"We couldn't see, they were still singing: Memories flying from the village balcony"

Whiles we are living our lives in the prison of busyness behind the glittering roads, tall buildings and closed windows of the city, life is still breathing under the open sky in the balconies of villages far away.

- PRIYANKA SAURABH Research Scholar in Political Science, Hisar, Haryana.

There, mornings still begin with the chirping of birds, afternoons are adorned with the tune of the cuckoo, and nights resonate with the hooting of owls. This article is a journey of those memories and experiences - of that world felt while sitting in the balcony of a village, which was once ours, but which we lost somewhere in the noise of the city.

When I recently came to the village, I was sitting in my balcony one evening. Suddenly a bird caught my attention. It looked familiar - brown and white, nimble and very playful. As soon as I saw it, a voice came from some corner of my mind - "Dhaurraiya!" Yes, this is what we used to call it when we children used to visit our grandmother's house. When the whole family gathered in the village during summer vacations, all of us children would sit in the courtyard and chase these birds, feed them, and argue over their names. "This is not a sparrow, it is a Dhaurraiya," my cousin would say proudly.

Living in the city limits the ability to recognise birds. Crows, pigeons, parrots and sometimes sparrows these are all that we see. But here in the village, it is as if the pages of a forgotten book have opened up again. There is a tree in front of my balcony, on which mynas and bulbuls come early in the morning. Peacocks dance in the fields far away, and their chirping is like a part of some traditional music. A glimpse of the Neelkanth is also visible, and that blue colour refreshes the eyes.