My Wild Neighborhood - Pilani

Those were very challenging days for me, sleepless nights and mornings with an ache in my heart and stomach. One fine day I decided to leave the city, where my dreams started to bloom, where life slowly flowered and eventually withered though it gave a fruit in my hand; my PhD degree. Numbness had spread over me like a rash. Wherever I went, within and outside, it felt lifeless. Pilani welcomed me with a different landscape, weather, and birds! As the days settled into calm and peaceful routine, as my mind started unwinding, I became curious about the flock of birds around. It was my husband who ignited the quest to spot and identify birds, observe their habits, and be aware of their calls or songs. Pilani is home to hundreds of rose-ringed parakeets, rock pigeons, doves, robins, bulbuls, mynas, babblers, swifts, sparrows, and many more. It is one of the hotspots for bird spotting in the Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. So, it all started from there! Every chance to walk amidst the trees became an act of bird-watching. Clicking photographs of nesting parakeets, fearless mynas, and chit-chatting babblers, all in the harsh cold winter days surviving on the mustard and wheat fields nearby, also fed by a bunch of enthusiasts in the area. I started making lists of my lifer birds, reading about their characteristics, utterly surprised at times and excited like a little kid when a red-vented bulbul started visiting at my window, choosing green sweet grapes over anything else I kept. My morning sickness gave away its strings around my heart to a gentle hug from the sweet tunes. It was a place far away from my home, but it brought me back home, with bird songs every morning.