Agatha Christie Revisited

The Mary Westmacott Collection

She and I go back a long way. I can clearly remember the summer of 1986 when I first laid eyes on a copy of The Mystery of the Blue Train. The cover was thoroughly intriguing and the back synopsis didn’t let me down either. Filled with excitement I bought myself the first Agatha Christie novel at the only respectable bookshop in town. As a fourteen year old then, I was mesmerized by the delicious danger and mystery lurking in those pages and found myself face to face with the incredible character of Monsieur Hercule Poirot. The French speaking Belgian detective with his idiosyncrasies endeared himself to me as I made my way through one Agatha Christie title after another. The next couple of years saw me devouring these whodunit’s from the school library, each weekend, without any signs of fatigue or ennui. The adorably fluffy pink Miss Marple, another one of Agatha Christie’s unlikely detectives, also found a special place in my heart, as she unassumingly solved one case after another. With titles like The Secret of Chimneys, Peril at End House, Why Didn’t The Ask Evans?, N or M?, Nemesis, Postern of Fate, They Do It with Mirrors and cover designs to match, I was quite frankly a reader who simply had to submit. And oh, I did. Willingly and with utmost pleasure. After 75 odd titles, I was finally ready to say goodbye, not just to Agatha Christie’s works but to crime fiction in general. With the exception of Sherlock Holmes, no other book in the genre has quite captured my imagination since.

Recently, many years and books later, I came across a shelf literally overflowing with Agatha Christie titles in one of my favourite bookstores. What caught my eye was that this lot in their latest edition(Harper Collins 2009) had very impressive cover designs. So much so that they seemed worth picking up for their exceptional art alone. As I happily delved into this pile, a handful of Mary Westmacott titles too popped out from time to time. Soon I had about six of them basking in my shopping cart. I had discovered that these six were part of a rather interesting collection of Agatha Christie novels that she had penned under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Why? Well, as she said in her autobiography, she wanted “to do something that is not my proper job”, i.e. writing detective novels. In fact, she said that she wrote the first, Giant’s Bread, with a “rather guilty feeling” and enjoyed the project she had undertaken. She went on to write five more novels in this series dealing with her favourite topic: human relationships.

Agatha Christie, the queen of crime, was well-versed on the subject of human nature. It is her insights into the motivations that drive people and their relationships and the conflicts that flare up between them, that added life and shine to her ingenious detective stories. When writing as Mary Westmacott, she turned this understanding of human nature away from the crime genre to create six novels that capture the drama in the life and loves of her various engaging characters. As you will see below, each of these books with their interesting plots and appealing characters, explore a gamut of human emotions: Possessiveness, denial, escapism, contemplation, nature and the inequality of love, perceptivity and awareness, to name a few.

I have to say that I had a wonderful time revisiting one of my favourite authors in another avatar. After all these years, she still managed to charm me. However, this time around my “adrenalin rush” and “grey cell activity” were put in the back burner. And my emotional and sensitivity quotient were ignited and elevated to fine mush. Might I confess, like in the olden days, this time too I submitted. Willingly and with utmost pleasure.

Unfinished Portrait

This book to me is the saga of Celia and her family through the years of her childhood, adolescence, youth and finally middle age. Shy and highly emotional by nature, Celia has the most wonderful childhood, dotted with people, events and anecdotes that are for the most part happy and memorable. The apple of her mother’s eye, Celia, is in turn much loved and indulged by both her father and her grandmother. She grows up in a house that she absolutely adores and eventually has the good fortune to inherit, after her mother’s death. In effect, she has a rather cosy, warm and protected life. Thanks in part to her loving family and also because of her own dreamy nature that allows her to escape into the world of her own imagination.

Of course, harsh reality intrudes when she chooses to marry and start a family of her own. To begin with she marries a man who has contempt for all things impractical and has trouble dealing with emotions per se. His life is rooted in reality and entirely to do with worldly success that his ambitions must necessarily achieve. And as destiny would have it, their daughter too turns out exactly like her father. Although she loves them dearly, and moulds herself to their way of life, Celia is essentially an outsider in her own family.

