They too live - in our hearts !

It's summer here - though Facebook announced with a lot of panache " Today is the first day of spring", a couple of days back,it still is summer. I kept a customary bowl of water for the sparrows inside my box window and it was a pleasant sight to see those birds flying in and out chip-chipping, fluttering their  wings and toppling over each other. Pretty sight definitely, especially as I enjoyed my unhurried cuppa tea and flipped over yesterday's papers.
Champa's post on her  animal loving daughter took me back to a time when we had more pets in the house than people , thanks to my mother. In our sprawling Lansdowne Road house we has dogs, parrots, pigeons , rabbits , mynahs , fultushi and myriad pets that my mother was so fond of. She also had a family of Shalikh Pakhi who would follow her into the house and each year would bring back their "baby Shalikh" for her to see , whenever it was ready to fly and meet their Grandmom. The bunglow at Benaras  has "miththuram'" the old male parrot that said " Miththuram - Ram ! Ram!"each time he was given a peanut or a chilli. My holidays meant I could keep chicks which would follow me all over the garden. One came under my feet once and I remember crying buckets while Amar Singh our Man Friday tried his best to revive it.
I was lucky - to see nature up close and personal - the mongoose fighting a snake aka Rikki Tikki Tavi , the chameleons sunbathing on the branches of the Shiuli- red and green and ugly ( ugh!), bats flying into the house. The urban me maybe started loving the wild from then on.
When we moved into an apartment , my mother still kept the birds and the dogs, till she came down with allergic asthma and the pets had to be all given away. Though we still had those pigeons and crows and the shalikh pakhi visiting our balcony - missed chatter of parrot talk and patter of doggy feet around the house. Chibu's early memory is of "Dida" and him counting the eagles in the sky. Most of my friends kids , especially the daughters got to hear about Ma's birds and she loved talking to them about their pets - dogs, parrots ,  cats and even a turtle named "Bhujiawalah. Ma of course had a Labrador  named "Tipu", who was truly iconic.
Tried to hunt the photos and could find only one of Miththuram the paarot - who passed away at 22 and had a samadhi at Kashi Ganga.
Bhondu  brought back many memories of Ma , her stories and how she connected with the little ones for their love for animals. I promised myself not to keep a pet after Nuts my Apso died - cos they leave behind a void that few people can understand.