Friday, September 13, 2013

Pigeons & Sparrows

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There's an Owl in My Room
James Thurber, The New Yorker, 17-Nov-1934

I saw Gertrude Stein on the screen of a newsreel theater one afternoon and I heard her read that famous passage of hers about pigeons on the grass, alas (the sorrow is, as you know, Miss Stein's). After reading about the pigeons on the grass alas, Miss Stein said, "This is a simple description of a landscape I have seen many times." I don't really believe that that is true. Pigeons on the grass alas may be a simple description of Miss Stein's own consciousness, but it is not a simple description of a plot of grass on which pigeons have alighted, are alighting, or are going to alight. A truly simple description of the pigeons alighting on the grass of the Luxembourg Gardens (which, I believe, is where the pigeons alighted) would say of the pigeons alighting there only that they were pigeons alighting. Pigeons that alight anywhere are neither sad pigeons nor gay pigeons, they are simply pigeons.

It is neither just nor accurate to connect the word alas with pigeons. Pigeons are definitely not alas. They have nothing to do with alas and they have nothing to do with hooray (not even when you tie red, white, and blue ribbons on them and let them loose at band concerts); they have nothing to do with mercy me or isn't that fine, either. White rabbits, yes, and Scotch terriers, and blue-jays, and even hippopotamuses, but not pigeons. I happen to have studied pigeons very closely and carefully, and I have studied the effect, or rather the lack of effect, of pigeons very carefully. A number of pigeons alight from time to time on the sill of my hotel window when I am eating breakfast and staring out the window. They never alas me, they never make me feel alas; they never make me feel anything.

Nobody and no animal and no other bird can play a scene so far down as a pigeon can. For instance, when a pigeon on my window ledge becomes aware of me sitting there in a chair in my blue polka-dot dressing-gown, worrying, he pokes his head far out from his shoulders and peers sideways at me, for all the world (Miss Stein might surmise) like a timid man peering around the corner of a building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed by some hoofed fiend or only by the echo of his own footsteps. And yet it is not for all the world like a timid man peering around the corner of a building trying to ascertain whether he is being followed by a hoofed fiend or only by the echo of his own footsteps, at all. And that is because there is no emotion in the pigeon and no power to arouse emotion. A pigeon looking is just a pigeon looking. When it comes to emotion, a fish, compared to a pigeon, is practically beside himself.

A pigeon peering at me doesn't make me sad or glad or apprehensive or hopeful. With a horse or a cow or a dog it would be different. It would be especially different with a dog. Some dogs peer at me as if I had just gone completely crazy or as if they had just gone completely crazy. I can go so far as to say that most dogs peer at me that way. This creates in the consciousness of both me and the dog a feeling of alarm or downright terror and legitimately permits me to work into a description of the landscape, in which the dog and myself are figures, a note of emotion. Thus I should not have minded if Miss Stein had written: dogs on the grass, look out, dogs on the grass, look out, look out, dogs on the grass, look out Alice. That would be a simple description of dogs on the grass. But when any writer pretends that a pigeon makes him sad, or makes him anything else, I must instantly protest that this is a highly specialized fantastic impression created in an individual consciousness and that therefore it cannot fairly be presented as a simple description of what actually was to be seen.

People who do not understand pigeons-and pigeons can be understood only when you understand that there is nothing to understand about them-should not go around describing pigeons or the effect of pigeons. Pigeons come closer to a zero of impingement than any other birds. Hens embarrass me the way my old Aunt Hattie used to when I was twelve and she still insisted I wasn't big enough to bathe myself; owls disturb me; if I am with an eagle I always pretend that I am not with an eagle; and so on down to swallows at twilight who scare the hell out of me. But pigeons have absolutely no effect on me. They have absolutely no effect on anybody. They couldn't even startle a child. That is why they are selected from among all birds to be let loose, with colored ribbons attached to them, at band concerts, library dedications, and christenings of new dirigibles. If any body let loose a lot of owls on such an occasion there would be rioting and catcalls and whistling and fainting spells end throwing of chairs and the Lord only knows what else.

From where I am sitting now I can look out the window and see a pigeon being a pigeon on the roof of the Harvard Club. No other thing can be less what it is not than a pigeon can, and Miss Stein, of all people, should understand that simple fact. Behind the pigeon I am looking at, a blank wall of tired gray bricks is stolidly trying to sleep off oblivion; underneath the pigeon the cloistered windows of the Harvard Club are staring in horrified bewilderment at something they have seen across the street. The pigeon is just there on the roof being a pigeon, having been, and being, a pigeon and, what is more, always going to be, too. Nothing could be simpler than that. If you read that sentence aloud you will instantly see what I mean. It is a simple description of a pigeon on a roof. It is only with an effort that I am conscious of the pigeon, but I am acutely aware of a great sulky red iron pipe that is creeping up the side of the building intent on sneaking up on a slightly tipsy chimney which is shouting its head off.

