Mumbai's Bird Man

The first time I met Pradeep was some fifteen years ago when we were vaccinating street dogs against rabies in the Fort area. He was playing cricket on an empty Sunday  street, on the otherwise busy P.M. Road and he suddenly came up to me and muttered in Hindi. “I will help you in the vaccination”. That was to be a very long association and he still helps us not only with his passion- the birds but also with other animals .  

Had written this for the Outlook magazine some years ago…..this is the unedited version….

Pradeep D'Souza - ducking the camera

You will have to go round and round a spiral wooden staircase that winds up  four floors, come to a open to the sky terrace, enter a little room, climb onto a steep ladder, go through a little window and finally you would have entered into Mumbai’s birdman, Pradeep D’Souza’s little bird haven, a shelter cum hospital ‘nestled’ on top of a small terrace in the heritage Queen’s Mansion in the Fort area of South Mumbai. 

Pradeep had a passion for birds since his childhood days as his older brother used to keep pigeons as pets. When they fell sick and as there was no vet who was specialized in the treatment of birds, all he could do was see them die. Determined to save his birds, Pradeep started reading books on bird care and medication. He learnt about preventive vaccinations for Ranikhet or Newcastle disease and treatment of various bird ailments.

A rescued masked booby

Thus in 1997, he started treating injured and sick birds brought by other people and till date must have treated over 3000 feathered flock of different species.  From the common ones like parrots, pigeons, crows and kites to the rarer ones like eagles, falcons, mask boobys and night herons; they have all passed through his healing hands.

Pradeep treats more than hundred birds a month. His name as a bird savior has spread far and wide and people bring injured birds to him from all over Mumbai, even from far flung places like Virar and Nala Sopara.  There is a cage kept in the compound of the building where people can deposit the birds. He is currently housing more than 250 birds that include thirty parrots, eight owls, thirty kites, hundreds of pigeons, a duck, a mask booby, a night heron and crows.  All these are housed in cages weaved and built by Pradeep himself. As soon as a bird heals up he lets them free depending on their original habitat.

He says that his birds always remember him. A kite that he housed for two months due to injury and was set free after it healed, refused to go away and kept coming back. His family has played a big role in supporting his passion. His mother helps out in the feeding and his brothers have always helped out financially. One of his brothers, Donald who runs a cable TV business and is a partner in a fast food joint called Fido’s near Sterling theatre has helped him with the costs he incurs on building bird cages and buying medicines. There are also some individuals who fund the feed expenses. 

But the soft spoken, shy and humble Pradeep says that it does not cost too much to maintain birds as medicines are not very expensive. He never charges anyone his services and in fact is shy when it comes to accepting any money.  He adds that his neighbors have been very supportive and never complain as his birds have never been a disturbance to the people around.

Pradeep's little bird haven

His dream is to have a large terrace which has plenty of sunlight; some where in South Mumbai so that he can treat thousands of birds and release them more easily.  Terraces anyone …. For the bird cause!

And Mumbai's lifeline is being pulled by an engine !

These photos taken by me at 8:30 am today of a local train running slowly and is being pulled by an engine. This is between the Grant Road and Bombay Central stations on the Western Railway during peak commuter hours and it sums up "The Motormen's Strike' which paralysed Mumbai yesterday and would continue to do so today unless it is called off.

Read reports about the strike which is the biggest since 1974 , here here and here.

Kipling at the J J School of Art.

When I was in school, I used to go into the dean’s bungalow in the campus of the Sir J J. Institute Of Applied Art and collect ‘gunja’ or the red beads that fell into its compound from the red sandalwood / bead tree also referred to as Ratangunj in Marathi. In olden times, it is said that goldsmiths used to use these red beads as weights.

My visits were because of the fact that I studied at the next-door St Xavier’s High School and used to visit my sister who was a commercial arts student at the J.J School. Many years later as I developed an interest in Mumbai’s history, I came to know that the dean’s bungalow where we collected the red beads was historic as the well known Scottish born author and poet Rudyard Kipling was born here on December 13, 1865. Of course, the bungalow in which he was born was pulled down and another (shown below) was built in its place.

Rudyard’s father, John Lockwood Kipling was the first Principal of the J.J. School of Art. The J.J. School was funded by Sir Jamshedji Jeejeebhoy, designed by George Twigge Molecey and opened in 1857 with additional buildings constructed between 1878 and 1907. Eminent architect, George Wittet who also taught at the Architecture school designed the School Of Architecture building. He has designed other Mumbai buildings like The Gateway of India, Prince Of Wales Museum (now Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya), G.P.O., Institute of Science, The Small Causes Court and Wadia and K.E.M Hospitals.

Here’s what Kipling wrote about Bombay in his ‘To the city of Bombay’

The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
They traffic up and down,
But cling to their cities' hem
As a child to their mother's gown.

