Pigeons

If there is somebody whose laziness can come close to that of Garfield, it has to be the pigeons of our campus. I have been seeing them for nearly three years now and they are probably one the laziest creatures on earth. They hardly use their wings but just sit and watch. So far I have not been able to get any information on what they watch sitting in the hot sun. Perhaps they themselves do not know. Garfield, though lazy, has always shown extreme wit and intelligence to keep itself lazy always. These pigeons are so dumb that I had to think twice before using the word 'Garfield'. Sorry Garfield, you definitely deserve much better comparisons and more sacred place to mention your name.

They find some place to s(h)it and never move from that place throughout the day. One of the funniest things I have seen is that a pigeon tries to sit on a rope (tied by students to dry clothes). Since it is not rigid, it is not possible to balance and it starts oscillating back and forth as though it is trying to fight for its survival. The same thing continues and another pigeon sits on the same rope and now both of them have to overcome additional instability of the rope caused by their movements. They are too lazy to move away and this 'dance' goes on for quite some time. Though its a funny scene, eventually I get bored, but not them. Sometimes when a male pigeon tries to go near its counterpart, the latter simply starts moving from that place in a very slow pace and the male starts following it. This terribly slow 'catch me if you can' game continues for a long time while they cover the whole roof of a hostel wing. Finally the male gives up and returns.

Every room has a balcony here and it is impossible to find a clean one. I wonder how much the cleaners have cursed these creatures for filling the balcony with loads of s.... The ventilation area has a small width where pigeons sit and some guys have covered that width with a paper/cardboard piece fixed in such a way that pigeons would slide down if they make an attempt to sit. What amazes me is that pigeons never try to make space by piercing the paper etc. Some of them even repeatedly try to sit and haplessly slide without realizing whats happening.


There are so many trees here and the pigeons seem to have not realized the fun in building nests, eating fruits / insects etc. Forget fruits, they cant even spot the food items near the place where they stay. I had kept some old biscuits and nuts on the balcony grills and for many days pigeons just flew over them, keeping them untouched. Finally a crow and a squirrel had to finish them. Once I tried to shoo them away when I saw them on my balcony and I realized that they are not just dumb but deaf as well. Nowadays I resort to some paper balls and even then, unless I hit the bull's eye they just dont move. Though "मैंने प्यार किया", "कबूतर जा जा जा ....." did not happen.