Thursday, April 26, 2007

Beep

This evening I was running a bit late for my fitness class and was hurrying out of my office building. As I fast-walked to my car, I could hear an audible "beep" sound from the road. Everytime a vehicle whizzed by, "beep" the sound would go.

I thought the traffic police had installed some motion detector device to count the number of vehicles which went by. But why on earth would the traffic police want a count of the number of vehicles? Oh, or maybe, they were tracking speed - but what an odd place to keep such a device!

By this time, I was quite captivated by the "beep" sound and decided to watch for a bit. Then I realized, the beep wasn't actually happening every time a vehicle went by. It just happened randomly.

Which was when I noticed - right on top of the stone name board at the entrance to the office complex sat a tiny brown bird. And every few seconds, it opened its tiny beak and went "tweet", "tweet". The "beep" sound I thought I heard was the tweeting of a bird!

As a city-dweller, how disconnected am I from nature that the operation of a motion detector seems to be a much more natural explanation for a beeping sound than the tweeting of a bird!

12 comments:

Vishesh said...

maybe the bird wanted to trick you..or you shold go on a holiday to some naturicious place.....??

Sahasra said...

The mundane Life makes us forget to observe the pretty nature around us...

The Kid said...

that was very funny! :-)

Amandeep Singh said...

Sounds like a natures call I guess...
But this is indeed sad....We have lost totall conenction with the nature..its beautiful...let alone to embrace and appreciate it...

Anonymous said...

:--) At least you have some birds in your area. :--)

Bharathis said...

The birds have their own problems in learning to live with the humans! Check out this recent news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6591649.stm

Archana Bahuguna said...

Hee hee. That was funny.

When we had just come to Raleigh from the concrete jungle of New Delhi, I had difficulty deciphering similar beeping sounds which I would hear all day only to realize later that all of them were coming from birds. It was a beautiful find though. :-)

Ginkgo said...

Ever heard the song...naan orru muttalunga..;-)

Anonymous said...

I liked the way you have maintained the suspense till the end...good post.

Archana said...

Vishesh - I need a vacation - can you tell my manager too, please :-))?

Sashra - sometimes that's so true!

Pratap - :-))!

Standbymind - Yup - I guess sometimes we are in too much of a rush to appreciate what we already have!

sk - :-)) - that was a revelation to me too!

Mummy - that's interesting!!

Archana - ah, I know what you are saying :-)!

Ginkgo - en solla maata X-(!

Bread Hater - nice name :-P! Thank you!

Abhay said...

true. i wonder when was the last time i spent some time watchin the sun rise :o

Archana said...

Abhay - to watch sunrise one needs to get up early. Therein lies the problem :-(!