The crow, the alley cat and the clock:

For the passerby, the desolate building looked uninteresting except for the painted legal warning that the property is shackled in litigation. The crow or the cat had no interest in the proceedings in a civil court as neither understood the implication nor the inclination to wait for a life time to know the outcome. Their concerns were immediate and pressing, in nature – survival. What this all had to do with the clock – it also had a role to play in their schemes, though in an allegorical sense.

The crow chanced up on this building when searching for a safe place to nest and as chance would have it, the cat also was on the lookout for a private property to forage and hunt its food in peace. Coming face to face, of course from different heights, they sized each other for hidden threat perceptions and simultaneously came to the conclusion that only the crow needed to be alert to safeguard its eggs or the fledglings - after hatching. The crow becoming alert to the potential danger, selected a place for nesting which presented minimal opportunities to the cat to mount a raid on its nest.

The cat got the message - loud and clear; and still nurtured hopes of getting hold of at least one of the fledglings that would emerge, from the clutch of eggs, and wander away from the nest. It patiently waited for the nest to be completed and eggs to be laid. It knew the importance of timing the event from start of incubation to the moment of hatching. Incapable of intervening in the process, the cat decided to wait and monitor the events that would unfold after the favourable “hatch window” – anytime between three to four weeks. For the present, it settled down and mentally started urging the crow to get on with the job of building the nest and begin the breeding season.

Cat naps had become history - in watching the crow making numerous flights to bring the construction materials, twig by twig. Hours were spent in following the progress of nest building. Though stricken with boredom, the cat continued watching, even ignoring the hunger pangs. The once scurrying rats or mice became bold and strutted around the cat with impunity. In its consuming desire, the cat let them have field days for themselves. All that the cat wanted was to be left undisturbed.

The ‘time’ keeping a watch on all these proceedings had a different scheme in mind. Like it had happened in many epics, at the appointed time of laying the eggs, the cat went in to a deep sleep with the eye lids drawing the curtain on wakefulness. For that brief period, the predator and tormented enjoyed bliss. As per its plan-B, the crow started to build another nest on a nearby tree in the same courtyard. The cat initially became curious and then perplexed. All the gathered knowledge about the behaviour of crows just deserted it. The twin dilemma that stared at the cat was – which nest to watch?  The “time” sensed the ball of fun beginning to roll!

Unaware of this ongoing drama, another unexpected participant joined the troop – a ‘koel’ grabbing an opportunity to deposit a few eggs for hatching. Impulsive by nature, unable to build and operate its own nest, it took an eleventh hour decision to lay eggs in the untenanted nest on the building. It had no patience to do a reconnaissance to find the more suitable one on the tree. The wily crow watching it from a distance took it as a blessing in disguise. With a slight change in plan-B, it decided to visit this abandoned nest now and then to keep the cat guessing. The clock kept ticking on its journey toward the appointed ‘time’.

The cat shifted its vigil on the nest where the eggs of ‘koel’ were undergoing hatching by a batch process – the crow and its mate volunteering for shift duties, whenever free from their primary responsibilities, to visit this nest also. Though the crows felt pity on “koel” eggs, they felt surrogatory mother-ship had its limits. For their part, the “koel” eggs were trying to come to terms with the conflict in the biological clock and the mundane clock.

Hearing no sign of life from the nest under its watch, the cat started to wonder what could be delaying the hatching process. Its mental clock had already gone past the expected date of arrival of fledglings from the eggs. The odd behaviour of the crows, noticed by it, did not help the matter in anyway. Having gone so far, the cat decided to wait for some more time.

One fine morning, the cat saw the crows frequently flying, to and fro, to the nest on the tree. Initially it doubted its sleepy eyesight and as it became fully roused, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall in place - in its mind. For the past few days, the crows rarely visited the nest under its watch! It realised its folly and along with it the dream to devour one or two tender fledgling of the crow had come to an end, this time.

The “time” was happy to see a contented family of crow and a disappointed cat. Having learnt a bitter lesson and ruing its impulsive action, the eleventh hour “koel” flew once over its un-hatched eggs and disappeared from the scene.