There is nothing a pigeon can do or be that would make me feel sorry for it or for myself or for the people in the world, just as there is nothing I could do or be that would make a pigeon feel sorry for itself. Even if I plucked his feathers out it would not make him feel sorry for himself and it would not make me feel sorry for myself or for him. But try plucking the quills out of a porcupine or even plucking the fur out of a jackrabbit. There is nothing a pigeon could be, or can be, rather, which could get into my consciousness like a fumbling hand in a bureau drawer and disarrange my mind or pull anything out of it. I bar nothing at all. You could dress up a pigeon in a tiny suit of evening clothes and put a tiny silk hat on his head and a tiny gold-headed cane under his wing and send him walking into my room at night. It would make no impression on me. I would not shout, "Good god almighty, the birds are in charge!" But you could send an owl into my room, dressed only in the feathers it was born with, and no monkey business, and I would pull the covers over my head and scream.

No other thing in the world falls so far short of being able to do what it cannot do as a pigeon does. Of being unable to do what it can do, too, as far as that goes.




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That was a torrential tirade on poor Gerturde Stein's 'Pigeons, Alas!'

 To Thurber, pigeons are the ultimate emotional nonentities.

But not to me...may be the NYC's pigeons are a different breed than my Hyderabadi ones in our Gated Community...the Janapriya Nile Valley.

These pigeons here make me angry, frustrated, bitter and helpless.


It is like this:

For the past couple of years Hyderabadis have been observing the World Sparrow Day on March 20 (my wife's birthday). On this day we are urged to revive the species of the 'house sparrow' that is fast vanishing from our cities. 

In my boyhood at Muthukur, I never saw a pigeon but sparrows were my daily companions. The climate was hot and all our doors were open throughout the day. And our houses were not far away from fields and greenery. Sparrows need food...like you and me...to survive and breed. They relish grains like rice, and seeds, and, occasionally, insects. They are too mild and weak to survive in the wild and so they prefer to live...if at all... near humanity. And build their nests compulsively inside the safety of attics, and crevices in beams, and behind picture frames hanging in our homes which those days were an open-house for them. 

And they mate for life...cute!

But our concrete city-homes are getting denuded of all these sparrow-resorts. So sparrows are disappearing from our cities fast. Which is a pity. Old folks like me quite miss them. So the organizers of the WSD have been spreading ads in newspapers to help by just doing a simple thing...keep a small bowl of rice and a small dish of water in our balconies. Well, we are fortunate to have as many as 3+1 balconies but the main balcony is always shady. So it was no big deal.

Ishani's parents, to the utter delight of Ishani, undertook this venture hoping to show Ishani how a sparrow looks like in flesh and blood...than in color pictures in her text book...'s' for 'sparrow'...

I was rather pessimistic about the affair but watchful. In just a couple of days I started hearing the faint music of 'pichik', 'pichik' from my bed. And was astonished to see a couple of cute and tiny sparrows descending on our balcony and picking up rice demurely and delicately...grain by grain...for a couple of seconds. And dip their tiny beaks in the dish and take a sip and fly away. 

Only to return after an hour and restart their delightful 'pichiking' and a repeat telecast of their simple feeding and drinking habits. The bowl of rice lasted a fortnight and the dish of water a couple of days...Hyderabad is bone-dry and every bit of water evaporates. No problem...Ishani would refill the dish as soon as she returns from school and flings the heavy school bag on her back and the water bottle round her neck.

All of us were delighted because our sparrows never disturbed us. It was a free Nature Show for all of us.

After a month or so, a couple of heavy pigeons discovered what the sparrows were up to. And descended and landed on the railing of our balcony. These chaps never sang their song whatever it is...but loudly flapped their noisy wings...a somewhat disturbing sight and sound for me. Well, it was ok...God gave us enough rice for both the sparrows and pigeons...my son discovered an old bag full of brown rice infested with tiny bugs...and the sparrows loved this rice-bug combo.

But our pigeons are not dainty eaters...they were noisy and always upset the bowl of rice scattering the grain all over the floor...and drinking spoonfuls of water...our sparrows got defeated...and came only once in a while when they were alone. It was not easy for Ishani to pick up hundreds of rice grains scattered all over the floor and she stopped taking interest in the affair slowly and slowly...

...So Darwin was right...the fittest are surviving at the expense of weaklings. 

And that makes me angry, frustrated, bitter and helpless with our pigeons...unlike Thurber.

Our first PM, Nehrujee, was always seen in photos releasing doves of peace into the skies of Delhi of the 1950s...he was after the Peace Thing.

But not so his great-grandson who is reluctantly gunning for his hereditary throne...like Caesar who declined the crown thrice. 

He is not after peace...which is elusive and illusory.     

So he has decided to fight the poor and the hungry...I mean poverty and hunger of the deprived aam admi (aam mahila too).

So I guess he should start releasing house sparrows (instead of doves) into the Delhi skies. These are available, I am told, in the street corner shops of Benares at the cheap rate of Rs 10 a dozen...don't eat them  but...
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