The Non-Wings

by Shivangi Ramachandran – University of Oregan

The sounds of ringing phones, chattering voices and looming deadlines, that sounded suspiciously like the clicking of the spacebar key, wouldn’t leave me alone the last couple of days I was in Bombay. It was all for a college project that I needed to get done and I had immersed myself completely in the project, putting my family and friends in the backburner for those couple of months. While the two months were professionally challenging, I felt unbelievably tied down during that period. Tied down by being around my family, after living an independent life for many years; tied down by my “multicultural-ness” and the snide way that it was talked about by people that came from living in another country for a good part of my life; tied down by my large suitcases filled with things that I picked up everywhere I went, things that were now refusing to fit into the bag.

One of the last few days I was in the city, as I was getting back from work, it was raining heavily – the usual Bombay rain. After treading through calf-high water and getting completely and totally drenched, the 30-something cycle rickshaw I had stopped finally took pity on me and decided to drop me home. I rushed home with my useless umbrella over my head and got inside my nice, warm, if small, room and felt safe.

After drying myself off and getting myself a cup of chai, I looked out of my window and saw a familiar annoying pigeon sitting under it.

There are very few things in life that I encounter that I happen to detest at first sight. But these things, as few as they are, usually incite in me strong feelings – hate being an understatement. Pigeons, as far back as I can remember, have always been one of these few things that make me hate life in general.

I cannot stand pigeons. To me, they’re dirty, disgusting, filthy little creatures that exist to make my life hell. I thought I hated them before, but the hate escalated to whole new level recently. Over the summer, I developed an unbelievably intense negative reaction to the birds – especially since I was living in Mumbai, a city that has been infiltrated by them. They’re everywhere. When you wake up at 3 in the morning and you really need a smoke and you step outside and accidentally touch pigeon crap that has molded itself like second skin to the railing, you will tend to want to physically hurt these pigeons too. Especially if you have to pay extra money to have it cleaned up.

It doesn’t help that they practically live the life that I want to lead, and at that same moment, was dying to lead. They fly. I would kill to fly, to be able to take off on will – to not have to worry about tickets or passports or visas or laundry or buying beds and clothes; To take off an a whim and land up in a different place; To not have any ties to other people or places. They don’t belong to one place. They’re of the world – not of one country or two countries. They don’t have to keep defining themselves in terms of where they were born or where they lived for two years or what their accent is like.

They just go guttergoo and fly away.

I want to go guttergoo and fly away.

All of this negativity doesn’t just stem from being around pigeon crap – though that definitely contributes to it. I was personally at war with this pigeon in Bombay. He or she, lived right underneath my window and we’ve had problems ever since I moved into my room. I thought we got off to an okay start. I smiled – and it grunted and I thought we were good, but apparently it took to disliking me immediately.

It woke me up every morning at 6 am. Every morning. And every morning, without fail, I used to wake up in a rage and try to shoo it away. It would hop three steps away, just out of my reach and look at me mockingly. It would stand just out of my reach and cock it’s head to the side and look at me with a mocking expression that fit perfectly with those golden-brown eyes. I would growl in frustration and it would grunt at me merrily hoping from one foot to the other as I stared at it completely frustrated.

It’s as if it were telling me that I couldn’t do anything and it probably was in it’s own unaccented language.

Today, I stared at, willing it to disappear. I had absolutely no energy to fit with an extremely annoying pigeon, this time of day. I shooed it away like I always do and in the process looking a little crazy, and it hopped the same three steps that it always does. This time though, a big trickle of water poured down on its head and it hopped the three steps back.

I shooed at it again and it flinched and looked at me imploringly. I stared into the gold flecked eyes and determinedly shooed it away again, waving my hands closer. It hopped a step and the rain rushed down at it again and it hopped back, pleading me with its eyes.

I sighed and lit my cigarette and watched it as it courageously shifted closer to me, watching me cautiously the entire time. I’d given up  though -  that nice part of me that makes an appearance once in a while took over, and so I let it sidle up to me as much as it had the guts to.

I looked at it and it looked back at me and we shared a moment, to my disgust.

And we also shared a lesson, to my… more extreme disgust.

I looked at the chai in my hand that warmed me, the bed that would later serve to rest my tired body and the family and friends I had acquired through these non-wings that I had, that I could completely depend on and then I noticed the envious gold-flecked eyes that studied me intently, and the wings weren’t worth all that anymore.

I smiled at it grudgingly and shifted a little more so it could hop in closer and then sighed as I realized…

… that the most annoying part about this was that I had to learn all of this from a crap machine with gold flecked eyes.

God, I hate pigeons.