When they talk with the stranger bands,
Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
By roaring streets unknown;
Blessing her where she stands
For strength above their own.

(On high to hold her fame
That stands all fame beyond,
By oath to back the same,
Most faithful-foolish-fond;
Making her mere-breathed name
Their bond upon their bond.)

So thank I God my birth
Fell not in isles aside --
Waste headlands of the earth,
Or warring tribes untried --
But that she lent me worth
And gave me right to pride.

Surely in toil or fray
Under an alien sky,
Comfort it is to say:
"Of no mean city am I!"

(Neither by service nor fee
Come I to mine estate --
Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.)


Now for this debt I owe,
And for her far-borne cheer
Must I make haste and go
With tribute to her pier.


And she shall touch and remit
After the use of kings
(Orderly, ancient, fit)
My deep-sea plunderings,
And purchase in all lands.
And this we do for a sign
Her power is over mine,
And mine I hold at her hands!

                                                                                                                                  Gillian Tindall in her book, 'The City of Gold' clarifies the reason why Kipling used the words “between the palms and the sea”. “When Kipling was born land – reclamation was only just beginning and the bay beyond the railway lines wasn’t yet filled up by the then Alexandra (now Indira) docks. The railway itself was a newcomer. The V.T.Terminus (now C.S.T) was not yet built and instead there was a small station called Bori Bunder named after an old wharf. So the Kiplings’ bungalow, with the trees of the maidan behind it could literally have been described as ‘between the palms and the sea’.

Another Rudyard Kiplings’ Mumbai connection is that of the beautifully sculpted marble panels in bas-relief on the Crawford market and the decorative panel of tutelary animals and the Indian River Goddess on the fountain inside the Crawford Market. They were crafted by Rudyard Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling.

Coming back to the bungalow, currently it is lying vacant and there was some talk about it being converted into a Museum but not naming it after Kipling. Hope they preserve the bungalow and if you have the time take a stroll into the beautiful J.J. School campus and look it up like so many foreign tourists who come clutching a copy of The Lonely Planet asking for directions of the Kipling bungalow.

WSD - Strays Of Mumbai Calendar 2010

The Welfare of Stray Dogs(WSD) has brought out the “Strays Of Mumbai” WSD Calendar 2010. This year, WSD has come out with 'wall' as well as 'desk' calendars. Both the calendars have a collection of photographs of street dogs that we come across in our daily commute through the city of Mumbai. Each dog has a unique character and some hidden quirks just like the people they live amongst. Both the calendars have distinctly different photographs taken by WSD volunteer, Rohan Mukerjee

Wall Calendar - Cover

Wall Calendar - March page

Desk Calendar - Cover

They are available for Rs 150 at the WSD- Kala Ghoda office and other outlets/vet clinics listed below who have been very kind and generous to stock them.Proceeds from the sale of calendars go towards WSD’s sterilization and other programmes.

South Mumbai
1) Rhythm House : 40, K. Dubash Marg (Rampart Row), Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400023. Tel: 4322 2727 2) WSD Office: C/o Mr F. Broacha, 2nd Flr, Yeshwant Chambers, B.Bharucha Marg, Near Fab India, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23 Tel : 64222838 3) Dr Leena Dalal’s Clinic :Green Fields, Opposite Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Mumbai – 21 Tel: 66153497 4) Ibrahim’s Pet Shop : Kemps Corner, Mumbai – Tel: 23806278 5) Dr Tina Rustomji’s Clinic :Gamadia Polyclinic, Gamadia Colony, Tardeo – Mumbai - 34 Tel: 23519105 6) Dr Padam’s Clinic: Ground Floor, Mohini Mansion, Opposite Strand Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai – 400 005 7) It’s A Dog’s Life : Shop No 1 and 2, Pushpa Vihar, Opposite Colaba Post Office, Colaba, Mumbai 400 005. Tel : 22834842
Dadar
Dr Makrand Chavan’s Clinic : Shop No 1, Matoshree Tower, Kohinoor Mills Lane, Shivaji Park, Dadar – Mumbai- 28 Tel: 24380756
Bandra
1) Paws and Furs : Shop No 3, Kailash,156, Waterfield Road, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 66990858 2) Tailwaggers : 16th Road, Behind Hawaian Shack, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 9820127572
Khar
KPS My Pet Shop : Shop No 5, Shivanjali, Dr Ambedkar Road, Khar, Mumbai. Tel : 65913333
Juhu
Dr Sunita Patel’s Clinic : 3, Kartik, 12th Rd. New India Society, j.V.P.D. Scheme, Juhu, Mumbai 400 049 Tel : 26125790/26154082
Andheri
Dogaholics : Shop No 6, Garden View, Shastri Nagar, Lokhandwala , Andheri(W) – Mumbai. Tel : 9819004010
Chembur
KPS My Pet Shop: Shop No 27, Opp Wasan Motors, Sion-Trombay Rd, Chembur- Mumbai 71 Tel: 6591444

(Please telephone the respective outlet for their timings and availability)

Happy Diwali

Mumbai Birds - The Crow

The baby crow sat in my hand and clutched onto to me. His disproportionate huge head to his little body did not take away his defense mechanism in opening his big beak wide open, every time I petted him on the head. After a while he got used to me and sat quietly in the taxi-ride from opposite Mani Bhavan at Gamdevi to Fort.

