Visitors.

When I was in my lonely hostel room in South Campus, I had the most dangerous yet unusual neighbors; a beehive right outside my window.

 

Actually, they were the reason why I chose that room. Because of them, I could never open that side of the window. It was me and my friend K who went to see the room first. We never expected a beehive to be outside the window. While casually opening the window to experience the scenic beauty outside, we happened to see this dangerous thing right above our heads and screamed the shit out of us before running back into the corridor. Gradually, I became friends with the hive. Even though it wasn’t like I gave them flowers and they gave me honey instead, we became slowly aware of our existence and we co-existed for almost a year with mutual understanding that I’d never open that window to disturb them and they’d never enter my territory to frighten me. I forgave their occasional intrusions and they pardoned the almost weekly parties and noise from my side. They also helped me drive away a few people who had been sent from the hostel office to occupy my room and destroy my privacy. Every time someone showed up at my door step, to be my room-mate, I just raised the curtains and showed the beehive (it was always in a constant stage of growth) to them. The simple truth that there was a vicious colony of insects outside the windows drove most room-seekers out of the corridors (also, out of their wits) soon enough for me to close the door and laugh my brains out!

There were also a couple of puppies who always used to stick together for food. Though, I’m not really a dog lover, I used to feed them biscuits. I never entertained them inside my room. Most evenings, I could hear them scratching on my door and one day suddenly they disappeared.

The other visitors I had was a couple of sparrows. I used to keep some grains outside my window for the sparrows and during the summer, a small bowl of water. I have seen them (and photographed them, too) very often drinking water from the bowl. Every once in a while when I appear near the windows, they used to fly away. But, some weeks later they figured out that I wasn’t planning to roast them, so they stopped panicking at the sight of me. I couldn’t take our flourishing relationship to another level because I got an opportunity to have a room in the Research Scholar’s hotel in the main campus and jumped at it. I remember posting a farewell note to my wild companions…

Now that I am in this place where there is a nice balcony opening to the sky, I thought I’d try and woo the birds here. Being on the third floor, there’s not much of an option to woo anything except for the things that can fly. And, sparrows are here too. I have a bowl outside which has water for them and recently I added a piece of coconut shell (to be on the nature friendly side) with some grains it. This morning I captured a couple of sparrows in the balcony, chirping and flying around, drinking water from the bowl and glancing at the rice suspiciously. I have no idea whether they ate the rice grains but I think they’ll soon get there.

I hope to make an acquaintance soon. I feel like some nerd scientist/space researcher waiting to make contact with a bunch of aliens in the horizon.