Opening the house door at Mumbai after our Kanpur-Dehradun-Tamil Nadu visit, we found everything normal. But when we opened our kitchen window, we found heavy traffic of Pigeon than usual. I discovered the reason when I tried to clean the window ledge (slabs of tiles which provide a platform outside the window with the support of the grill to dry the utensils, though we don’t use it) off the carton box. It was a nicely woven nest of pigeon. So I did not remove the box which shaded it from the Sun and also covered it from the view of predator birds. In two days, we found two eggs in the nest.
Now the pigeon started to brood over it. Though in the beginning the Pigeon was startled by our movement in the kitchen and our constant peeping, it soon got accustomed to it. Even if we stare at it for a long time it won’t move. Only when we stretch our hands it will move away from the eggs. The vigil of the Pigeon and us continued. We relished showing the eggs to all our visitors. Then one day a cute little fledgling appeared. We were so excited. But soon we discovered that another egg did not hatch and the mother kicked it out off the nest.
Cute little Pigeon
We followed the growth of the fledgling. It was an exciting thing. Soft-golden feathers shooting off the tender skin of the little one and the innocent groping of the fledgling till the eyes opened was a grand thing to watch. I bet the mother did a good job in feeding it continuously. It became very fat. The normal colour of the pigeon: grey pattern came in the feathers as the tender feathers gave way to the normal hard ones. Now as it grew fast it started moving away from us. It hid itself in the far away corner so that we will not see it often. But still we had the satisfaction that we are hosting it in our window ledge and we are its protectors.
We too had to undergo difficulties to host this little bird. We could not open one side of the window in the kitchen. As Sun pushed the mercury level high in the city, one closed window mattered a lot. We did think of throwing the bird down and opening our window, but finally the good nature in us overwhelmed us. My wife, who normally never tolerate any smell or spot in our vicinity, had to endure the window ledge littered with cloths (on which the nest was built), refuse of the fledgling and the carton box which spoils the look of our kitchen window when viewed from the outside. But we endured all this, praying that soon the Pigeon will fly away and both we and the pigeon will be happy.
Our dreams were shattered one day. I was talking to my mom on the phone and casually I looked out of the window. To my shock I saw two more pigeon eggs on the same nest and the fledgling (which is grown now) moved to another corner of the ledge to facilitate this egg laying. Surely the word has gone out in the pigeon circle that this window ledge is lucky and the people here are kind hosts. We have decided to show our Christian love through patience and forbearance. We are bracing to face some more hot days so that we will save this pair of little ones too. We are again excited. We are waiting. We want to see these eggs break and puny pigeons coming out of it. We will forget the pain in the pleasure of seeing the wonder of God’s creation very close to us.
As our Sunday School Children spread around the church to distribute Roses to the mothers who are standing, I felt overwhelmed. Can a single Rose express the feeling we have for our mothers? Is it a fitting gift for Mother’s Day? Though the answer was NO, I could not think of a better gift also. Every other thing I thought-of as gift, fall short in some ways to translate what I feel even symbolically. So those small Roses show our helplessness to convey how we cherish our mothers. When words and symbols cannot express, we need to stand in awe and silence (roses are better than silence).
