City Moment – A Colony of Birds, Lodhi Gardens
The remarkable Delhi instant.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
One warm sky-blue evening The Delhi Walla saw a tree in Lodhi Gardens that was colonised by hundreds of birds. The birds were silent. Their kingdom seemed in a state of peacetime stillness.
Just then a solitary young man walked in from another direction. He happened to look up at the tree. It was indeed a fantastical sight. The branches were bare, but the birds had covered those branches like the season’s new leaves. The young man stood frozen.
He stirred, after a while. He bent down and picked up something from the grass. He then stood up, looked up at the tree and, with great force, threw that something towards it. It was a stone. Almost instantly all the birds flew away.
The tree became bare. It was a sad moment.
Now you see, now you don’t
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Amazing photos. I have seen this many times in Lodi Gardens, of course, but never in this exact sequence. Lovely 🙂
Great pics with great writing!
“Once on a time from all the Circles seven 1
Between the stedfast Earth and rolling Heaven
The Birds, of all Note, Plumage, and Degree,
That float in Air, and roost upon the Tree;
And they that from the Waters snatch their Meat,
And they that scour the Desert with long Feet;
Birds of all Natures, known or not to Man,
Flock’d from all Quarters into full Divan,
On no less solemn business than to find
Or choose, a Sultan Khalif of their kind…”
– Fariduddin Attar Neyshapuri’s Manteq at-Tayr
That young man was cruel. The birds should have shat on him en masse.
The melodies of nature. Very refreshing sight and their humming is like treat to hears.