Rakesh Patel - Jogeshwari (East) Goregaon East Mumbai Maharashtra

We used to stay in a chawl in Jogeshwari. We had a small play ground with little bit of jungle in front of our house. Our houses were made up cement concrete wall and wood log ceilings. There were plenty of gaps for sparrows to make their nests. When the wood logs were replaced by steel angles for whole of our chawl, they had no place to nest. Still i was able to see few of them quite frequent, but the numbers keep on dwindling and at one point of time i use to rarely See any sparrows. I still remember, when my mom or other womens in my chawl use to remove small pebles from rice, they use just come there and wait for my mom to throw some rice grains for them to feed. In the evening the trees sarroundig our house use buzz with squeky noise whole evening. Thats long vanished. I have seen such changes even at my native place in Gujarat. Its very very sad but true. If corrective action is not taken soon we will soon have to declare them as endangered birds.