I climbed the stairs and made way to my doorstep when I heard a clicking sound. I thought it might be a rat, or a squirrel. So I climbed another set of stairs leading to the terrace. I saw a bird.

I saw a tiny bird, almost the size of my thumb. The bird was fully grown, had a blue shade, it had a short wing span, it had a long and bent beak. I think I saw a hummingbird. It was trying to escape the man made construction that was so alien to it. I couldn’t help but try to hold it in my hands. But it tried to steer to the opposite direction whenever I went near her.

My mom noticed that I was not in the house and looked outside. She saw me on the stairs staring at the bird. I signalled for her to join me in my mission.

She looked at the bird and remarked, ‘open the terrace door. Let the hapless bird fly away. Why do you want to scare it?’

I realized that I had not seen the situation from the bird’s perspective. In fact, I hadn’t empathized. The one moment when I had to empathize, I didn’t. I now realize that the bird might have been trapped from last night, probably, because the terrace door was closed all night long.

More than pity towards the bird or empathy towards the being, I now felt guilty. I terrorized a bird. I terrorized it so I could hold it in my hands and maybe click a photograph or two. Maybe I would show off the photographs to a wider audience. I know that I’ve never done such a thing before. I’ve never captured a being, taken a photograph and released it. It had always been a being finding me, being comfortable enough to have itself photographed. I held a baby sparrow in my hands, and I was able to do it because the nest was in arm’s reach, and there was no harm to the baby. Same goes with the case of dragonflies.

Maybe I let my carnal self loose when I saw a strange bird I had never seen.

I opened the door to the terrace and sat on my knees to reduce my height. The bird sensing the sudden influx of light coming from the open door flew towards it and flew away into her habitat.

I later searched the web and found that it was indeed a hummingbird.

Some say it right. Some experiences just can’t be captured.