They talk. They really do. It’s surprising. It’s infuriating. It’s uplifting.
I’ve recently been going out, leaving breakfast for buzzards, leaving Sunday sleep for sunbirds, leaving weekend retreats for real kingfishers. Leaving everything to be living with the birds. 
The little house sparrow outside my room seems to like me. The Coppersmith Barbet on the tree near my office looks at me, bobs up and down, and then starts muttering - a low musical balance of soft tweets and chirps. It's not a song. I think she's talking to me.
It's probably a measure of how much I miss talking to real people in the world, that I’m chatting with birds. But then, birds are better than bards. Barbets are better than babes. I follow them with my telephoto lens. A Drongo once scoffed me. The pond heron at Sewri gave me that dirty pooh-poohing look. The Kingfishers tell me to get gorgeous and come. I can’t help but follow.
They talk to me. I feel they’re going to show me something or lead me somewhere I need to be. They come flying from nowhere, fly into a big tree and suddenly look at me. While I fill my pixels with them, they choose to cast me off. Of course, they belong to a better world. They are packed with better people around.
As kids we all wanted to have wings. After Chidiya ud…tota ud, it always ended with Kavish ud. It’s only when we started growing up, we realised how unreasonable we were with our demands. It’s only when we lost reality to weariness and excitement to the commonplace, when we endorsed the ground.
These birds make me go unreasonable once again. They make me yearn for wings again. The freedom and power to decide on my own words again. The Kavish ud once again.
Like all my interests, this too will fade away. But the focus that raptor gave me, that quest to be elegant the bluejay offered or the chirpiness the cuckoo induces in me shall never go away.
You birds, am all here for you as long as you don't fly away. Will sacrifice many Sundays and I'll love you all your days!
