An hour with birds and the trees they come home to

For sometime now, I have been seeping in the organic food, going back to nature, environment concerns and waste recycling, healthy living, you say it, I am interested.I was also feeling quite smug and holy about it, that I am doing something to give back to nature.

So it was something of a great come down, when I spent an hour walking in a nearby park. It is full of huge and very old trees with fantastic canopy. I have been championing the cause of growing native trees, and these trees are quite native all right, no gulmohar tree, a native of madagascar. The birds were part of the ecosystem of the trees,they liked coming back there at the end of a long day and rest there for the night.

So I should be blissfully happy that one hour. But I was not. The birds were making a huge racket. I never knew birds could cackle so much, and non stop in the entire time I was there(having my walk for about an hour). Do they have so much to tell each other, or is it something like a club house and they were having a party everyday? It was like being in a school playground of a large primary school at lunch time, everybody shouting and every child screaming its head off.I was not at all pleased with the din.

Then there was this heavy shitting that was taking place. Every other walker there, will stop suddenly on her tracks, bend down, when their friend would take out a tissue and wipe off the bird shit from her hair, shoulder or back.Every one of them will look above, as if to spot the bird which did the dirty job and give it a sharp look. I would laugh to myself when this happened, till it happened to me this time.I was not amused. I kept thinking, when there are birds they will shit, and it is natural. There is no Modi directive against open defecation and swacha bharat campaign for them. But I am living in the city for the last many years, and forgotten my childhood times in the shrubs and jungles of MCC. What I do remember is that the trees used to be well spaced out, and the birds will not all congregate in one tree and have a party.They had their own pet tree and a quiet night there. The urbanisation has reduced trees to such an extent, that the birds are also living in such green areas, as though in a matchbox apartment, tightly packed.

The well laid out pathways are full of yesterdays shit and the day before and the day before and they send out a very powerful smell. Actually D used to feel particularly sick when she used to come their for walks during her pregnancy.So this is no good.

So am I only a half baked believer and when confronted with real life, not taking kindly to trees giving asylum to birds and birds having fun and answering nature's call.

Very difficult self introspection going on here.