We have visitors to our office today...

A set of very dignified and pompous aristocrats are coming in their black and white suits and with red caravats.

They have been very quietly sitting and observing us working. Impeccable conduct only marred by sudden, occasional and tremendous display of bravado and jealousy when two of the party used to suddenly squabble for the best seats in the arena. Or when suddenly startled by the appearance of a hawk on the horizon, they all suddenly take wing and depart enmass zigzagging wildly like a drunkard, only to reappear at the window a minute later with a quizzical expression on their face as if to enquire politely what the fuss was all about....

yes! the visitors are a horde of red throated swallows.

they are little furry cute balls each measuring about the size of a little Nokia 2100 from the beak tip to the tail.

the funny thing is they have rather long wings with respect to their body sizes so they look like somebody attached a little lolliop to a pair of wings and shot them across the skies.

they have a deep black back, with nice feathers and are pretty calm except when they are angry when they use their small sharp beaks to knock each other about...

they have been here since morning....

most of them are preening themselves pretty hard.

they look like a bench of dimunitive football players all warming up preparatory to the start of the game...

some of them are real characters:

1) Mr. Inquisitive: this little fella is horribly inquisitive about everything at all. he is curious about his own wings, his neighbours the bikes parked downstairs,
but most of all about the plane glass windows that seem to harbour all the secrets known to man or bird. he keeps walking up to the pane putting his beak upto the pane like most people do when faced with the windows of a Maruti 800. Whenever Vasu our PL suddenly turns his head Mr. Inquisitive just falls of his perch on the window sill, like he has seen some spectre and having fallen 50 feet and having satiated his curiosity about the fast moving air quickly beats his wings and comes upto the top and repeats the entire charade with Vasu again and again and again....

2)Mr. Paper reader: he has got hold of a piece of paper, which is now jammed against one of the window slits. He perhaps finds this easier to sit on than the hard granite sill. He goes to the top of the paper and the wind catches the bottom edge and flutters it about. He cautiously walks in a crablike manner sideways and as the back of the paper flutters he walks down to the bottom of the page. This time the top of the paper now flutters about and then he walks up to the top. The effect is of someone who is reading a paper. Rather shy bird. he has hardly raised his head from the paper at all. He reminds me invariably of fathers everywhere hiding behind their papers when caught by mothers.

they have been swooping about and indulging in all acts of histrionics in order to catch everyone's attention.

they look so cute....

so fragile...