I woke up, because it was hot. I gaze outside my room’s window, being a software engineer living at Pune, I felt early for a weekend. I checked my mobile and I was shocked. Not because it showed 8:00 am, but because below time notification, the AccuWeather was showing 35˚ C. Really!! It’s a month of March and the temperature is already soaring to 35˚ C.
Couple of days back around 6ish in morning, I was standing in my balcony preparing myself to start my day just after leaving my cozy bed. I was sipping hot water which felt perfect with the cold breeze. In front of our balcony there is a society garden which is huge and well maintained, behind garden there are few empty plots with grass and trees, then multiple farming fields and then river.
I feel lucky to have such a wonderful view in Pune.
Along with this foggy delighted view, birds chirping, bird groups, sun rays, awakening animals, morning walkers, kids heading for school buses and parents waving, good-bye kisses felt like the state of complete as in harmonious whole.
One angle out of 180˚ view
I was standing still and in the relishing moment I forgot all about my daily chores and office work. Being with nature is something that inspires me. I often visit “Pashan Tekdi” in wee hours which has much better view. I guess there is different type of energy all together. I get refreshing positive thoughts which makes my day or even a week. Quite often I spend time there alone and while with nature pondering about tasks/challenges I am working on, it helps to get creative ideas and surely inspires me to do more.
Alike Pashan Tekdi, view from my balcony is also beautiful and inspiring. All the building in our society is stretched only in direction and our last block is so close to Mula-Mutha river. I guess that’s the reason there are no more building apart from few empty plots and agricultural fields. The new proposed block got stayed while under construction. Usually people avoid going at that side of under construction site because it’s not maintained and to some extend unsafe because construction work was stopped abruptly. But to my surprise at that very moment an aged man, may be in his early sixties, along with his grandchild were going toward unsafe-unclean building block. Man was dressed in relax clothes, seems to be comfortable, along with young kid, must be 5 or 6 years old. They both were carrying plastic bag filled with something which I was not able to identify from far distance. I wondered, why were they going towards that block that too with young kid. It may very well encourage kid to starts going there alone.
Then it hit me, they were going there to throw the “Dana” for birds. What a way to start a day and teach your kids. From the safest edge of our block man started throwing bird feed out of that plastic bag towards relatively empty and clean area of unsafe block. I was not sure which had more love and care, the way Uncle was feeding birds or the delight with which he was teaching the same to his grand kid. It took me just few seconds to realise they are the reason - I get to see group of birds from my balcony. I admire the thought and humanity of Uncle.
I get to see many different species of birds around our building. Mostly I see Crows, Sparrows and Doves sitting in our balcony and singing songs – sometimes feels like they are talking with each other and passing some messages. They look here and there and if they observe any human moment happening around, they just fly away just to be back after few minutes. But frankly it’s hard to identify whether it was the same bird or the different one, because all of them looks same to my eyes. Looking at the efforts of Uncle to save birds from starvation, I got inspired to serve water in my balcony to help birds ease from thirst in hot summer.
Next day onwards every morning I started maintaining a clean bowl of water before leaving for office. I pour enough water to make sure it lasts till evening and birds can enjoy that during their morning and evening travel. Quite often I used to stand near balcony and wait for birds to come and drink. I witnessed birds taking bath in water, spilling it on floor, dancing & singing with their soul-mates (at least that’s what I assumed) at the edge of bowl and having few sips of water every few seconds. Cautiously they will look around and making sure no one is there to hurt them, taking another sip of water and once satisfied they fly away and embark on their journey. I enjoyed that for few days, it was peaceful and pleasure observing them silently. Mainly I get to see Sparrow, Crow and Dove. Tiny sparrows are joyful, they get into the water bowl and get itself wet completely, like taking a quick bath. But many times experience with Crow was not pleasing. Crows will make irritating noise and would often bring dead birds or bones along with and put that in balcony or in water bowl itself. This was something difficult to deal with as I don’t have any control on that. And Last one is Dove.. They usually come with 2-3 friends and then seat on safety rods in Balcony. Doves, like a scout, will lookout here and there and if they don’t find anyone around, they just drink 1-2 sip of water and fly away. But that’s not all, before sipping water while scouting they even spend time on cleaning up their stomach :(.
Within few days I started getting consequences of water service. At one end I was extremely satisfied with the deed, but at the same time I was not able to keep my balcony clean because of dove shit. Balcony floor, safety rods, washing machine, cloth hanging stand, area behind door, balcony corners every single thing would daily get covered with shit. I started cleaning balcony on a daily basis thinking it should get better soon. But day after day it was just getting worse and was getting out of my control. We tried different options as suggested on Internet without much of success.
I was forced to rethink my decision about water bowl. But knowing temperature during summer days, I don’t feel like stop pouring water bowl. So here I am looking for some suggestion/options with which I can keep the balcony clean without too much of maintenance and I can still continue pouring water this summer..
I am open for any suggestions. Has anyone of you facing this type of situation and how did you deal with that? Please add your suggestion in the comment below or write directly to me, you know my email.
Good day!
