The day I was born it was raining heavily. I was so damn sick of staying in that tiny egg. So one fine day I stretched out my legs as far as I could, lo and behold the egg was broken and I was all gluey. Someone was helping me to get out and I knew it without a guess that it was mommy. My eyes were closed for the first few days. It was strange; I was born but could not make out who I was. My imagination led me everywhere. I would see myself as a huge giant and everyone is running helter-skelter around me. Mommy would be around all the time except when she made a quick foray to get food. With all due respect to mommy, food was not great but I still ate it with relish. Besides me and mommy there was someone who kept kicking me constantly and I would kick back as hard as I could. And then the BIG MOMENT of opening my eyes…….well the least said the better!
Mommy was some kinda flying ‘pigeon’ I was told and our nest was on one of the flower pots of Mr. Ramalinga’s balcony. I was not very good looking but way better than my brother I thought. He of course, needed some serious lessons on how to live in harmony since he still has not stopped kicking me. We lived in a huge neighborhood of pigeons and dad would often visit us. He was such a handsome guy always in rush for some party. He would always say, “Grow up fast kids, it’s so much fun”. There was nothing much to do those days. My favorite pastime was listening to noisy Mr. Ramamlinga’s family. They were real fun. Sometime they would play music so loud that mommy would start yelling at them but they hardly cared. Their beautiful girl would try to feed us at times, but mommy always said no to junk food!
I grew up pretty fast. The only talk we had those days was about flying. My brother took off before me. He sometimes returned to make fun of me. But I was scared of heights. Dad was quite impatient. He would say, “Be a pigeon. Fly”. Mom wanted me send me to a flying school. I told her that I don’t want to fly. I can spend the rest of my life on ground. But she insisted. I was so harassed that I wanted to kill myself. One day I actually went on the edge of the flower pot to jump off. With tears in my eyes I jumped and with one swift movement my wings were spread out and there I was flying as if I was born to do it! It still gives me goose bumps to think about my first flight. These days I just tell my kids, “grow up fast kids, it’s so much fun”.
