Songs from the school

I have always regarded the school campus to be a special place. But I realize that I have only understood the meaning of the word special in the past few months.  Living inside the school is once in a lifetime experience. It made me realize that I had not heard the chirping of so many birds in my life. It is refreshing to wake up to the cooing of the cuckoos. I soon realized that the cooing did not exactly start in the morning.  One sleepless night, I discovered that the cuckoo conversations took place every thirty minutes from 1:30 am. 

I find the birds in the campus are not averse to human company. One morning as I was walking to the school, I was fortunate enough to be escorted by two woodpeckers. An owl stared right into my eyes till my hand moved towards my camera, one evening. Of course, the campus is home for animals too. Many a times, I interrupt the stroll of a mongoose family. They always express their displeasure at this interruption, by staring at me for a few minutes before disappearing into the bush.

Feeding Looty, during the early days of the year, was also an experience. She was young at that time and was constantly harassed by the crows and cats in the campus. To catch her attention we used to whistle and meow as we walked around the office block. Invariably, Looty jumped off a tree and gave us the “at long last you are here look”.  Before long, the crows noticed that food appeared in Looty’s bowl soon after the meowing and whistling. Many evenings, the tree outside the assembly had enough crows perched on it to make it an ideal location for a Hitchcockian movie.