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| Selfie time: Chunmun in the foreground, and Sona...busy in the background |
"Chunmun, come on, we are getting late you know," urged her friend Sona. But little Chunmun was in no hurry to budge. Happily scrunching on her squiggly, juicy worm....that too, her favorite black one! Ahh! What a treat this was, a veritable feast of sorts amidst such a spectacular locale! She loved swooping in on her treats, virtually abounding in these mounds of marigolds, taking her pick from the yellow, green or black worms.
The marigolds piled high mound after mound, would soon be laden into huge gunny sacks and carted away onto trucks to be sold off to flower vendors across the city. From there, they would be woven into intricate large 'torans' meant to adorn shop fronts or smaller ones meant for thresholds of homes on festive seasons. But mostly they were to be made into garlands to be sold outside all temples.
But all that didn't matter to Chunmun and Sona, who were more focused on filling their tummies with the scrumptious feast that lay in front of them! Sona lost track of her mission to recall Chunmun, as a fat worm wiggled to escape deep into the pile.
The two little birdies had been secretly coming here every morning for the past one week, it was their own secret pigging hole! One they didn't intend sharing with the rest of their flock, especially not with their overbearing, overprotective Mamas, who insisted on accompanying the little ones everywhere! No hovering near the interesting dustbins, no going near the human children who willingly fed them tidbits, no playing hide-and-seek near the tall signal towers, no going here, there....aarrgh...rules, rules, rules!
But little birdies always find a way to get better of their bossy Mamas, don't they? They know the best places to have fun, find yummy treats, watch the paper kites flying in the air and chase them too, yes these little birdies knew how to have fun!
Early in the morning, their Mamas left them at home to go foraging for the day, leaving the Papas in-charge. Pretty soon the Papas got absorbed in studying the eccentric behavior of the new flock of weirdos they called 'pigeons' who had flown in a few days ago into their area from God knows where.
It wasn't too difficult to give the 'busy' Papas a slip and escape to this bountiful place a little way away from their home in the old fort ruins. Usually they skipped back home after a few hasty tasty nips.
But today, the two little greedy birds had over-indulged and could barely manage to flutter their wings, leave alone flying!
They decided to hop over to the low hanging branches of a nearby tree and take a breather to let matters settle down within their overfull tummies! And what should happen.....yes....the inevitable! Lulled by warm sunlight, cool breeze and a full stomach, they fell asleep on the tree branch!
The shrill wail of a siren, sharp screeching of truck tires, the bustle of a crowd of men, hurrying about, bundling the flowers into large sacks, hefting them onto the waiting trucks, alarmed the little birdies perched on the tree a little way off.
Overhead a large menacing hawk was circling the area, he could clearly see the two little ones and would have dived in for the kill, except for the swarm of humans around.
Chunmun and Sona were scared silly, immobilized by fear of the close proximity of so many humans around and their most feared predator above.
They decided to hide within a hole in the trunk of the tree and wait it out, till the people went away and the hawk's patience ran out.
The day went past slowly, neither the human throng let up nor did the tenacious hawk.
Finally as the sun set down, a siren sounded and like magic the men and machines vanished. The hawk too apparently had other prey to attend to, as they spotted the rats nervously scuttling about in the twilight.
Warily the two birdies crept out, cramped by their long wait in the little hole, stretched their wings and hurried on homewards.
The frantic, despairing Mamas and the relieved Papas were a sight to behold. The Mamas fussed over the lost little ones with accusing looks at the shame-faced Papas, while the little ones were just glad to be home, Mama was right, the World was too big and scary for them right now, there was time to explore it.....later when they were bigger!
This post was written in response to #FotoFriday1 a photo-blogprompt, an initiative of team #BlogbuddyWritehouse @Blogchatter
#FotoFriday prompt posts will be put up on the first Friday of every month by team members of #BlogbuddyWritehouse
This week's #FotoFriday1 fabulous photo-prompt
Image credit goes to my super-talented #blogbuddy Anindya Basu
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