Every morning, my wife Aditi takes her office staff bus to Narela from the ITO crossing. To reach there, she takes the Metro from our Dwarka home. Once she is in ITO area and is waiting for the bus to arrive, she phones me up for a chit-chat.Surrounded by concrete monstrosities, the ITO crossing is one of the busiest traffic intersections in Delhi – according to an estimate nearly 250 vehicles pass this area every minute.
Today morning also I got her call at around 8.45 AM. But while speaking to her, I could clearly hear whistles of a Koel at the background. Amazed, I asked her the source of the sound. She said it must be coming from one of those few roadside trees in ITO…the bird's kuoo-kuooo was regular, mellifluous and very high-pitched.
I wondered how a Koel is surviving in that area full of huge concrete buildings, tarred roads and hardly any patch of green.
“It must be an urban Koel,” she ventured.
“But how did it come? How could there be a crow’s nest around?” I exclaimed.
And on that note, we hung up.
Will the same Koel sing at the same time at ITO tomorrow?
