Mittu was weak, nauseous and struggling to breathe when she was brought to Dr Rani Maria Thomas's hospital in the coastal village of Thumpoly in Kerala's Alappuzha district. Mittu's panic-stricken caregivers had little hope as Rani and her team rushed her to the ICU for oxygen therapy. After Mittu calmed down, they took an X-ray, and found out that she had ingested a piece of lead. To avoid reaction between lead and gastric juices, they crop-fed her medicine via a tube. Mittu recovered gradually and was discharged within a week, after the lead was out of her system.
This was not a regular hospital case-Mittu is a grey parrot and Rani, 32, is an avian veterinarian. Her 2,000sqft veterinary hospital, Sara's Birds and Exotic Animal Hospital, has facilities that rival many hospitals for humans. The hospital, located on NH66, is an oasis of rare plants and trees caressed by sea breeze. The air is filled with high-pitched shrieks of sun conures and rainbow lorikeets, chirps of finches, the coos of diamond doves and nun pigeons, the witty retorts of human-imitating macaws and cockatoos, the barks of golden retrievers and Labradors, the yawns of sulcata tortoises and the hermit-like silence of iguanas.
Rani's parents live next to the hospital. It was there that she grew up along with her elder sister and 'siblings' from different species just like Mowgli in The Jungle Book.
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