India !

Johannes Manjrekar

Scooter Park

The scooters are parked in a straight row. With the single mirrors on their handlebars, they look rather like one-horned cattle. A babbler is sitting on one of the mirrors, bending down and pecking at something. At first I think it is trying to catch an insect. It overbalances and slides down, but immediately flutters and scrambles back to its place on top of the mirror. It promptly bends forward and resumes pecking at the mirror till it overbalances again. And again it scrambles back to repeat the cycle. This goes on for several minutes. The babbler is growing visibly exhausted, its beak open and its breathing speeded up. Finally it extends its slide down the mirror to a glide to the ground. There it remains, catching its breath.

dull afternoon
a babbler does battle
with its reflection

Johannes
2006-12-20

Copyright Johannes Manjrekar, 2006
tempslibres.org