As long as her mother and grandmother are alive, she is able to run to them from time to time and seek solace in their unconditional love. But the eventual demise of first her grandmother and then her mother, leaves her feeling uncertain and abandoned. Even as she struggles to cope with her loss, she finds her husband has tired of her and wants a divorce. Dealt with this double blow, Celia is at a loss on how to go on.

On the verge of suicide, Celia meets a portrait painter Larraby in an exotic island and through a long night of conversation she realizes that she has to pick up the pieces and make sense of her shattered life.

 At the age of 39, she seems to have lived out an entire lifetime. Celia can no longer run away from making, what is perhaps the toughest decision of her life. Risk a chance at happiness with a new man in her life or face the rest of the years ahead on her own.

Absent in the Spring

If one is not at ease with the quiet contemplative side of life, then the prospect of solitude can be a horrifying experience indeed. Agatha Christie’s novel, Absent in the Spring deals with such a premise through the middle-aged character of Joan Scudamore.

The upper middle class English housewife of a well to do solicitor, Joan is the epitome of political correctness and proper conduct at all times. However, her self –righteousness gives way to sheer terror when she is literally stranded alone in a desert for several days with no company or activity to occupy her time.

When the chaos outside has stilled, Joan can no longer ignore all those voices within. “Lizards popping their heads out of holes” she calls them. Frightening, disturbing thoughts assail her. Thoughts that she has managed to keep at bay all these years in her picture-perfect life back home.

So like all soul searching, reluctant or otherwise, Joan encounters the life she has led so far, in all its true colours. Truths pleasant and unpleasant stare her in the face. Her past relationships, attitudes and actions parade in front of her eyes waiting to be weighed and scrutinized. Joan finds herself cornered. For the first time in her life, she is forced to see herself as she really is. But will this moment of truth pave the way for her inner transformation and growth?

Well, it is here when I came to the end of the book, that I was moved with the ultimate choice that Joan makes. Without giving away the surprise, let me just say that Absent in the Spring is a tour de force of a novel from Agatha Christie’s Mary Westmacott collection.

The rose and the yew tree

As the Second World War draws to a close, a victorious England under Churchill returns home to set its house in order. Against this backdrop, unfolds the unlikely love story of John Gabriel and Isabella Charteris.

A ruthless war hero of uncertain origin, John Gabriel will go to any lengths to make a place for himself in post-war British society. He is common, loud and unflinchingly brave. His direct, bold charm seems to work its magic on both the sexes. Isabella Charteris on the other hand is thoroughbred British aristocracy. Beautiful, elegant and groomed with an absolute sense of entitlement, Isabelle is the exact opposite of John. Her prince in shining armour, Rupert is on his way home from the battlefield to sweep her off her feet. All shiny, perfect and sigh-inducing wonderful, right? Not quite. Well, you see it is here, that the love story changes characters.

John and Isabella’s paths cross. Opposites attract. His unbridled obsession for Isabella destroys his ambitious political career. And she gives up her dreams of a secure future to walk away with the man her heart desires. So does this love story reach its happy ending? Well, not before Isabella sacrifices her young life to save her Romeo. Tragic yet strangely fitting, I thought.

A daughter’s a daughter

No relationship is ever perfect. Not even the ones between mothers and daughters. A daughter’s a daughter explores the complex and emotionally charged nature of the relationship between Ann prentice and her daughter, Sarah. Having brought up her daughter on her own, single mom Ann finally falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness in her middle age. However, her daughter Sarah cannot imagine sharing her mother with a stranger. She in her childish insecure way wrecks any chance of this marriage taking place. On having to choose between her only child and the love of her life, Ann makes the ultimate sacrifice. But giving up Richard for the sake of her daughter’s happiness eventually takes its toll on Ann. She transforms into a bitter and resentful creature who covers up her true feelings by adopting a whirlwind lifestyle. This new life of hers is a series of engagements and events with random people and places. From a quiet, gentle woman who was once at ease in her own company, Ann turns into a vibrant, blasé, social butterfly. Now she has little time for even her daughter Sarah.

