Sharing Private Spaces

Location: Khoj courtyard

      

Aim: Sharing some home space to establish 'an Observatory for Visual Lessons'

Both the form of the sculpture and of the observatory are inspired from Sufi shrines. I had tried to create similar ambiance, calmness and energy.

This sculpture needs a regular filling & cleaning and

 hence creates opportunity for regular interaction with

nature. The cereals put were many kind to attract

various species. It had wheat, millet, barley, 

rice, sesame and sun flower seed.

The idea for the private spaces is essentially to share some of our inhibiting spaces for birds by generating an Eco bird habitat, in this case around one Installed structure which requires disciplined maintenance & its regular filling with food & water. The degree of interaction varies from mere observation to performing maintenance duties.

Nesting material: threads unwearied from a cotton rope hangs from this small shrub

All I needed to do is to provide birds with water, grains & nesting material. For nesting I offered them cooler grass which they seemed to like most from what I offered. Out of raw and processed cotton they seem to prefer fine one except for one pair of sparrow which put raw cotton piece on its nest for its purplish color as marker at the door of his nest house and refusing all together the synthetic variety of the cotton dispersed in corners of the observatory. The neem twigs were offered for the pigeons who were considerably nice to me while I shot them on my Sony handy cam, yes I think they are quite narcissistic and love to get clicked but for what do they not pick twigs for three days I haven't figured out specially when it is said that neem twigs are loved by pigeons and they specially keep them inside their nests due to its aroma & medicinal quality. Their behavior I tell you is at time very strange!

Leap of faith

Pigeon are similar to dogs for expressing there affection I mean what they use to do with me, once they knew that I am trying to attract them by giving them water, grains, plant habitat and security net is that that they expresses their fearlessness by taking flight near to you. They also throw material inside the water bowls and off course excrete in that zone of free food. Well! it's always free of cost for them!! may be with few exceptions & as also science consider that exceptions always exist ! Pigeons fill their space with symbols of their existence leaving markings in the area as excreta, feather and their popular sound of gutarr..guu in continuous loops.

Although, to me they seemed habitual to weird artist activities so frequent at this khoj building but intially Mr. sparrow doubted some political bits and anti-social element behind such sudden rise in abundance and safety for him & his natives of khirkee area although gradually got involved in creating art with us (pun intended)

Quite a variety of food! From fresh millet shoots to soaked wheat and small insect ecosystem which grew over molds formed over moist cereals and seeds

Nevertheless a huge task for unusually lazy unplanned creature like me but it can prove itself a real stress buster indeed for anyone who could manage to spend some time watching birds engaged in their regular household duties mainly finding nesting material, cleaning themselves, communicat-ing and being social. Fighting, mating and kissing in air !

Kissing @ khoj studio's rooftop

Birds wakes up with sunrise and remain active till the dawn. Birds like natural material for nesting and prefers fresh water. In fact, the sound of running water attract birds to the site. If sources of water are present birds will figure out rest of their housing needs

Availability of nesting material and possible nesting spaces helped birds settle down whereas, covering the courtyard with net secuerd the area for them.
For most of us most of the sounds of bird chattering is ignored in such urban settings like Delhi. Only tough birds dare to settle in towns and as their exist strong power hierarchy amongst them small birds, those living in small social groups do not fight with comparatively stronger and aggressive birds like crow, pigeon, sparrow and myna.

This adorable bird visitor below, smaller even then sparrow is called baboona in hindi and is also known famously as white-eye because of its noticable white circles around the eyes. Its a rare sight and limits itself generally to blossoming branches and bushes and not prefers to venture out in open spaces that is why its hard to spot and is more often heard then seen like the bird koel. I am glad to spot it quite a times and hope it settle down at my observatory but it likes living in groups and is no match for pigeons or sparrows aggression. It breeds between february to before monsoon so this is the time.

scientific name: zosterops palpebrosus

oriental white-eye





This fella!! visited observatory quite a time. It was evident that he wanted to stay and I wished for the same but this small beautiful bird was no match to fight relatively larger pigeon and aggressive sparrows. All he managed to get a glimpse of this paradise and probably weaved plans for intruding the site.

I wondered why crows not entered this research observatory cum meditation chamber when there were so many in the lane outside Khoj studios. Can you guess it? The answer is probably their diet. What do crows eat? Well! They can eat almost anything form leftovers to housecrap to literraly any thing here, it feasts on a dead rodent.

Imagine a world without them? crows are scavengers so they help keeping environment clean by feeding on dead.

I noticed few days back during a hot dry afternoon at a park in Ashram area of Delhi, right in front of me a big shiny crow dipped a dried piece of roti (a varient of bread from Indian kitchen) into a pit of water, waited for few seconds took it in his mouth and flew off, very smart of them, isn't it!

And offcourse it also brings into the mind bed time story of once upon a time when a thirsty crow who dip stones into a pot to rise its water level from down below so that it comes into his reach so that he get some to drink well I dont think that is practically posible and is more symbolic in nature as a moral story then a science fact or pebbles will absorb some water so what one has to do if in situation of the crow is to suck water back from the stone and making way for some dilluted stone particles into the kidney. Their is always a real meaning hidden! isn't it?

While what probably had inspired the writer of the story has to be the smart' ness of this bird, its a tough bird and quite a bully as well. It even sometimes snatches food for crow's nest. This is how it is happening from forever, male koel distracts the attention of both sexes of crow meanwhile female koel lay's its egg their, the eggs being similar to those of crow but smaller in size and smart crow is used here by law of nature to repeat the same and incubate and bring up the chicks of both, koels and theirs.om bigger birds like eagles. I have seen him doing the same with siberian birds who come to delhi river yamuna migrating during summers and I have also seen one teasing a child monkey and it really pissed him off. Crow is a nightmare for other birds and only bird which outfoxes him is Koel by laying eggs in

Sweet home !!

This phase of USN project will be observing ages old Indian practice of non-violence towards every single living being and to find till what degree this idea had survived. I remember from my childhood those big bath tub kind cement casted water filled containers, placed under trees to feed cows, oxes and horses they were like fuel stations for Tonga's and Bullock carts However any of these animals are no longer allowed to be kept as pets or to be used for carriage or mode of transport in the capital but still one can find them in use at few of the older Delhi establishments and I am keeping an eye for them!

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next page: Interrogating public spaces at various existing bird feeding sites in Delhi...read more

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