They Have Mated!

I am breaking tradition in putting up a photograph without the whole story, and consciously so. Those who have been following my FB, Insta and WhatsApp stories for the past 9 days (including those who are missing tufts of hair resultant of self-inflicted savagery in face of the trauma of seeing two sparrows – a male and a female, punctiliously in turn – eating and drinking and generally making merry alongside the grave task of nest-building in one of the shoe-boxes put up by me for this very purpose – nest building, not, ahem, making merry!) will understand (and even if you don’t, pretend and heave a sigh of relief, please).

As succinctly summarised by my one of my childhood buddies, the twists and turns thus far have mirrored an Ekta Kapoor (the notorious queen of Indian television soap operas) TV series (which incidentally cannot be termed succinct by any measure). Day 3 saw the male sparrow spend the whole day pining away for the female who was successfully appropriated by another breeding male. But not to be undone, on Day 4, our boy in turn appropriated someone else’s girl! Luckily for you people – those who would rather avoid further complexities – this pair stuck together, and through no lesser efforts of the male. I was still quite on the tenterhooks (I dread Ekta Kapoor you see); but finally today, Day 9, was the defining moment which I could not help but share.

They Have Mated!

Yes, God willing, the whole script will be released starting from “One fine morning…” through “Frail bodies shivering nervously, the babies flapped their tiny wings vigorously…”. But, for now, I am soaking in the moment!

– Narendra Nayak © 2019