Sarah, in her own way seeks out a life of adventure that leads to a disastrous marriage. Mother and daughter no longer communicate or share themselves with each other. Unspoken words and bottled up feelings drive them apart slowly but surely. Finally, as events finally reach a point of no return, there is a breakthrough. A huge fight and confrontation between mother and daughter leads to some serious truth telling and spilling over of pent up emotions. Although, devastated at first, Ann feels relief at having said what was in her heart and the hurt she had nursed all this while because of Sarah’s childishly selfish behavior.

An equally remorseful Sarah, realizes how she was responsible for spoiling her mother’s chances of finding happiness with Richard. With some help, Sarah finds the courage to leave her dysfunctional marriage and start afresh as a responsible adult. Mother and daughter do finally, hug and make up at the airport as Sarah is about to go abroad. The unspoken love that binds them together, allows them to be cruel to each other in order to be kind.

The Burden

This is the story of two sisters, Laura and Shirley, who are as different as chalk and cheese. Circumstances put Laura in a place of deep resentment when she has to welcome and accept the birth of her much younger sibling Shirley. Shirley is the bony, blue-eyed baby girl that everyone dotes on, much to Laura’s dismay. She is everything that Laura is not. Compared to Laura’s rather serious, quiet and brooding demeanor, Shirley is blonde, fun, pretty and very popular. However, things change literally overnight as a result of a scary accident. Seeing Shirley’s young life in jeopardy, Laura is moved to heights of incredible bravado. Indeed, she ends up saving her little sister’s life at great cost to her own. And this marks the beginning of a rather oppressive one-sided love that Laura assumes is her ultimate responsibility towards poor helpless Shirley.

Over the years, as destiny guides the lives of these two sisters, we see how something as precious as love can end up destroying it’s recipient, if it’s intention is flawed at the very source from where it emerges.

This is a poignant story of the consequences of misdirected love and responsibility that one assumes on behalf of another individual. So instead of freeing the object of one’s affection, all it really ends up doing is placing a burden that is much too heavy to bear.

Giant’s Bread

This novel is the one I read first in the Mary Westmacott collection. I have to say that I was rather taken aback by the subject, the narrative sweep, characterization and the final ending. It is not just the story of Vernon Deyre, musical genius in waiting, but also about the lives of some very interesting characters. Sebastian, Joe, Jane and Nell are as compelling a people as is Vernon, the main protagonist. Giant’s Bread is about these creative and ordinary lives that follow separate scripts and unfold in ways that are incomprehensible to the other.

All his life, Vernon has been terrified of the one thing that he was always meant to be. A brilliant musician. As a result of his reluctance to accept his destiny, he must spend many years in the wilderness of the mundane and the common place, much to the distress of his family and friends. During this time his destiny visits him persistently in the form of people, events and places. There is really no escape for him. Nell and Jane, the two ladyloves of his life also bring these two disparate worlds to his doorstep. As if that were not enough, even his temporary loss of memory is not good enough to leave him alone.

Vernon battles all these situations with incredible naiveté and self absorption, until at last fate intervenes resolutely in the loss of his true love Jane. This then is the price he has to pay to realize his creative potential. His tortured soul can now only seek solace in music. He is at once saved and returned to the real and only calling in his life. There is poignancy in this moment that is imbued with both the tragic and the triumphant in Vernon’s life.

Note: All photographs in this post are the property of serendipity and all that.

