Are we to blame!!

It was a summer evening when my little bro came home after his play hours. And along he brought a little , bruised and almost dying , sparrow. He had found it near his play ground and out of child like curiosity he got it home to see if we can save , at least try to save, its life. There wasn't much chances of survival of the sparrow, which had not even properly grown wings and looked like attacked by some animal, but being children for us nothing was not possible unless tried. So we started operation save the sparrow.

We put dettol on the bruises and applied ointments. With cotton we poured drops of milk to its mouth. Which the sparrow seemed to be taking in. Then we let it rest. We had a discarded mechanical mouse catcher , which was made as its nest.

The sparrow started responding to the care taken by us and gradually its bruises started healing. In an week or so it had fully recovered and in the process all of my family members developed a liking, an attachment towards it. We continued feeding milk to her and it continued growing.

It seems that the sparrow also started recognizing and associating with us. In the day time it used to fly here and there in the house and as soon as we used to come back from school or papa from work it used to come to us. flying from me to my brother to my sis. It used to sit on the shoulder of my dad. That was very unusual for a house sparrow , or we never heard of any. Strangely it never flown out of the home and remained within it. Playing around with us all and then sleeping in cosy bed , prepared especially for it in the mouse catcher. We were getting used to its presence in the house.

One morning when got up and were expecting to see the sparrow , it wasn't around. First we thought that perhaps it has flown away but when we saw its nest it was still there but in the pool of blood , dead!! Previous night we missed to close the gate of mouse catcher and perhaps a mouse killed the sparrow.
Boy , were we sad. It was like loosing some near one. We buried the bird near our house. That was a short but intense relationship between humans and a bird.

This happened some 16-18 years back. Now I have been living in Hyderabad for last 8 years and I don't think that here I ever saw any sparrow. Once ubiquitous house sparrows are not around. Who is responsible!!

On World House Sparrow Day!!

Comments

Tanvi said…
Thanks for writing about the sparrow, it has revived old memories. I still remember how I got scared when it sat on my bare hand and how we used to feed it khichadi and other eatables.
And yes, I cried profusely when it died.
Expecting more such blogs about our childhood (such as that puaal (rice straw)incident :P)

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