Nestling happiness

Hold a baby in your arms, and you are overwhelmed by the soft human tenderness, the soft skin, the gentle gurgles and trusting eyes.

Again you are beset, get possessive and want to preserve that tender wonderment. Take in a breath, hold the baby closer to the chest, and let the baby-smells and innocence permeated and warm your heart.

Instantly at that moment you make a promise to the unquestioning baby “I will protect you!” The baby did not ask - you volunteered. “It’s a harsh world out there,” you tell the baby. Again the baby did not ask you - you spoke, it’s your way of preparing yourself to parent responsibly. Despite the fact that it is a harsh world out there, yet there are pleasures, as little as a baby in your arms.

Then equally reassuring is the pleasure when the red vented bulbuls return, exactly in this time of the year. Busy tweeting their arrival, sending ripples of excitement in the family. We surreptitiously watch from a vantage point in the drawing-room. The flurry of activity, in the bush, the same bush they find safe for the forthcoming fledglings.
I look at their busy life; it blends in with the busy city life, just as busy as any urbane human focused on a job.  There ends the likeness; these are harmless, surviving in a very human world, where technology sends out wrong vibes. They survive the air pollutants and cellular air ingressions. Perhaps like we keep away from secondary smoking, they tell their young to keep away from tertiary transmissions.

Amazed at the way they return each year the same time, and find that birthing bush, at any odds the humans throw at them. They have adapted into an environment, which changes in the short span of their generations. Aggressive in pursuit of a life, limited to a few cozy nooks, places of peace to evolve a family. There are no orientation programs for the changing scenario in their lifestyles, the way they forage food, and where to find twigs to build their nest, and the most conducive perch for safety of the eggs. They have enemies; the crows peek in to see if the eggs can be beaked up for a meal. They face adversity too, yet they find ways to survive and breed.

Whoever adversely used the word bird brained! Probably had no time to bird-watch! There is a lesson in here for us all. Beauty in life is - life itself. The way it was meant to be and science and technology too were meant to be, or else we wouldn’t be wired thus, the birds know it and we should too!