I was attending one of the hundreds of calls in the year that WSD receives to rescue city-birds….mostly crows, pigeons, cuckoos, owls and kites, sometimes parrots, sparrows, egrets and herons. I am not a bird-enthusiast and cannot distinguish a heron from a magpie …but yes I love our everyday city birds.

The Indian House Crows are a subject onto themselves. You will see them all over Mumbai…. cawing away, sitting coolly on top of BEST buses - single and double-deckers, following garbage trucks and riding on top of the fisher folks baskets. Look around, especially before the rains and you will see them toiling away gathering twigs, wires and anything they can get their hands… err … beaks on to build that little nests on top of trees right in the middle of traffic and busy streets. You will also of course see them gnawing at all kinds of stuff including dead rats flattened by cars in the middle of the street and hovering around dust-bins clearing up a huge amount of garbage that we have created. Come evening and you wonder where they all disappear.


It is said that if a crow sits and caws at your door or window then you will be getting a visitor at home. Well, with the boom of crows cawing all over, all of us should be getting a regular flow of visitors. But myths apart, I had encountered a bizarre story many years back revolving around a particular crow which I too had difficulty in believing. This was maybe more than seventeen years ago when my grandmother was alive. One day she told my mom that she has been hearing a crow come everyday, sit on the window and call out ‘Abodh’ Abodh’. My mother pretended to believe this till she heard the crow letting out an ‘Abodh’ Abodh’. She related this to me and I laughed and thought it was a figment of their imagination. Till one day I heard him. It was definitely not a normal caw. It was something that sounded like Abodh and maybe it made us believe that it was Abodh. I made a friend hear it and he too was shocked. Even bizarre was the fact that I would hear him all the way through the Parsi colony short-cut I used to take to the railway station which was five hundred meters from my home. He used to be hopping on various windows on the way making this ‘Abodh’ sound. He used to sit by the window sill and eat out of my hand. I saw and heard him for around five six years till he stopped coming one day. This fellow used to love chakli just like my paternal grandfather who loved me a lot and there were suggestions that it must be his soul come, in the form of the crow! This comes from the Hindu belief that the spirits or one of the spirits of the dead pass into crows.


After that we had a stream of crows coming and sitting by the sill and eating the food. Some scared to eat out our hands and some bold .They still come and sit at my dining table window sill and eat out of my hand. Some have seen have preferences. Some love fruits, some farsan, some dal- rice, some will eat the middle of the bread and leave the sides. After this it is a joy to see them clean their beaks. They would take some time off and just concentrate on rubbing their beaks and cleaning them against any object for minutes together and then fly away.

Crows can also be mean to other creatures including sparrows, kittens, cuckoos and monkeys WSD gets rescue calls about other birds and the person many a times adds, “The crows are trying to attack the owl”. A recent story blamed the crows for the disappearing sparrows. Unfortunately nobody seems to be blaming us, humans and our garbage creation for the increase in the crow population. Only the koels(cuckoos) seem to have outsmarted the crows. They lay their eggs in crow nests , the crow hatches them and feeds them till I guess she realizes that they are not ‘crow’lings.

They say crows don’t forget. I remember a story reported in the newspapers years ago of a lady at Khar who had pulled down a crows nest on the tree near her window. The crows teamed up and did not allow her to leave her building for almost a year! Every time she stepped out she was swooped down upon by the crows and attacked. Another story reported by CNN-IBN was about a gentleman named Treekambji who is known as the Pied Piper of Crows. He lives in Mulund in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs and has been feeding these crows for nearly thirty years. When asked how this all started, he said “I used to whistle out to stray dogs so I could give them food every day. A friend challenged me to try it on crows. When I started, nearly five hundred of them responded to my call."

Many people have found crows a very interesting subject to draw or write about. Mark Twain has written about them when he stayed at Watson’s Hotel at Kala Ghoda in 1896. In his book “Following The Equator”, he calls them Birds of Birds and four pages of this book are dedicated to the Bombay crows. They also find a mention in all Mumbai centric books including in the chapter “ Arriving in Bombay” by Aldous Huxley from the book, Mumbai Meri Jaan edited by Naresh Fernandes and Jerry Pinto and in other books like The Maximum City by Suketu Mehta , Anita Desai’s Baumgartner's Bombay‎ and Thirty Umrigar’s Bombay Time.

