This is the story of a little bird.

For a couple of days, my room had turned into an entertainment center-cum-sanctuary for birds. I had two sparrows come in and explore my room, randomly pecking at things. Dad noticed them and they scooted, chirping out a conversation to each other as they flew out of the windows. The tree branch outside my window is their home now.

Another little birdie nudged its way quietly onto my window ledge and made its home there for God-knows-how-long before i noticed it. Had i not caught it peeking curiously - and if i am any bit a bird mind-reader, fearfully - at the road one storey below my room, i would never have noticed it even.

The first thing i did was whip out my camera, inch my way slowly to the window right behind the bird's bum feathers, and exercise the utmost stealth in trying to get a nice picture. That's when i saw that this wasn't a normal bird; it was a pigeon, either sick or old, or both. So i ditched my camera and just watched. I tried cooing to it, talking to it - anything that would help make it feel better, but all it did was walk from one corner of the ledge to another, wanting nothing except to be left alone. There was a certain wisdom in the way it studied the things that were happening below - a tailor at his sewing machine, a kirana store owner bellowing at somebody for parking their vehicle in front of his shop, a couple of limp teenagers hanging out at the keymaker's corner... and then, bored, it must have fallen asleep. I took the opportunity to fill a little cup with water and place it out on the ledge - just in case the pigeon got thirsty during the night.

I woke up next morning and headed straight for the window. The pigeon wasn't there. The water was untouched. I went to work, came back, waited to see its silhouette created by the street lamp to line my window ledge.

I never saw the pigeon again.