The Morning the Birds Came for Breakfast

   A balcony full of birds, a three-year-old full of questions, and one Appa trying his best to answer them.

The Morning the birds came for breakfast

A Morning Concert Outside the Window

A Morning Concert Outside the Window

It was around 5:45 AM, and I was still rolling around in bed when I heard birds chirping somewhere nearby.

At first, I didn’t pay much attention. Early mornings here normally come with bird sounds. But this was a little different. They sounded so close that, for a moment, it felt as if they were sitting in the next room and having their own morning concert. One bird would start, another would answer, and somewhere in between, a few more would join.

I got up thinking this was probably the usual morning scene and that I should get on with my routine.

By then, my younger daughter was already awake and fully charged, dancing around and waiting for me. The moment I entered the room, she had only one thing to say.

“Navu hoppa!”
(Navu hogona. Let’s go.)

By then, the concert outside had become even louder. The interesting part was that different chirping sounds seemed to be coming from the same direction.

My daughter stopped for a moment and listened.

“Appa, What Is That Sound?”

“What is that sound? Where is it coming from?” she asked.

“Let’s go and see,” I told her.

It was already around 6:30 AM.

From our balcony, we could see plenty of flowering plants and trees around, a nice place for many of the birds that visit the area. We slowly walked towards the corner of the balcony, trying to figure out where all that sound was coming from.

And there they were.

Just across the road, someone had put out food grains. Birds had started gathering around them for their morning breakfast. The more we looked, the more interesting it became. They were not simply crowded in one place. There seemed to be some kind of pattern in where each group was sitting.

Of course, the moment my daughter saw so many birds, my peaceful bird-watching session was officially over.

And Then the Questions Started

The questions started.

“How many birds, Appa?”

“Why don’t we see all these in Bangalore?”

“Appa, what are those birds?”

“Where are they coming from?”

“Why are they making so much noise?”

Just imagine getting so many questions from a three-year-old at 6:30 in the morning.

What would be my condition?

I was still trying to identify half the birds myself, and here I had a small interviewer standing next to me waiting for answers to everything.

Now, I am not that great at communicating verbally. When I write, I can probably write my heart out. But when I am talking to her, especially when she is firing questions one after another, I try to explain things in a way where she can understand at least 30% of what I am saying.

That itself is an achievement.

Here is roughly how our conversation went, translated from Kannada and Havyaka Kannada into simple English.

Appa: What all do you want to know now, magale?

Magalu: Appa! I want to know why birds get up early.

For a second, I thought about how to explain this without turning it into a biology class.

Appa: Just like us, they also have to live! And for that, they have to eat. So they wake up early in the morning and search for food.

She thought about it for a few seconds.

Then came a question I was definitely not prepared for.

Why Can’t Birds Order Food Online?

Why Can't Birds order Food online?

Magalu: Hmm! Why can’t they get food delivered? Just like how we get it in Bangalore, even they can get it!

Now what answer do you give to that?

I laughed.

Appa: We have become lazy, magalu. With time, we have become even lazier. For everything, we rely on delivery! But that is not the case with birds or animals. They have to go and search for their own food.

She still looked as if she had some doubts about the whole arrangement. Maybe in her mind, somebody simply needed to create a food-delivery app for birds. But she nodded and moved on to her next question.

“Why Are All the Birds Together?”

Magalu: Why are all these birds together? And why are they fighting?

I looked down again.

The birds were hopping around, chirping loudly, moving between the grains and occasionally pushing their way into another bird’s space. To a three-year-old, I could understand why it looked like one big fight.

Appa: Good question! First of all, they are not really fighting. They are eating, and all that chirping makes it look as if they are arguing. But for why they are all together… I have to tell you a story.

She immediately became interested.

An Ajji Kathe for My Little Magalu

Now, what came next was completely imaginary. Something inspired by the kind of Ajji kathe our grandmothers used to tell us, where animals talked, forests had their own rules, and there was always something to learn at the end.

So I started.

“Long ago, in a very big forest, there lived a big bird called a vulture. He was scary and dangerous, and he used to terrorise the other birds in the forest. Whenever he came, all the smaller birds would become frightened and fly away.

“After some time, the birds became tired of living in fear. So they all prayed to God for help.

“God appeared before them and said, ‘If you want to stay alive and happy, you have to stay together. Whatever comes your way, you should face it together. Only then will you be able to defeat this evil.’

“After God disappeared, all the birds gathered and made a decision.

“‘From today, wherever we go, we will stay together. We will also eat together. We can have our own small groups, but we will never leave one another when there is danger.’

“So from that day, the birds started travelling together and sharing whatever food grains they found.

“One day, while all the birds were eating together, the vulture came hunting for them again.

“But this time, something was different.

“Instead of flying away, all the birds stayed together. The small birds, the bigger birds, everyone joined in. Together, they fought back and finally made the vulture run away from the forest.

“And from that day onwards, all the birds stayed together happily.”

She listened quietly until I finished.

Then she looked at the birds again.

Magalu: Ohhh… that is why the birds are staying together!

The Moral Arrived Faster Than Expected

At that point, I decided to test whether at least that 30% of my story had reached properly.

Appa: Okay. What is the moral of the story?

Without thinking much, she replied:

Magalu: Me and my sister should stay together and should not fight.

I smiled.

Appa: Good!

I don’t know how long that moral would remain active once both sisters were back together, but for that moment, I was happy with the answer.

While our Ajji kathe discussion was going on, the real birds below continued with their breakfast as if they had no concern about the story being created about them from the balcony.

The way they had gathered was actually quite interesting.

A few crows were sitting on the terrace and on the nearby walls where some of the grains had been scattered. The mynas seemed to have created their own circle near the gate, happily eating from the ground. A large number of sparrows were gathered just beside them.

There were a few other birds too, each moving around within their own little groups.

A Wedding Breakfast for the Birds

A Wedding Breakfast for the Birds

For some reason, looking at all of them together reminded me of a big Indian wedding function.

One group here.

Another group there.

Some already eating.

Some waiting for their chance.

Some making plenty of noise.

And everybody somehow knowing where they belonged.

It really looked as though someone had invited the entire bird community for a wedding breakfast.

My daughter and I stood there watching them for some more time.

By then, the sun was slowly coming up and seemed to be announcing, “Okay, I am also ready now. Today I am going to heat things up. No rain!”

The coolness of the early morning was already beginning to disappear.

Then Grandmother Called, “Food Is Ready!”

And then came another familiar sound from inside the house.

Grandmother called out, “Food is ready!”

Perfect timing.

We had spent all this time watching the birds enjoy their breakfast, and now our own tummies had started reminding us that we had been standing there without eating anything.

So magalu and I finally left the balcony and went inside.

A Simple Morning I Will Remember

It was such a simple morning. Nothing was planned. No outing, no special activity, nothing extraordinary.

Just some food grains across the road, a gathering of birds, and a three-year-old with more questions than I had answers.

But somehow, those are the mornings that stay with us.

I am sure many of my answers were incomplete, and I am equally sure she understood only a small part of my imaginary bird story. But for those few minutes, we stood together watching the birds, talking about food delivery, vultures, teamwork, sisters fighting, and everything else that came into her little mind.

A morning well spent with my daughter.

And knowing her, I am only waiting for the next set of questions to arrive. 😊

Some Snipts, though i was not able to capture the birds showing the place and early morning vibes!!

Balcony View!! Sun Rise

Sun Rise

View from Balcony