It was high tide under a near full-moon at worli seaface. It was quite late and so it was not too crowded. Above the water, a barn owl hovered against the breeze. About 20 seconds, it hovered and then swooped down on what I presume must have been its prey and perched on the branch of a tree. It was National Geographic live!
“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?” asked a pot bellied man.
“Yes, very.”
“Then why do they say that it’s evil?”
“I do not think so.”
“My folks say that the thing you admire is the devil”
I do not reply and just move two steps away.
“I have killed four of those” he continued “wrapped them in a polythene bag and put them under a bus.” And then he laughed a very Bollywood villain laugh…
I just moved on.
I grew up with barn owls living in our roof. How many people asked us to kill them!
Bad omen:
It is quite ironic that owls are, in India, considered both the vehicle of Lakshmi and a bad omen!
Now, I have been thinking about omen for sometime. And I think owls are bad omen; messengers of bad news… They tell you when you have rodents infesting your fields. It’s amazing how fear makes you do manic things. Burst your eyeballs because they show you a bad picture!
Okay, drawing a grotesque picture isn’t the intention here. Last night, a fledgling sparrow was lost. It sought refuge in my house. At night, I sat by its side and slowly put my finger by its side. It hopped on to my finger. It slept on my futon last night. Early this morning, as I was about to leave to purchase an ink dropper (to feed the bird), it flew to my window. The mother was outside. I just opened the window and mother and offspring were reunited.
How easy it is for these so called lesser beings to sense and respond to love! I couldn’t help but wonder how much love there is in this world.