Clouds

White sheep, white sheep,
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops
You all stand still
When the wind blows
You walk away slow,
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?

by Christina Rossetti

 Note: All photographs are taken with my Nokia X2-00 camera phone in Mumbai, just before the monsoons drenched the city. The exception here is the first image, which was taken from inside an aircraft.

Still Life with a Nokia X2-00

There is a brand new love in my life right now. Photography. My growing fondness for it over the last three months, especially still life photography, has taken even me by surprise. To be honest, while it was unexpected, this lovely new development has only enriched and expanded my life in ways that I could never have imagined. I now seem to look at the world with new eyes. Objects take on a life of their own. Their shape, colour, texture speak to me. For the first time in my life, I am actually seeing things. I am in awareness when I look at the universe around me. Natural or man-made, all acts of creation appear imbued with meaning. Plain and simple, as you can see, I am inspired and rather smitten.

The serendipitous nature of this new discovery in my life of course needs sharing. And I am about to do just that. Let me also tell you that all the photographs below have been taken in natural light. No photoshop work or special-effects have been resorted to by yours truly. And oh yeah, the camera used is a 5 mega pixel Nokia X2-00 mobile phone camera.

Coffee and Apple Pie






Shawl on a basket

 

My workstation



Good Morning!



Apple before pie

Ummm..

Jamrul

 


Still Life



Fussilli & meat balls






Still Life I







By the way: All props and locations are entirely the property of yours truly. That applies to the above ten images as well.



Bones and Blossoms

Sun bleached to an ethereal white the fragile bone against the stark blue sky. That’s one way to describe a Georgia O’keeffe painting if I must. Although, why one should bother with words at all is a more moot point. As an admirer of her work, I have perhaps a lot to share in terms of how her art affects and inspires me. The subjects that she chose to engage with through her paintings also resonate with me at a very primeval level. Flowers, shells, rocks, desert landscape and animal bones. Objects of nature held in reverence and painted in prayer. By a woman and an artist who dared to defy the existing norms of 1920s American society and culture to come up with a voice of her own in the modern art movement of the early 20^th century.

Georgia O’keeffe’s artistic brilliance manages to convey the compelling beauty of nature as a powerful contrast to the widespread industrialization of the period. Her large format paintings of enlarged blossom magically draw you in, to their lush, velvety folds, petal by petal. Soft, sensuous, feminine and saturated with life and colour, these paintings are as intricate in detail as they are simple in their subject.

Interestingly enough, after spending a summer at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, she became besotted with the area. The remote, barren landscape and the expansive skies above now became the subject of her paintings. She found exquisite beauty in the bony skulls of dead animals and painted them extensively. Magnified against the still blue sky, the bones scorched to whiteness by the desert sun, strangely become hypnotic in their stillness. To me, these meditations in minimalism seem to serve a dual purpose. As you gaze at the open sky in the paintings, they offer to take you away into the infinite beyond and at the same time when you shift focus to the magnified presence of the animal bone, you are brought back to the finite moment at hand.

Georgia O’keeffe’s paintings, irrespective of their subject, are characterized by beauty of form, shape and colour. Without doubt, her work is born from a deeply feminine core and is devotedly nurtured in breathtaking detail. It is the perfect case of an artist painting entirely for herself and no one else. And that perhaps is one of the reasons why they are so impressively unique in their incorruptibility. Incidentally, Georgia O’keeffe was the first woman honoured with a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. She sold her first Giant Flower painting in 1928, when she was 41 years old. The painting “Calla Lily” sold for $25,000. A year before she died, one of her paintings sold for $1,000,000. And today, with more than 3000 works, the Georgia O’keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico houses the largest permanent collection of her work.

Here are a few of my personal favourites.



