A bird whom we came to call Varalakshmi
fell into our terrace garden.
I noticed her one evening while watering plants.
A shadow shot across
a pigeon, feather thick with water, crouched behind a pot.
Mustering courage she stepped out gingerely.
She spun around several times and stood still.
I stood close to her
she did not see me
I wondered if she was blind.
I let her be
knew she will come to no harm here.
Suddenly everyone seemed to know so much about pigeons.
Ranjita said, ‘She’s a baby, let her be. She’ll fly away in a day or two.’
Mami said, ‘She’s spinning the way planes do.
She’ll will take off soon like a plane.’
Ezhumalai carried Varalakshmi,
bunching her feathers in his large hands saying,
‘She’ll be fine.’
My son scattered grains on the floor,
observed that Varalakhsmi had a purpose
in staring at the wall.
Varalakshmi walked on water,
daintily stepped around the grains
focusing only on spinning.
Her favourite perch was my pot of mint.
Her droppings spread interesting patterns on my red tiles.
We learnt to track her when she sat silently under air conditioners.
She slowly learnt the use of water.
She clumsily dipped her peak and drank,
lifting her head to look at the wall
as though her life depended on the wall.
Varalakshmi did not care for cooked rice that we placed at several places.
My advisors – the cook and my domestic help
pitched in again allaying my fears:
‘Don’t forget the worms in the pots.
She’ll take care of herself.’
Mami took off on a spiritual plane:
‘Bhagavan’s srishti!
Birds are born with intelligence, you know.’
Tired of making attempts to fly
Varalakshmi drained her energy.
I saw her slowing down,
she spinned less
but she never lost interest in the wall.
I found her one evening dead in a green secretion
far from the wall that gave her so much comfort.
We miss her though she stayed with us less than a week.
My son, pain in his voice, said ‘Silly girl!’
Varalakshmi lay alone, near us.
And we had hoped that she would learn to identify us as her family.
