Like all of us my tryst with sparrows began with the chiu taai chiu taai daar ughad, or like my amma would say in konkani ' gurbanji akka Gurbanji akka, baagil kaadi!
and that was it for a long time.
we had the odd sparrow build a nest in a sheltered nook on our floor when i was still a school going girl.
then around 2011 , a friend mentioned, and people also were noticing that sparrows were becoming fewer in number in urban areas. Yet in my society - residential co-op hsg society. sparrows chirped, cheeped, hopped, flew. Some monsoon mornings, when the clouds parted and the sun peeped from behind a plump crowd, and then shone brightly, glowing - a very welcome, bright orange , one could find the sparrows in groups of 6 or 7, prancing in little puddles on the ground, chirping .
it was only last year, yes, during the lock down that i actually started looking out of the window. It started with me having to rest for nearly 3 weeks, bed bound , following a surgery. it was at this time that I started noticing a crow build a nest on a tree in the building compound, bit by bit, string by string, twig by twig. An unexpected weather change made the crow abandon the nest and it was never seen around the nest again.
Soon I started noticing the sparrows. close to my window were many young palms and i as the windows remained open, with the weather being pleasant, i would 'wake up to the sound of birds' . Many different bird sounds, including the sparrows.
With that arose the desire to capture them on film... photo kheenchna. I have unsteady hands. The picture which i have in mind is very very rarely what is seen as the end result. but i was not disheartened. I tried leaning against a sliding window, sitting on the floor, using a tripod.... i enjoyed this activity.
I also realized that the sparrows were a frisky curious lot. they would perch on my window grill.. try to peep in.. gain entry..yes i have videos of the same.
soon i was walking around the building, camera in hand... friends assumed i was a professional.. they assumed i was working on a project.. Ahem!!
unko kya pata... i was the curious one.. a student - trying to shoot a few 'steady , clear' pictures. and then i really started enjoying watching them.. i have been so smitten ..that on many occasions i had just been staring through the viewing lens, forgetting to click or to hit the record button.
being the empress of jugaad, well they call it DIY now... and also being the impatient one - kaun bazaar jaaega and feeder laayegaa.. Amazon would take 3 days to deliver too. So i just looked around the house. i found an unused winnowing fan.. small in size. on it i placed an ice cream tub, filled with water. and i waited.. in my mind i imagined little sparrows, sun birds,, bulbuls,.. having their fill of water and then maybe splash around in it.
Biplov and Meghana asked me to remove the plastic tub. 1st rule - no plastic. a terracotta bowl said Biplov. it would keep the water cool during the hot afternoons. A saucer, said Meghana, the little birdies would get intimidated by a bigger deeper fuller water body.
Another jugaad happened and i found a bright red plastic lid of a glass jar which had slipped through my butter fingers. It was a decent size. the right diameter, the right depth. so it was placed on the windowing fan and the whole contraption was wedged between the window and the pigeon net. one side of the winnowing fan was weighed down by a kind of a bronze tumbler.
and i waited.
the next day i realized that i had a few , dried stalks of rice. each navaratri when the new rice is ceremoniously brought into the house, a few stalks of rice, wrapped on one end with a mango leaf , are tied to our rice container, altar, main door, wardrobes, study tables, book shelves, etc.
I looked around, and lo and behold.. my desk had one such bunch secured around one of its legs. I removed it and stuck it outside the pigeon net , secured it with thread , a little above the water contraption and... well .. i waited.. I lay in wait
it was day 2 and not one sparrow ventured anywhere close to the water or the grain.
they were all over the grill as usual. chirping , chasing each other, grooming themselves... not one looked down at the sill.
and on day 3 ..it happened. a little sparrow flew down. examined the sill, and then her surroundings..- outside and then inside. she caught me looking happily at her . she flew away and she didn't come back.
but when the window was shut, or the curtains were drawn, i could see through the glass and from the side of the curtains.. at least one sparrow was sipping on the water. the stalks of grain, the sparrows were oblivious to them.
till that one day. what had happened was the breeze had caused some paddy from the very dry rice stalks to drop on the window sill. a few on the winnowing fan, a few on the sill. Having had a go at them, one day, one sparrow simply craned her neck and looked upwards. and then it was happiness... she flew up to that bar of the grill and tugged at a grain. and how meticulous she was,, tug at one or two..chomp on them and at regular intervals, spit out the husk. yes.. i have it on camera. looking at this action of hers, i was reminded of my childhood. while we ate berries (Bor) or karvand, or orange or watermelon.. friends would caution.. throw out the seed, else a tree of the same fruit would grow in ur tummy. Also about the Pink Bubblegum - chew on it , try and blow a bubble and then spit it out, else ur intestines and stomach would stick together ..throat too i think. ( Vivek Dilawari ) The sparrows too had heard similar tales frm their mamas and grand mamas probably... eat the grain frm the paddy, spit out the husk. My friend Amey had mentioned - they like doing this. 
and i certainly enjoy watching them do this.
and i certainly enjoy watching them do this. woh ek din tha... and aaj ka din.. sparrows throng my window sill at regular intervals. Of that one bunch of rice stalks that i had hung first, nothing but the dried mango leaf and thread remained. and i had started noticing that the ' regulars' looked up, to find nothing. i cld imagine their bewilderment and then the shock.
so another another look around the house and I found another , thicker bunch wrapped around a handle of the daughter's book case. it was removed frm there and duly tied to my window ka grill.
today is International Sparrows Day, i was reminded. post toh banta hai. posting 2 video clips . do watch.
and a big thank you to friends who saw my photograpy attempts on whatsapp and appreciated them.
also a big thank you to friends who helped with advice on video clips. - cutting or compressing videos - Sanjay Vasudev 
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