The crows
My disquiet dream suddenly erupted with the noise of a giant claw raking its nails on a road. I went to the window, and there it was, a yellowed earth mover coated with the sleepy lights of the street below. That monstrous contraption was trying to back into a small galli, cycle-gap-la JCB. I tapped on the phone and it was five minutes after midnight. I looked at the street again, the third ice cream parlour’s lights were still on, I could sense clusters people on the other side of the street opposite. Many homes had not yet gone to sleep, their yellow and one mysterious purple* square of light signaling activity.
When your sleep is interrupted by a loud noise, it is disorienting, for it is as if you have suddenly gone from deep sleep to full awake. Some portions of your innards are still stuck in dreamland, pulsing to a different rhythm. I glared at the yellowed earth mover, as if I could pulverise it with my miffed gaze. It lumbered on, trying to manouevre into that narrow street from another narrow street.
I heard the crows commiserate. They too were miffed, and protested furiously at the earth mover’s metallic nails dragging on the cemented street, and demanded, like me, that their dreams of disquiet be left undisturbed. This entire city is slowly going deaf, that’s why protests are getting louder and louder.
Does anyone study crows who live in Goregaon? Do these birds suffer from insomnia? What dreams do they have?
I see the crows puzzling over miniature trees on windows floating on the tenth floor. The trees are behind knit metal grills, and the crows hover outside, glaring. I am sure the crows have anger issues.
Before, folks used to keep small cups of water and birdfeed, hoping they would be eaten by crows and not pigeons, but then the Society Rules have been typed up and pasted behind glass boxes — thou shalt not keep anything on the window grill; if an object falls from that high, it can have disastrous consequences on the head of someone walking below.
Once I saw four crows tussling with a kite over the carcass of a dead bird. One crow would distract the kite, and the other would grab a bite, and move the inert body. The kite would swoop in again, and then another crow would distract it. It was playing out on the terrace mosaic of a building that still has only six floors.
I met D. in a restaurant that winded through two floors of narrow stairs before opening out to a side door. The signboard at the door said, you are safe, this building has followded fire safety codes. I imagined us all running on two floors of that narrow staircase in case of fire, in an orderly manner. A crow could fly away.
Ma misses a crow that used to come and eat at her kitchen window. She thought it was my paati, for the crow too only liked fried food. It would refuse to eat things like subzi and roast paapad.
I woke up early, switching off the alarm before it rang. For a few minutes, I sat at the window looking outside, a pre dawn hush fell on the city like a much loved dohar. The vehicles chugged past, too tired to honk. Even the crows had dozed off, night shift done, birdsong on mute.