WHEN WINGS FLAP THE WORLD HEALS

IN a city alive with constant activity, where the noise of daily life often drowns out nature's softer sounds, Dr T Badri Narayanan finds peace in the flutter of wings and the songs of birds. At 63, the ophthalmologist, who is busy restoring sight to hundreds, eagerly awaits chirps around him.

- JEYALAKSHMI RAMANUJAM

His journey begins not in a hospital, but beneath an ancient peepal tree near the Madhana Gopalaswamy temple. As a child, young Badri's mornings were filled with the harmonious calls of birds. "I would wake up to their whistles, trills, and croaks - it gave me a joy that's hard to describe," he recalls, eyes gleaming with nostalgia. It was here that his love for birds took root.

At 15, his father gifted him a pair of binoculars, a gesture that would change his life. "That gift changed everything," Dr Narayanan says with a smile. "The birds weren't just distant sounds anymore - they became personalities with their own quirks. I started noting everything I saw." This simple act of birdwatching became a refuge from life's pressures, a place of calm in an increasingly hectic world.