An Obituary

I would like to take out sometime for an obituary. An obituary I hoped came much later in life but here we are. One part of my “happy place” gave in to our needs of having a good road connecting two settlements coming up in the vicinity. 

A little background for everyone here –  Basai has been a place where I’ve spent a fair share of my birding days. It is where I’ve taken naps under a lone tree. It is where I’ve spent days in wait for a single bird. It is where several birds have accepted me as their own. It is home!

Feeling hopeless is the worst kind of feeling someone can have. Now I know why. The back side of basai is facing mass landfill and I stood there and watched with a heavy heart. Every gravel of sand felt as if a part of me was dying inside. 

Basai dying has always been a fear and now that it has commenced, I don’t know how to feel and how to put it in words. I was sure that it was going to hurt but never could fathom it’s depth.

This is where I saw several waders enjoying in the little water body that formed there post rains. This is where several pipits and snipes took refuge. All this seemed to have happened in my previous life. This is where I tried for swallows and martins. This is where I saw my first blue cheeked bee eater. This is where I saw the water pipit for the first time in Delhi. All this seems to be a dream .. A nightmare. 

I just wished I could enjoy the place to its fullest till it’s alive and kicking and now that it’s going, I think it deserved more. 

No birder could deny that this place has given them so much in the past that imagining a time without this place would make everyone die a thousand deaths.