the Thinker

Cautionary Warning - This for people who are animal lovers, the creature whose antics and activities I am going to describe in this post is not of a friendly nature, so it is perfectly natural that you might find this post offending. My advice to you is think before you start reading.

My warning is also to people who are only lovers, and consider the creature to be some kind of eternal messenger of love, incapable of causing harm to anybody. I would say, high time we reconsider facts. Please read with your own discretion.

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Do I sound formidable? If I do, believe me there has to be a very good reason for it.This post is different from the other posts that I have written so far mainly because I am not dedicating it to a serious issue or a topic that interests me, but to a pertinent problem that has been worrying me off late.

I am sure when I start explaining the nature of my problem, half of you might hold your tummies tight and laugh your lungs out or some of you might simply advise me to, "grow up!"

I would prefer to ignore any of the mentioned reactions to this post as this point of time as I am plain, "FRUSTRATED!" Ok, Ok enough of whining (something that I myself detest). Lets get straight to the problem. PIGEONS! I never thought they could be so irritating.

It has been nearly 9 months since I have been living in an apartment with 4 of my college classmates, in Chennai. We are doing a course in journalism, most of the weekdays we stay out of hostel, therefore the weekends are a kind of supposed respite from work (we have separate assignments for weekends). Also it means home-cooked food (which is mostly prepared by me).

In these 9 months we have had little teeny-weeny problems with one of our flatmate, (I mentioned her one of my previous posts). But these inmates (pigeons) have started causing disturbance only recently, and I must say they are definitely more irritable.Wondering how? Let me explain.

There is this circular opening in our kitchen, I guess it is a space where one can fix an exhaust fan or some pipe or something, of that kind. It has now become an opening for these creatures to repeatedly flutter in and flutter out of the kitchen, when I am cooking.

Now our gas stove is placed right under the opening. So when these 'benevolent and peaceful' creatures flutter in, their feathers and other stuff (you know what I mean, don't you, read the title?), drop right on the stove. Now imagine me cooking something on the stove, maybe my favorite dish, and it getting garnished with pigeon feathers and I hate to say this, pigeon excreta!

So everytime, I am cooking I have to keep my ears and eyes open and constantly keep looking up to see that my fellow inmates don't plan to fly over my food stuff.A pain in the neck, literally and otherwise also.

Some of you might contend saying, "Why not shift the position of the gas to another place?" Well, thanks to the short gas pipe we have, the thing cannot be moved an inch from where it now rests.

I was still slightly relaxed, most of these fellow inmates of mine tend to restrain themselves from their flying exercises when they see me staring at them, ready to shoo them off.Yesterday, one of these fellows decided to show his/her guts to me.

I was under the gas, cooking (you might have guessed), when this fellow suddenly stoops down and stared at me from the hole above. I felt a slight unease, a feeling of being watched closely and looked up instinctively.

The fellow stared directly into my eyes. After sometime it dissapeared. However, as my senses were returning to a normal state, the fellow suddenly zoomed down right over the gas and my head, and landed on the kitchen floor right before me.

It nicely strolled in front of my eyes at a distance of 2 foot steps on the floor, pluming its feathers proudly.As I started to run behind it, it walked off gracefully and flew out through the verandah which is right next to the kitchen.

Now, this fellow decided to do something remarkable. It perched back on the opening above me and zoomed down again, and flew out of the verandah again.This continued repeatedly for some time. His antics almost reminded of those sliders we have in chidren's parks where, you climb up, then slide down and then run back to que up again for another slide.

I ran for a lid for my curry every time his majesty decided to try his aerial powers.When my friend returned home and asked me why was I upset, upon knowing the reason, she did what few of you might be doing now, that is to laugh.

After some time she came up with this brilliant idea/joke that since pigeons are commonly known as messengers of love, they might have brought a message from some distant admirer. I would have been flattered had I not been really agitated.

To be very frank if it would had really been the case (that of a distant admirer), I would gone and thrashed the guy up for ruining my curry, with those love birds of his. Anyways, till now the situation is not very much under control, I do not what to do...if anyone has any suggestions to make, feel free to do so.

Byways, the two categories of people whom I left a warning for, right at the beginning, please consider my condition (and plight, if I may be allowed to say so) before commenting.

Fantastic post!.. I'm glad you stopped by at mine so that I could discover yours :)
xxxx  

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Thanks for dropping by,thanks for the comment.  

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This reminds of the scene from Jhankar Beats in which the pigeons always target Rahul Bose's car, thou' there are other expensive cars parked right next to his.:D
Suggestion-get a net covering for the circular portion,this will serve as a vent for the smoke in the kitchen & also will keep the bird crap away from the food. We once had a monkey sitting on our kitchen slab & feasting on a banana.The primate had ventured in through the window:P  

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Hi wookie, thanks for dropping by. Thats a funny reference. By ways, thats a good suggestion, i shall try out.  

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"To err is human but to forgive is divine". So why dont you forgive them? After all "somedays you are the pigeon and somedays you are the statue".

If you cant forgive them then you can solve all your problems by becoming a non-vegeteranian. ;-) Particularly with exotic food supply available. Just kidding.

Simplest solution is to cover your vessel and enjoy their company.

I came across this "Napthalene applied at 5 pounds per 2,000 cubic feet may repel pigeons from enclosed areas" Not sure as to how this is to be applied. Guess solid state should be acceptable.

Disclaimer: I have never tried them before. So attempt at your own risk :-)  

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hi baejaar, thanks for your suggestion. well, I am not a violent kind of a person so the exotic variety of food is not an option. The naphthalene solution -hmm...would need slight more supervision on that one. Covering vessels -thats what I am doing now, but the way these creatures decide to zoom in, gives me the shivers, at times it seems they might fly off the vessel covers.  

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"I was under the gas, cooking (you might have guessed), when this ..."

Under the gas, cooking??? :-o
Would love to see that happen!! :-))

Stuff the opening with lots of newspaper (so you don't have to go out shopping for anything) and other packing material that you might have. Don't give them a parking place to stop and try pushing the papers inward!

Or simpler still, have a sheet of something (paper, styrofoam, cloth, etc.) like a shade over the stove. So they do what they want, and your food doesn't get an unusual tangy taste!!! ;-)

Fun post to read!!  

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Hi Eroteme, thanks for your comments, I shall see and try out the options you suggested. The only obstruction is my height. The opening is far above my rech. Anyways, shall definitely try.right now need to rush for the IP, I hope you read the latest post.  

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If this apartment of yours is rented, then why not ask your landlords to fix the opening.

If that fails, then you could fall back to the net or newspaper solutions..  

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Can't be helped Daph, our college took it on lease and we have already been told to even nail a pin on the wall,so asking them to fix the hole is an impossibility.  

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uda do saalon ko! :p
alternatively you can cook them... saanp bhi mar gaya aur peet bhi bhar gaya! ;-)  

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