A Buoy in Charcoal Feathers

The pied bushchat watched me the whole time I watched it.

It is a sedentary chat. We watched each other for the better part of a glorious evening.

I generally do not go to my terrace, often spending my time on a leafy balcony outside my study. But today, the sky was perfectly grey, swollen in places like sesame ice cream, above which was a golden wash of burnished honey. There was rain in the air, and the wind was cool and nippy.

After a while, the situation evolved into a staredown. I did not want to cheat by yelling and shooing the bird away. The bush chat seemed to have all the time in the world. With a slight wobble and dobble, it cozied down into a comfortable pose, feathers ruffling in the wind.

A squirrel blurred past us, but neither of us moved.

If you can’t beat them, study them. I started taking mental notes about the bird.

Pied bushchats are a recent phenomenon in my life. How recent? About a month old. They are the Susuwatari, the charcoal spirits from the Ghibli universe. Ruffled black feathers, tennis-ball shaped, flitting beings whose presence is mysterious and soothing.

In a world where nothing is enough – “make it fancier”, “how much does this promise in revenue?”, “Is this all we have managed to come up with?” – The pied bushchat’s very existence thumbs its nose at everything we humans have built and come to desire.

Simplicity for the sake of simplicity. Cute without anime eyes. Best of all, existing outside the realms of human avarice.

Reclaiming even a little time meaningfully has become so fractious that I needed a pied bushchat at the end of my lifeline as a buoy. Most days, I wish I were someone else.

Today, I felt I was where I was destined to be.