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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/19/bikram-lama-birdman-sydney-st-james-tunnel-homelessness-ntwnfb>
"Bikram Lama had a morning ritual.
The rough sleepers of Hyde Park remember it well.
The young Nepali man would emerge from his sleeping bag, perched in the bushes
near the bustling tunnel entrance to Sydney’s St James station.
Throngs of office workers would stream past, eyes fixed to phones or dead ahead
– anywhere but the dishevelled young man in front of them.
Lama paid them no mind. He’d return from breakfast, a bag of breadcrumbs in
hand, and head straight to the flock of pigeons that also called the St James
tunnel home.
The routine was so ingrained that Joe Trueman, a former rough sleeper who now
busks at the tunnel, coined a nickname for Lama: the birdman.
“I knew he was on his way back because the birds would start to congregate
outside on the steps and some would come into the tunnel and wait,” Trueman
says.
“He would greet them like his children. As he arrived, they’d all fly in.”
One day last December, as Sydney sweltered through its interminable heatwave,
the ritual stopped.
The pigeons waited in vain. Their birdman did not emerge.
In one of Australia’s busiest public parks, he had died a lonely death.
No one noticed.
For almost a week, thousands streamed past his corpse, making their way along
the busy thoroughfare from the City Circle train line. Roughly 100,000 people
went in or out of St James station during the time Lama lay there, Opal data
suggests."
RIP,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
