CITY BIRDS

City Birds is a poetic reflection on urban coexistence and the subtle ways environments shape us all. It explores the metropolis as a landscape, highlighting how residents respond, adapt, and transform within their surroundings.

In “City Birds,” I explore the urban landscape, an observation of how residents respond, adapt, and transform within their surroundings. Employing a mixed-methods approach, I examine the symbiotic relationships between Mumbai’s two most ubiquitous inhabitants: humans and pigeons. For both, the city holds a lure of shelter and livelihood.

Over the past few years, I have observed similarities between humans and pigeons as we traverse and navigate the city. Their behaviour reflect one another- shaped by the same pressures, opportunities, and rhythms of city life. Not only do we share similar expectations of the city—harbouring an impossible utopian quest within each of us—but pigeons’ nonverbal cues and behaviours have also come to resemble those of humans, as if the city affects us similarly, changing and molding us indiscriminately and impartially.