Inspirational

Today, we talk about pigeons.

The pigeon in the picture is doing its best Hrithik Roshan to Main Aisa Kyu Hoon from the movie Lakshya.

And let me start with this: unless you live in the late 1800s, which obviously you don’t (unless you have travelled through time, in that case, kudos!), pigeons can go fuck themselves!

What is their utility even aside from being food for some other animals? And you know why they are a great source of food for other animals? Because they are fucking stupid!

We are talking about a bird that regularly, mindlessly crashes into windows and walls and what have you. This is the same bird that when you approach, thinks it is a fucking helicopter and flies vertically upwards at a right angle to the ground and not at an acute angle.

If you are on a bike, it can’t even generate enough speed to dodge you properly. You have to channel your inner Keanu Reeves and do your best Neo impression. You bend backward and sideways without the safety harness. That too, on a bike when you are at some speed that is definitely more than your average running speed, balancing your concerned and scared ass on two wheels.

And okay, you must be thinking, “Come on, they used to carry mail for us and that during wartime, we can still make use of it.”

Fuck your sympathy. And I will tell you why. Barring a few, almost all pigeons across the world have lost their homing instinct. So, the one use that we had for them, ONE, is redundant. If you send a pigeon with mail, it is probably going to barge against a window and drop your mail somewhere random and go and eat some grain or whatever. And the few that retain their homing instincts are either with Mike Tyson or probably some drug lords.

Their cousin, the dove, has more utility than them. Though I must admit, it becomes a bit difficult since the feathers come off and clog your bathroom and the beak hurts your skin. So you have to be careful about that while using them as soap.

But.

But, despite all of that, the fuckers have survived. In fact, not only have they survived, but they are also thriving. They are out here living their best lives. We throw grain every day for them, they flock there munching on it as if they have just smoked 8 joints in a row. I don’t know if they do smoke up, but they sure behave as if they are constantly stoned. Leaving me stunned.

And this is exactly where it gets tricky for me. This is where I cannot decide what I feel about them.

There are cockroaches on one hand, who can survive nuclear bombing, and then there are crows on the other, who are just intellectual and smart and have formed some semblance of societal rules amongst themselves. There are also dolphins who are racist and are seemingly jolly and fun but are A-grade assholes in reality.

And then, there are pigeons, who just seem to survive whatever you throw at them. In spite of their utter, magnanimous stupidity, absolute lack of any brain cell, absence of a sense of well-being, and not a cell that can maintain the gene that made them useful in the past.

This brings me to a phenomenal realisation and, thus, a conclusion.

If pigeons can survive and thrive in this world, so can you.