Oriental Poppies 1928





Jack in the Pulpit

 

 

Pansy 1926



 

Pelvis with the distance

  

Abstraction White Rose 1927



Poppies 1950





Oak leaves Pink and Gray 1929





Black Iris 1906







Two pink shells 1937



Yellow Calla Green Leaves







Pink and Yellow Hollylocks 1952





Sunset







Back of Maries IV  1931





Front of Ranchos Church





Canadian Barn







Deer's skull with Pedernal




Image courtesy: http://www.art.com/























Grocery shopping that is guaranteed to make you feel like a million bucks

Let me start by warning you that this claim is strictly based on my own first hand experience. It does not borrow from any research or scientific study undertaken on drugged lab rats in remote Pennsylvania and such. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets go shopping, shall we?

There are of course, all sorts of grocery shopping. Those done with long lists and discount coupons, personally the worst kind if you ask me. Then there are the quickies when you have no time. Storm into the store, grab items by their collar, and then march them over to the express counter. Only the billing at this point usually takes a lifetime. Well, you were in a hurry not the cashier.

Those of us, who are lucky enough, also have the option of ordering over the phone from our local grocers. I find that this only works if you are either very sure or not at all fussy about your order. Exploring and comparing brands and prices are more often than not met with the phone being disconnected on the other end. Really, your grocer is a busy man or didn’t you know that?

That brings me finally to the kind of grocery shopping that I really enjoy and highly recommend. The kind that is more of a relief than a chore. The kind that effortlessly engages your mind, body and soul in ways that is profoundly therapeutic to say the least.

There are a few ground rules to that naturally. One, choose a store/supermarket of your liking. Some place with good lighting and air conditioning, plenty of room between shelves. And most importantly, polite, unobtrusive staff who know their Henkos from their Heinekens.

Once you’ve chosen your store, make sure you have enough time to do your shopping. Comfortable shoes and easy relaxed garments are the next thing to put on your checklist. The day and time you chose for this experience is also important. Ideally, a weekday at an odd hour is perfect. Or else an early Sunday morning outing also works out beautifully. Before the whole world and their Chihuahua descend, you are out and safely home with bliss written all over you.

Now that we’ve established all the dos and don’ts, allow me to take you on a typical day out to my favourite grocery store in town.

Welcome to Hypercity. A place anointed by the Grocery Gods themselves. Located in the northern suburb of Mumbai at Malad west, it is a place where dreams come true. Or at least mine do, on a regular basis. The sprawling expanse of grocery goodness includes among other things a bakery, wine& liquor store, a delicatessen, fresh fish, meat and poultry, fruit and vegetable market, a dedicated heath and organic food section, all other household items one can think of or ever need, from toothpaste to dog food, you name it and they have it all. The cherry on the cake is of course, the wide variety of products from various international markets that cosily hang out with all the local produce.

As I walk into the store I am always filled with eager anticipation. Phone on silent. I-pod plugged in, if I’m in the mood. Move over Alice, your wonderland has some serious competition from mine now.

I do not walk or for that matter, even stroll around the store. I glide through the aisles with the shopping cart merely an extension of myself. I know that I have a grocery list tucked somewhere in my handbag for reference, in case I need it. I do not take it out in fear of ruining the moment. Yes, I also have a budget to shop to. And somewhere within these defined limits, I have a cornucopia of pleasures waiting for me at every shelf.

I am not hunting for anything in particular. I have no agenda. This state of mind usually allows me to relax and heightens my senses to what’s around me. As I, yes, glide through the different sections; the neatly arranged shelves shamelessly flaunt their products with great flourish. My gaze sweeps across them and what’s mine to pick, seems to leap out with uncanny synchronicity. I fill up my shopping cart, mentally ticking off my grocery list. A new brand of gourmet coffee or a beautifully packaged jar of peanut butter, a quirky sounding biscuit brand or a fresh batch of organic health food, they all make my heart race a bit faster and bring a rosy flush to my cheeks with their delightfully unexpected appearance. I am torn between sticking to my original list and giving way to decadence.

