On Keeping a Parrot At Home

When I was still in school fighting a losing battle with my Math teachers, I had a wild green parrot for my pet.

He had a nice beak and an excellent ring round its neck W shaped with geometrical precision. I remember to have stolen him when he was a nestling and while his mother was on wings in search of food. How can I ever forget the tantrums my mother hurled at me on that day at the sight of the wee bird in my cupped palm! "The nestling's mother will curse you and you will be in for trouble. Won't I, as your mother, curse the one who kidnaps you? A mother bird's curse is more powerful than a human mother's. Go and put it back from where you have taken it".

I went into the nearby woods under the pretext of putting the nestling back into its nest but soon came back home and told my mother the truth, which I rarely do, that the mother bird has already left the woods. Then I consoled her by saying that I did not want to orphan the little one and would care for him like his own mother. After many a hmm...and ha... she nodded her head in approval. I played mother to the little bird while my mother played the role of a grandma.

The nestling grew to be a fledgling and very soon began to flutter his wings and was getting ready for a first flight. "Clip his wings, if you want to keep him with you," advised my mother. I simply refused. "How would you react to my Math teacher if he breaks my legs?" I asked and silenced my mother.

I never caged him and so he treated my huge ancestral house as his playground. At times, he would play hide and seek with me, but never ever moved out of the house for fear that a cat or a bandicoot or a hawk would snatch him away. Driving some sense into his little head, now and again, was my pastime. So the bird rarely moved to either the backyard or the front yard of the house. After my school hours, he found a constant companion in me.