood for sometime staring at the lake. I briefly thought he was going to jump in but he took out his mobile and snapped a picture of the lake. I was almost ready to get up and move to a different spot when he moved away and left me in peace to watch the sun rise.

Afterwards the sun emerged out of the horizon slowly, first appearing as a pink blob and then changing to read as it climbed higher into the sky. Sometimes I feel that one should watch the sunrise over a body of water like a lake or the sea everyday but I know it is something impossible. But whenever I am near the sea I never miss the sunrise. I’ve done it in the Andamans, I’ve done it in Visakapatnam and I’ve done it at Kakinada. It is magical and nothing can express the feeling of watching the sunrise at such places all by oneself.


Later, I went to Adarsh for a cup of Irani chai and spent almost an hour reading the newspapers. When you read the papers leisurely on such peaceful mornings the world, the people and everything in it appears different. There wasn’t much of a crowd at Adarsh that morning maybe because it was also Holi. I was immersed in reading the paper from top to bottom and the waiter, a distinguished looking man with a long silvery beard reminded me that my tea was getting cold. I missed my old friend, the smoker who is not to be seen since a long time. I wonder if he has gone where the smoke from his cigarettes goes- up.