There are many reasons children wake up early: school, cartoons, or the sheer desire to annoy their parents. But for us, it was none of these. We woke up at ungodly hours, rubbed the sleep out of our eyes, hopped onto our bicycles, and pedaled into the cool, milky morning mist like warriors on a mission. The heart, as it turns out, wanted a bird. Specifically, one with better hair than all of us combined.
We learned to ride bicycles the classic Indian way, a few wobbly rounds in the park with our father jogging behind us, slightly out of breath but fully committed, shouting instructions like a coach training us for the Tour de France. Every two seconds came another instruction; brake, look ahead, avoid strangers, and maybe ring the bell before you flatten someone’s foot. A few lessons and several bush collisions later, we were road ready, which basically meant we could balance for more than ten seconds without veering dramatically into a flower bed.
Soon, the morning rides became a ritual. A gang of four or five kids, sometimes cousins, sometimes random friends of friends who appeared out of thin air like unlockable characters in a video game nobody remembered downloading. We would zoom through sleepy parks, race down gloriously empty streets, attempt stunts of deeply questionable safety that would have sent our parents straight to a cardiologist, and then arrive sweaty, breathless and triumphant, hydrating like athletes who had genuinely earned it.
But the real treasure of these rides had nothing to do with stunts or speed. It was a sprawling technical and agriculture university campus, our personal Narnia. The red brick colonial buildings wore their age with quiet pride. The wide open grounds felt genuinely unhurried, pleasant in the way only old campuses can feel, as if the place had decided decades ago that there was no particular rush about anything. The east side, known for its agricultural and botanical studies, had clearly not received the memo about being serious.
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The curvy roads were canopied by grand old trees, sunlight filtering through in broken golden patches, the trees apparently deciding amongst themselves how much warmth to let in and when. The garden exhaled the dense, heady fragrance of roses and damp earth, with every possible shade of green all around.
And then the soundtrack hit you before anything else did.
A layered, chaotic, completely sincere orchestra. Cooing. Rattling. The rustle of something large shifting in the branches above. And then, cutting clean through all of it like the opening note of a film score you did not know you had been waiting for, that sharp, arresting, unmistakable call.
May awe.
We would screech our bikes to a halt so fast the wheels complained.
Peacocks and peahens. Everywhere, and yet every single sighting felt like the first time. On rooftops, surveying their kingdom with the mild contempt of landlords who had stopped collecting rent but never stopped judging. Perched in trees with the casual, unshakeable confidence of creatures who have never once doubted themselves. Strolling down the road at their own unhurried, magnificent pace because the road, in their non-negotiable opinion, belonged entirely to them. And up close, those feathers. Iridescent blues and greens shifting and catching the morning light like someone had spilled an entire paint set, reconsidered, and called it a masterpiece. It was a peacock, the Ranveer Singh of the bird world, fully aware of its own fabulousness and completely committed to being a male diva.
We would freeze with the focused intensity of wildlife photographers on a career defining assignment and whisper in urgent, breathless tones, shhh, don’t scare it. As if the bird cared.
We learned their calls and felt genuinely victorious when one responded. Slowly the bike rides became secondary and the peacock hunt became the main event. Eventually we abandoned the bicycles altogether and just walked, quietly, hopefully, scanning every rooftop and tree and stretch of open grass. And on the very best mornings, a full peacock dance. Feathers fanned out in that breathtaking arc, the bird performing for no one in particular and absolutely everyone at once, completely unbothered by the small sweaty audience standing five feet away with their mouths open.
The campus had its own particular hush despite everything. People moved through it, studied in it, lived alongside it, but the volume always stayed low, as if there was a long standing unspoken agreement that the birds, the trees, and the old buildings had earned the right to set the tone and everyone else was simply a guest. Looking back, it makes complete sense why the peacock is India’s national bird, why it appears in textiles, paintings, mythology, and the kind of memories that stay crisp decades later. But back then we did not care about any of that symbolism.
And then, after all of it, we rode back. Sweaty, loud, replaying every sighting like a post match debrief, each of us convinced our encounter was the best one. We would pile into the nearest snack stall, still buzzing, and the usual order would appear without anyone really asking. Kulhad chai, bun maska, jalebis warm enough to make everything feel earned. On a good Sunday, chole bhature. We ate standing up, elbows out, completely unbothered. The food always tasted better for everything that had come before it.
Some joys do not need explaining. We just wanted to see one.
And that is why we kept going back. Because sometimes, Dil Maange Mor(e).
Ajita’s Headspace was born from thoughts too full to stay quiet, finding their way out through storytelling. If something stirred in you while reading this, good. That was the whole point.
The author is an artist and designer based in the tri-state area.