R K Laxman’s fascination for crows is also very well known. He told this to Gowri Ramnarayan in the book Past Forward by Oxford University Press, “At age three I began to sketch crows. I tried to draw their antics. My mother saw this and encouraged me. She told me that Lord Shanisvara used the crow for his mount. He was a very powerful God, she added, "If you draw His crow, surely He will send you good luck." I have never grown out of this childhood fascination for the crow. I have painted hundreds of crows, singly and in groups, from near and far, and in many moods. Sometimes I put crows into my cartoons. My crow paintings have gone to many countries -- one of them hangs in faraway Iceland now! He also thinks that crows are “immensely intelligent and are unfairly dismissed by fretting people as a nuisance”.

I am sure all of you have a story to ‘crow’ about. Do share yours.

Will continue this series with posts on other Mumbai birds and her birdman.

Now Open - Finally ! The Bandra-Worli Sea Link

Update : July 1, 2009 : Happened to go on the Worli Bandra Sea Link in the morning at 9:00 am. Waited for two-three minutes to get onto it from the Worli side. Drove at 50 km/hr and managed to get a glimpse of Worli Fort from close quarters and the Mumbai skyline of Shivaji Park and Mahim. Nice smooth ride.... Reached the Bandra Reclamation side within ten minutes BUT as traffic was crawling and lined up on the other side, I decided against using the Sea Link back to Worli. Thus took the regular Mahim causeway/Dargah/Cadell Road route and it was a breeze. Reached Worli in ten minutes. I am sure all those who were using the Sea Link to go to Worli must have taken 40 minutes. All this without the toll collection. Hope these are teething problems else it world be better to use the normal route in peak hours and Sea Link in non-peak.


Picture courtesy - HCC

Years ago in 2002 when they built the Love Grove flyover which is parallel to the Atria Mall (which did not exist then), I wondered what purpose it was going to serve as it just went up and down towards Worli Naka above a very non-descript T-junction leading to Worli Sea face. After seven years of its construction, the construction of this bridge might seem justified due to the opening of the Worli-Bandra Sea Link today inaugurated at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.

After many years of delay and escalation of costs by hundred crores of rupees, I hope India's first Sea Link will ease Mumbai traffic woes. Touted as the third corridor from Worli to Bandra , an alternative to using Tulsi Pipe Road and Cadell/L.J.Road , it remains to be seen if it will not cause problems at the two ends of Worli and Bandra. See this report. The bridge will also consume 1000 kW of power on a daily basis.

The opening of the bridge will throw up many questions which only time will answer like … Will the regular traffic on Cadell Road and L J Road go down?, Will traffic through Bandra Reclamation and Bandra Junction go up?, Will the traffic on Pochkhanawala Road and the Worli Circle where the South Bound traffic to Worli will have to U-turn go up?, Will Haji Ali be clogged more than it already is?, Will the Sea Link be a blessing in disguise and all of the above won’t happen?

I am not an everyday commuter from South Mumbai to Bandra but at Rs 50 for a single trip and Rs 75 for a round trip , I wonder if car owners who travel to and fro everyday will prefer using this bridge. A monthly pass is available for Rs 2500 and multiple entries on the same day are allowed for Rs 125. A Bus/Truck will be charged Rs 100 and a mini-bus Rs 75. Bus tickets will be price one rupee more than the normal fare.

The distance will reduce from 8 kms to 5.6 kms and they say that instead of forty minutes you can travel the distance in ten minutes. If you calculate @ 50 kms per hour(speed limit), it should take you just 6.72 minutes on the bridge plus the extra time coming onto Worli Sea Face to Love Grove junction.

Last year when I was on Worli Sea Face, HCC had put up these boards marketing various aspects of the bridge including that the height of the cable–stay tower is equal to a forty storied building. You will be able to see the tower from any high rise. In fact I could see it from top of the Elephanta Caves hill. I also had a closer view of the bridge one Saturday this month when we were vaccinating dogs against rabies on a hilly slum between Mount Mary and Bandra Reclamation.

Here is an official blog that takes you through the long journey of the construction of the bridge. An You tube link here takes you through the technicalities of the engineering aspect of the bridge and a virtual tour which is posted much before the completion. Another one from Discovery Channel is here.

The bridge would definitely have everyone including me taking a ride, it being a tourist attraction of sorts. Unconfirmed reports say that it will be free for the first five days.(July 1 to 5) The BEST is also going to have an open-bus joy ride going up and down the bridge starting from Bandra-Kurla and going upto Worli. But after the tourist attraction wears off the 1634 crores had better translate into savings of time and fuel for this city.