During lockdown, a lot of my neighbours have been knocking on my window.
This guy wasn’t one of them. He was just minding his own business. Meet Chatters–our neighbour squirrel on the way to becoming a whale.
He lives on the tree next to our window and had been eating constantly all summer last year, all winter (I don’t think he can deal with hibernation– no food for four months!), all spring this year and now half the summer.
He started a puny little thing and looked cute munching on the flowers. But he ate…and ate…and I started wondering how he can climb up and down the tree with so much food in his system. So, when I saw him hanging upside down on the tree branch, I was sure he had taken up Yoga to lose some weight.
But alas, he was chewing the dried beans from the tree. So much for losing weight.
In that moment, he reminded me a lot of another rodent who hangs upside down in the next tree. So far, I had believed that bats were flying rats…but all of a sudden, I could see the family resemblance, the thin fingers holding the branches tightly, the cute puppy face (until you see the teeth), the pointy ears and beady eyes.
As I saw Chatters, still hanging upside down, eyeing Kohl, the pretty lady hanging on the next tree, I wondered if he was trying to impress; as Kohl eyed him right back, whether we’ll see some ‘flying squirrels’ in the coming months…
During lockdown, our neighbours have been knocking on our windows for various reasons. This series is dedicated to them.
A squabbling Babbler–his partner is just out of camera view.
Recently, we got a visit from the Jungle Babblers–not sure about their names, since they never got around to introduce themselves.
One of them just knocked on the window at 6 am and, then, hopped back on the tree to argue with another Babbler. Or may be, they were just talking…Babblers can be pretty loud about their views and a simple-minded person like me can easily misjudge it as an argument.
Anyway, when I reached the window to check who it is, both of them looked pretty peeved…but then, Jungle Babblers always look peeved.
So, I felt rather uninvited in this heated discussion, which could be about anything–a fight among neighbours for the best branch rights (it is time to build nests), a lover’s quarrel over who will change diapers once the babies are delivered (Read The Delivery Guy to find out more), or a discussion about the weather.
But it was intense, because discussions are always intense among Babblers.
So, I stood there sleepy-eyed and waiting for niceties and for someone to explain why they woke me up. May be, they wanted someone to mediate but all I could hear was a lot of swearing in Babbl-ish (they have some really obscene words, like ‘crockacrockacrow’ and ‘cruuuckkrrrrr’). So, after 5 minutes, I finally gave up, left them to settle the ‘argument’ themselves…if it was one, and went back to sleep.
I think they felt insulted, since they haven’t visited me again. But, for once, I am not sorry. I don’t want my baby to grow up learning such foul language. Would you?
I had earlier written this series. Lately, I realised that I could do a better job at it. I have rewritten the stories and collated them since I felt that they make more sense this way. Let me know what you all think.
The Tiger
“Of course, it is better than the circus I was at earlier. The minions feed me well and scrub me often too. My 100×100 feet home comes fitted with grass to lay on and trees to scratch my back. But I miss the drinking straight from the stream, the rush of excitement I used to feel on running after my prey, and most of all, running around the forest with mom.
Don’t know when I will see them again.”
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The Flamingo
“That cramped cage and now this!
Do they really think I’m better off in this aviary I have to share with these minions? How I hate the Gobble-Gobble and the Cackle-Cackle—the constant cacophony of the mindless birds who have never seen the world!
I can see the sky from here. The way the Sun and clouds call to me and the wind lifts me up only to crash me in the damned fence—never before had I thought that hell was real.”
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The Lion
The Lion growled at the flash of the camera.
“How I hate them when they pry in like that. Is there no privacy here? What’s the point of giving me a mate when I can’t even nuzzle her without hearing a camera click somewhere?
Well, if I can’t be alone with her, why even bother? Let them think I’m not interested.”
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The Stag
“I see her sad eyes filled with longing across the wired high fence. I feel the same longing deep within; a loneliness I never thought could exist. A bondage that I never realized cuts through me in every waking moment and dreams too.
Of course, I have a herd. They have given me five mates.
But in this moment, I feel I never had a choice.”
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The Alligator
“Where have all the eggs gone again? I had buried them in the sand under the tree. Did the birds find them again? But I never saw them descend…
I’ve scoured every inch of land within the enclosure. Did someone steal them and took them away?
But no one came…Well, except the cleaner…But he wouldn’t do that to me, would he? He must know how much my babies mean to me.
Maybe they hatched when I was eating and are hiding in the water already. But where are the shells then?”
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The Hippopotamus
“They have sent me a new ‘wife’! Do they really think she can distract me?
They took away my real wife four months back when she was several months along. I let them because the guy who treated my leg was with them too. Ever since then, I’ve waited for her to return with the baby. But now I hear her and the baby in a distance from another enclosure. I called her and she called me right back.
I tried to break the walls to reach her, but they were too strong.
Now, they have sent me a new ‘wife’! As if I care! Damn these walls!”
The little girl looked at the gingerbread house on the display through the glass walls with eyes brimming with longing. This year, she had neither a house nor bread.
I have been seeing too many crazy neighbours during lockdown and I am dedicating them a series.
Athena, the eagle, is the queen of my area. Most birds give her a wide berth in the sky and if she swoops lower, they rush to hide and avoid her wrath. I’m a fan of her grace. In theory, I knew she preys upon birds too. But I never saw it before that fateful day.
I was up early that morning and the world was full of twittering and tweeting. I could see a couple of lapwings (small water birds the size of a pigeon) flying towards my home, playing and teasing each other with the did-you-do-it call. Suddenly, Athena descended from the sky, grabbed one of them, and flew away.
White feathers fell from the sky as the victim struggled and surviving mate called out in a heartbreaking voice. My heroine had just separated lovers. Forever.
I knew this is what eagles do, but that couldn’t take away the resentment. I hoped the survivor will get over it soon, since he’s “just a bird”…
In the afternoon, I went to the rooftop for some chore and again heard the same heartbreaking cries, this time filled with anger. I looked up at the sky and saw what I had never thought possible.
A lone lapwing, the pigeon-sized thing that did not stand a chance against an eagle, was attacking Athena, over and over, as if he was avenging his love or, may be, he had a death wish.
Athena did not strike back. She just tried to save itself by hiding in a tree. The lapwing kept up the attacks until he was too tired to fly.
I saw the same thing after four days. Not sure, if he ever let her rest. I didn’t see a lapwing again in the area, so I hope Athena wasn’t too fed up or hungry that day or whenever he last struck.
And here I had thought that birds were devoid of ‘human emotions’; that they were…just ‘birds’.
The pool in his estate, built on his brother’s suggestion, was meant to be decorative, until, in a drunken stupor, he tripped over his girlfriend’s long legs.
His brother ran out of the huge house at the hue and cry, and took off his expensive Rolex and Ray-Ban– dallying just long enough to ensure the ‘inevitable’–before jumping in the pool after him.
When the Police arrived, his brother was wiping tears off his girl’s face, while the Rolex and Ray-Ban lay by the poolside winking in the sun.
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 