Skip to main content

TAKING ADVANTAGE


 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

29/VII/2025

 

I was reminded of the old story of two cats fighting over a slice of bread and a monkey whom they requested to mediate over the dispute. I won’t reiterate that story. However, today I witnessed two situations exactly like that.

 

Little girls were playing “Ghar-Ghar” in the front lawn. Arrangements for a birthday party were in full swing. They were busy selecting dresses, arranging the venue, sorting out their guest list, finalising the menu, writing invitation cards etc. However, there was a dispute on the timing of the party.

 

Just then three boys, two of them on their bicycles and one without, wanted to join the girls in the party. The girls refused to allow them in. The eldest one with a cycle was the classmate of one of the girls and tried to persuade her on the ‘classmate net’. The girls didn’t budge.

 

All their conversations and discussions could be heard loud and clear. I was witnessing all this from my rooftop, where I was waiting to photograph birds in flight.

 

While the two boys tried to park their cycles in the middle of the road, the elder one accidentally knocked off the younger boy’s cycle and it fell on the road. All hell broke loose. “Tune meri cycle ko kaise touch kiya. I will tell papa. You broke my cycle”. A fist fight started. One slapped the other and vice versa. I could understand the sentiments about the most dear possession.

 

Taking advantage of the situation, the third boy who was on foot made the fallen bike stand upright. As the fight between the other two intensified, he ran away with that bike to a distance, mounted it and zoomed off for a chukker. The boy whose bike it was did not know what to do. To continue to fight with the boy who knocked his cycle or to run and catch his other friend who took advantage of the situation and took a joy ride round the park.

 

This boy started howling and crying loudly. The elder one took his bike and scooted. The situation eased out when the other boy returned with the cycle. There would have been another fight and anticipating that, the other boy just jumped off the bike and let it fall hard on the road in the same momentum and ran away. This teary eyed boy could do nothing. He rode back home sobbing.

 

The girls continued playing without paying attention to what was happening as if nothing had happened. It was party time afterall.

 

Then there was commotion on a bare branched tree. Two Drongos were in a kind of fight. For what, I was not sure but surely the atmosphere amongst them was not congenial from their gestures. Just then a third Drongo came to intervene. Two of them attacked it and the third Drongo went and perched itself a little away.

 

While these guys were fighting my attention was drawn to a bird which was sitting on a branch below the Drongos. She slyly flew and came to the place where these Drongos were nesting. I knew it, as I had photographed them a couple of days earlier on that tree.

 

The drongos were daggers drawn and my friend “Mr Shikra” took advantage of the situation. He located their nest. It waited for a while to see if there was a reaction from the papa and mama Drongo. Then quietly it entered the tree. I could make out what he would have done to the contents of the nest.

 

Drongos must have realised that while they were fighting, their nest was under attack. The other birds had raised an alarm, but their fight was more important it seems. By the time they returned and chased Mr Shikra away, I assumed that the damage had been done. I could not see it clearly, but the chase of the Drongos and the Shikra said it all.

 

My only wish is that hopefully at least one egg or chick would be safe in the nest. Will my wish come true? I wonder!!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

©® NOEL ELLIS










Comments

  1. Anonymous30 July 2025 at 10:07

    Ur wish be fulfilled. Don't worry , chick / egg will be safe. Good read đź“š đź‘Ť badiya.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1 August 2025 at 21:47

    Excellent read Noel. Positive your wish will come true. Thanks dear....

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FINGER ON YOUR LIPS

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   29/IV/2025   What has happened to Pakistan? While India is doing Fauji Exercises, Pakistan has mobilised for what! I agree that the people of India want revenge. But, from whom? Our PM has only said that “we will not leave the terrorists and their supporters till the end of the Earth”. He has never said he will sort out Pakistan, or has he?   It has been hilarious watching discussions on Paki social media channels. They seem to have already given up. Our RM meets the PM and Pakistan starts shitting bricks. They talk about jazba and gazwa, and start telling us about their nuclear arsenal. 160 I suppose. By the way we will send across one equivalent to your 160 if need be.   There is a saying, ‘Chor ki Dari main tinka” literal meaning is, a straw in a thief’s beard. However, the deep meaning is that a guilty person reveals his guilt through his behaviour, even unintentionally. Clearly, “a guilty conscious needs no accuser”...
16 comments
Read more

SCENE AT ELLIS’ RESTAURANT

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   04/XI/2024   Every morning the scene in the Ellis’ restaurant is so refreshing. The notes birds sing sounds like ‘reveille’ being sounded by the buglers. The ‘scenario’ keeps varying with arrival of different birds at different timings.   It is like being a restaurant owner, working solo with minimum help. Yours truly is the waiter, housekeeper, cook, receptionist, barman, purchase manager, accountant, and storekeeper of this shack. Imagine!   Foremost thing in the morning is housekeeping of the garden area, followed by watering the pots. This gives the plants a nice bath, like kids being readied for school.   The first set of ‘clients’ called the ‘Tailor Birds’ appear. They love to hunt for insects which get disturbed by the watering ritual. They sing and dance, hop and skip and carry on chasing moths and worms, without bothering about my presence.   By then the Bulbuls and the Sparrows start lini...
22 comments
Read more

IF THERE IS A WAR…...

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   28/IV/2025   I remember the 1971 war as a small child. We were in Kapurthala Punjab, very close to the Pakistan border. It was an evening in December, I do not remember the exact date. While returning from a friends house, the declaration of war was done as I skipped along the ‘Thandi Sarak’ of Kapurthala.   The gist was that a vehicle with loud speakers was telling people to head home as an "emergency" had been declared and war had started. I ran as fast as I could, shivering with fear and my heart beating unusually fast. Though I was a lap baby when the 1965 war had taken place, it appeared serious business now.   Overnight, Dad and other Uncles started digging trenches infront of our homes. Carbon paper was no dearth in a teachers house, so mom got into an overdrive to stick them to the glass windows. Though the glass had been painted during the 1965 war, some broken panes had been replaced. Mom told ...
6 comments
Read more