I wasn't disappointed.
For me calendar 2009's theme has been John N Gray's "Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals" (2002).
One of the quotes I liked from the book is by Joseph Brodsky: "...should the truth about the world exist, it's bound to be nonhuman."
Therefore, I was delighted to see that the greeting was consistent with the theme.
See the picture below. (To view 2008 card, click here)
The picture made me nostalgic. At a public garden in Miraj, a few decades ago, on a mild sunny morning, three of us and our parents had a photo session. There was no one else other than us and the photographer.
Were there birds? I don't remember but surely no albatrosses or seagulls!
Although the family in the picture seems to be enjoying their presence, what are birds there doing?
Do they want to fit in the frame? Are they swooping down on the junk strewn at the beach? Are they enjoying irritation of family dog? Is this a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963)?
R K Laxman once described how dozens of crows sat without a sound on overhead cables during the entire reception of Prince Charles in Mumbai.
Does a poet have an answer?
Walter de la Mare?:
"Over these unremembered marble columns,
birds glide their old remembered way.
Dive in red gold setting tide and write dark alphabets on evening sky
whether an epitaph, chorus or strange augury
little man you only hope to know!"
Here is hoping for happy Diwali 2009!
Artist: Norman Thelwell (1923 - 2004)