You see I am not an impulsive shopper who needs to buy stuff just because it is there. Nor am I one of those people who simply can’t stick to a budget. On the contrary, I am a pro at shopping with tight budgets. The dilemma here is rather a delicious one. How to indulge myself with a thoroughly expansive gesture that doesn’t compromise too much on my essential purchases or my financial well-being. I must confess, I do get my jollies this way, every single time. I am always on the look out for these sort of challenges lurking among the merchandise in stores, big and small.

Thrilled with my new goodies, I now head towards my favourite area of fresh fruits and vegetables. The tingling aroma of fresh cilantro, the glossy coat of an impossibly violet aubergine, the blushing red apples and the teasing pink pomegranates, are enough to up my happiness quotient to positively delirious levels. The natural colours, textures and aromas that surround me are deeply therapeutic. As I pick and choose my tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, pumpkins, spinach, baby potatoes and broccoli, various recipes that I can rustle up during the week take shape in my mind. A warm glow of contentment tends to wash over me at these times. You see, Mother Nature has already nourished my ravenous soul.

However, no respectable cook’s grocery shopping can be complete without a visit to the fresh fish, meat and poultry section. And I so want to be a respectable cook. Well, off I go then to earn my badge of honour. I usually keep this for the last. All that raw fish and meat with their pungent and sometimes gamy presence doesn’t exactly inspire lingering. So, fresh cuts of the choicest fish and meat quickly find their place in my already groaning shopping cart. And with that I think I am done for the day.

As I push my cart to the billing counter, I decide to do a quick cross-check of my grocery list. Most definitely, don’t want any casualties when I get home. I glance at my watch to realize a good hour has gone by. And I’ve been on my feet all this time! Surely, this must count as some sort of aerobic activity? Even though physically I am feeling the stirrings of pleasant exhaustation, my mind and spirit are stimulated and satiated to a point of peachy well-being.

Wait. Before I walk out with my groceries there is one more thing to do.Treat myself to a generous scoop of my absolute favourite Madagascar Dark chocolate gelato from Gelato Italiano. Yes, one last reason to finally wear that million dollar smile all the way home.To all you dark chocolate lovers out there, let me tell you, there cannot be a better guilt free indulgence than this. And believe me, I ‘ve been looking for one all my life.





Pigeon



I know what you are thinking. Ahem, wrong bird there, old girl. Well, yes. No apologies here. I just couldn’t bring myself to put up a picture of the aforementioned creature. Period.

Those of you, who wish to admire the great flapping beauty of the dull gray pigeon, will have to take their enthusiasm elsewhere. This post is strictly for people like me who suffer silently and sometimes rather bitterly on a daily basis from the exploits of the pigeon population in the city. Welcome to this angst fest, people.

Come repeat after me. Pigeons are dirty. Pigeons are smelly. Pigeons are noisy. Now, what’s there to like about them exactly? When I see grown-ups trampling over each other to feed these dumb birds, I have psychedelic images of blood and carnage mushrooming in my mind. Really now, if God made these creatures (can’t tell why), then surely they have been provided with the power to sustain themselves as well? But trust these eager beavers to jump in and spoon-feed them. Maybe, that explains why these birds refuse to leave the city.

No apartment that I’ve ever lived in, has quite escaped their pesky presence. In fact, they seem to be an integral part of the quintessential Mumbai landscape. When I first came to the city, the apartment that we moved into came with a readymade pigeon’s nest, complete with eggs waiting to hatch into noisy little squabs! My mother of course, pointed out that a nest in the house was good sign. I didn’t see how. All I remember was wildly dashing from window to window like a deranged person, to fight these birds from taking over my home and hearth! That to me was a very, very bad sign indeed.

Over the years these birds have tried their best to get the better of me. And I am afraid I haven’t fared too well in this psychological warfare. Take the time when they had my bedroom under siege. About a dozen pigeons had taken to lounging on the ledge outside my bedroom windows. They didn’t even leave the back end of the air conditioner outside. I was literally surrounded by pigeons of all shades and sizes. From mid-morning to sunset, they would just sit on their ugly claws and make loud clacking and chalk-on-the-board scratching noises. These would be punctuated with violently flapping landings and take offs. I couldn’t rest in that room during the day. I had to flee my own bedroom! Of course, when the husband found out, he thought it was funny. Well, he wasn’t laughing when it was his turn.

