Usha Lachungpa -
Parleshwar Society Vile Parle, East Mumbai Maharashtra
They were an integral part of my childhood in Mumbai. They would invariably nest on our living room tube light, shedding bits of dried grasses on the ground below and occasionally fly into the ceiling fan when it was on, much to our distress. Closing the windows was not much of an option. They’d simply wait till we opened them to let in some breeze. The loft above the kitchen was another favoured nesting site. All my Maharashtrian neighbours’s kids grew up on Kau-Chiu (Crow-Sparrow) stories while being fed by doting mothers and grandmothers. So ubiquitous, somehow we never thought of sparrows as wild birds.
They were an integral part of my childhood in Mumbai. They would invariably nest on our living room tube light, shedding bits of dried grasses on the ground below and occasionally fly into the ceiling fan when it was on, much to our distress. Closing the windows was not much of an option. They’d simply wait till we opened them to let in some breeze. The loft above the kitchen was another favoured nesting site. All my Maharashtrian neighbours’s kids grew up on Kau-Chiu (Crow-Sparrow) stories while being fed by doting mothers and grandmothers. So ubiquitous, somehow we never thought of sparrows as wild birds.
