Rajiv K. Singh Bais -
MITS Gwalior Madhya Pradesh
MITS Gwalior.1977-82. I never thought one day this little bird will force me to dig so deep in to my memory for a piece of information which no one imagined would be so important several decades later. I spent 5 long years in the hostel at MITS and my mind’s first reaction on being enquired about presence/absence of the sparrows in the hostel or college during this period was “no-records-found” and then “data-deficient”. Sure, those were the days of Boney M, ABBA and Amitabh Bachchan but still I clearly remembered the rows of mulberry trees at the entrance of the hostel and also the little baby squirrel I kept as pet for few days and also the little pups I photographed with my Click III camera and even submitted the pictures in a college level photography competition (without any luck!). It was easy to report “No Sparrows”, but it felt improbable. I once again sat down with closed eyes and replayed my routine in the hostel on any typical day. This persistence paid off, yielding faint images of two hopping sparrows on the dining table in the mess at 3 PM one quiet afternoon after the daytime meals. And soon it returned another image of 2 or 3 sparrows hopping on the ground picking tidbits at Murli’s roadside tea shop at Gole Ka Mandir which used to be our favourite haunt in the evening after the classes. I felt relieved and sat down to write this story of a 34 year old sparrow record.
MITS Gwalior.1977-82. I never thought one day this little bird will force me to dig so deep in to my memory for a piece of information which no one imagined would be so important several decades later. I spent 5 long years in the hostel at MITS and my mind’s first reaction on being enquired about presence/absence of the sparrows in the hostel or college during this period was “no-records-found” and then “data-deficient”. Sure, those were the days of Boney M, ABBA and Amitabh Bachchan but still I clearly remembered the rows of mulberry trees at the entrance of the hostel and also the little baby squirrel I kept as pet for few days and also the little pups I photographed with my Click III camera and even submitted the pictures in a college level photography competition (without any luck!). It was easy to report “No Sparrows”, but it felt improbable. I once again sat down with closed eyes and replayed my routine in the hostel on any typical day. This persistence paid off, yielding faint images of two hopping sparrows on the dining table in the mess at 3 PM one quiet afternoon after the daytime meals. And soon it returned another image of 2 or 3 sparrows hopping on the ground picking tidbits at Murli’s roadside tea shop at Gole Ka Mandir which used to be our favourite haunt in the evening after the classes. I felt relieved and sat down to write this story of a 34 year old sparrow record.