One Sunday I woke up from my afternoon nap to the rhythmic metallic clanging, coming from somewhere nearby. Ding, ding, ding. Since I was unable to trace the source of that sound, I decided to lie down again. But soon I found myself rudely awoken by a louder version of that same sound. This time I got out of bed and went looking for the husband. I figured he must have dozed off in front of the T.V. As I walked towards the recreation room, the sound became louder and more distinct. DING, DING,DING. Curiosity having got the better of me by now, I softly pushed open the door. There was my brave able-bodied man with a large aluminum ruler in his hand. In the corner, trapped between the grill and the closed window was a very still pigeon. As I looked on in astonishment, I saw my husband raise the mighty ruler aiming for the pigeon’s head or so I thought. But instead he brought it down on the grill with a resounding DING. The pigeon remained unmoved. For a second there, I thought the bird was dead perhaps. I couldn’t hold back a gasp as this thought registered. At the sound both my husband and the pigeon turned towards me with a startled look. Looking serious and very determined, my husband explained that the pigeon had wandered in through the open window. While he was watching Babylon A.D in a trance-like state, the pigeon must have tip toed its way to the windowsill next to his chair. And there, man and bird had remained transfixed. Naturally, the moment my husband had discovered he had company, he was part shocked and part amused. The considerate man that he is, decided to gently knock out the pigeon with a blow to its tiny head with his giant aluminum scale. You see, in its unconscious state it would easy to scoop the bird and let it out. Or so went the reasoning. Well, they say my husband is a man of ideas. Although, at this point I didn’t know whom I was more afraid of: bird or man.

As if the above incident isn’t proof enough of my pigeon troubles, here’s another gem.

Recently, a pair of them decided to consummate their marriage in my bedroom (yeah, the same one that was under siege earlier). They giddily flapped in through the open window. And as I heard the fluttering noise, I rushed in to defend my turf. Well, at first they seemed to have a dreamy time cruising around the room, resting in various places of interest like the ceiling fan, the bed-side lamp and the dressing table. And before I knew it they had collapsed in a gray heap on my bed! After a rambunctious roll in the hay, with feathers flying in all directions and my bed spread mauled beyond repair, they decided to take the action to another spot: the windowsill.

By now, I’d had enough. I started making clicking and shooing sounds to guide them out of the open window. It was then that their silly little afternoon romp came to a terrifying end.

Both the pigeons panicked. They huddled together and frantically started flapping about the spot in front of the window. What amazed and alarmed me all at the same time was the sight of the dumb birds repeatedly head-butting the window frame! They were just millimeters away from the opening. Yet they just stayed on the closed side and kept up their absurd attempts at escape. Pigeons head-butting. Would you believe it? They had to be eventually scooped up by my exasperated maid and released out of the window. Needless to say, what was left behind was a messy malodorous bedroom and a very rattled yours truly.

Like Rick Blaine would say, “Of all the domestic joints in all the places in all of Mumbai, they walk into mine”. Yeah, these birds definitely seem to have a thing for my apartment. You know, they are perpetually trying to build their dreams around my nest. Talk about bird brained ideas. I say, keep dreaming you little wretches!

 

Image courtesy:www.animalpicturegallery.net

Coffee Break

I find that Monday is a tricky day to get through at best. Either it is super hectic and just disappears in a blur. Or I find myself with a very long day on my hands. Today seems to fall in the latter category. I figure, one way to break the ennui would be to take a quick break with one of my all time favourites: coffee.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well then, here are a few of my favourite coffee posters that tell their own little stories.







 





  








  
Image courtesy: www.allposters.com