Gone are the days when sacks of wheat used to be bought and spread on the courtyard under the sun.
This took care of lots of insects that used to come with the grains. Granny would sift through the grains and physically pick tiny stones, weeds and insects if any. The picked material was kept in a small bowl.
While she carried on with her job, groups of sparrows would get busy at the opposite end. Like granny they would meticulously pick the insects and at times even the grains.
Often there would be fights for a larger share. Granny would shoo them away, she found them too noisy.
The house sparrows would reconnoiter the rooms, verandahs and all possible corners much before their mating season.
So perfect was their reconnaissance that they would remember the way out and one could hear only a rustle of wings while the sparrow vanished, escaping the blade of the running ceiling fan by the skin of her beak.
One of their favourite places to nest was the space behind the mirror over the wash-basin in the bathroom. Many times the female sparrow would go crazy hitting and shouting at her image in the mirror, presumably taking it as a rival female!
The “couple” would meticulously bring “home” pieces of threads, thin sticks and even small pieces of plastic toys along with blades of grass to make a nest.
Sparrows were prolific breeders. Each season a female would lay eggs two-three times at intervals of two months or so. Tiny marble like eggs often rolled down and met a gory end.
Yet it was a sight each time to watch the anxious parents take turns in sitting over the eggs and then later ferry 'food' in their beaks and take care of the hairless, young ones. Soon the babies would start coming to the edge of the nest and take off one day to start their own lives.
Where have they vanished? Well the ornithologists say that the pesticides killed them, some say it is the pollution all over that took its toll. Or was it the end of the good old practice of buying wheat and spreading it in the courtyards that chased them away!
The Granny has left for her happy hunting home and so have the sparrows.
