Brunch with Birds

I have never been an avid bird lover (May be, the thought of not having chicken to eat drifts me away from such love stories!!). But I nominated myself for the program called ‘Brunch with Birds’; more for the brunch than the birds, and the thought of getting into the Film city.

On Saturday night Sujal called and we decided to meet at Dadar at 6:15 AM as we had to reach the film city gate, Goregaon by 7:30 AM (Hello!!!! It was Sunday morning of a software engineer!!!). The BNHS bus was arranged to pick the participants from there to the venue. Anyways. We started late and we reached late. Rama also joined us on the way. As it was very clear that we would have missed the bus if we hoped to get it, we took an auto rickshaw. Unaware of the venue, we somehow reached it after halting and asking at every gate (however few they were) in side the film city. On arrival at the center, we were informed that Neemita had already collected our passes and we happily got seated in the auditorium where the introduction was about to start.

The program started with an introductory session by Dr Subhalakshmi. She briefed us about Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and all the Why’s, what’s, who’s, Where’s and When’s about it. It was followed by a short movie on birds. It appeared to me like any other national geographic program viewed on a bigger screen, and I was wondering – Birds are beautiful creatures, except pigeons, I suppose (Trust me, its very irritating when they reside in your house without your permission and behave as if they are the landlords). After the movie, our bird watching session was scheduled. All the participants were first divided into two major groups, Adults and children. I was in the adults group, so were my other TCS colleaguesJ. We were further divided into various groups. Each group was escorted by two volunteers from BNHS. From auditorium, we moved to the bird watching venue.

It was a kind of forest. On the way, our leaders tried hard to make us see some birds and my group members did see some. I could only see crows, a big, giant scorpion and an equally big butterfly. They told about n-number of birds, their names and its origin, their calls, their habitat and what not but I have a bad memory. But I loved the jungle. What peace, man!! I was in middle of this noisy city and still I felt like meditating. The best was when we reached a small hill top. Beautiful it was. I asked the instructor if we could come and roam around in the jungle whenever we wish. He informed me that we need to take permission from forest department which sits in BoriwaliJ. From there, we returned to the BNHS building where we were served with the brunch. This was followed by a session by a scientist from BNHS about the endangered bird species.

After my ILP@TCS in January, it was the first lecture I attended this year. And it was boring to me till a bird genius ignited my interest in the class. He must have been a student of class VIII or IX, I guess. But what knowledge he had about birds!!! Simply superb. For all the questions the man on the dais popped up, he had the answers and something more to offer in response. By middle of the lecture, we could see our lecturer was getting bugged a bit, but he managed to keep his calm. Towards the end of the lecture, everybody murmured to everybody else around that the boy was a genius when it comes to the knowledge of birds and he could better take the class. And the class was happily concluded. Happy I was - to discover that we do have such children in India and, of course, for the reason that the class was over.

From here we were taken to a series of stalls, where they talked on different topics on birds ranging from their habitat, migration practices, bird calls, and environmental issues and how they affect the birds. All this was followed by a quiz on the days learning and luckily, we TCSers were in the group which was destined to win as we had a leader with a solid interest in birds ( she was very sad by the rapid growth in mobile industry as she learnt that the mobile signals are harmful for birds. Also, she was curious to know the ways by which she could attract a particular kind of bird to her terrace!!). So we won.

The event was summed up by a conclusive talk by Dr Subhalakshmi and a show by the volunteers of ‘Save Ranibaug’ cause.

Now, the question is did I waste my half Sunday not being a hardcore bird lover? I must say, it’s not about the birds that I learnt that day, but about human beings. There was this eighty plus lady, a retired physician, talking passionately about bird migration; a woman in her seventies, a practicing doctor, wished sincerely to save Ranibaug from getting converted into a modern city center by demolishing the natural beauty of the place; a full time bird scientist who has dedicated his life to birds and working on balancing the environment so that we all can coexist and recently trying to protect the Sewri area in Mumbai for Flamingoes; a professional who volunteered to spend her weekends for such bird awareness programs and many more such examples. The common thread? The passion towards a mission they have taken up in life. And that’s what I learnt, or rather re-learnt, that day.

And, indeed, I did get to see some television stars being shot on the way back to the city :)