Chp 857. Hello birdie. Goodbye birdie.

Like two sparrows in a hurricane

Trying to find their way

With a head full of dreams

And faith that can move anything

        - Tanya Tucker (Two Sparrows in a Hurricane).

Though this beautiful song is about love and struggle, I can't help but think of my little sparrow every time I listen to this song now.

[Photo by Dan Hamill from Pexels]

Last month, I moved back to our house in the city from our farm because of the upcoming lockdown in Mizoram. Everything was back to the usual lockdown routine at home, my lockdown birthday too took place inconspicuously, and then suddenly, one fine morning, we had visitors from above!

I mean, like literally, a baby sparrow fell on our kitchen floor from the ceiling!

Poor little birdie was wounded. I think it broke its leg. It didn't even show any signs of struggle as I carefully caught it. And then we heard a few more tweets coming from the ceiling above. I grabbed a ladder and climbed up, only to see two more baby sparrows!

So there is this small gap in our false ceiling for the wires to enter. They must have crawled through that gap from their nest or wherever they were hatched in the roof. I managed to catch one of the sparrows and it didn't struggle either. I gently placed it in a cardboard box along with the first sparrow that fell down earlier.

But the third sparrow was extremely elusive. Every time I tried to grab it, it panicked and rushed back inside the gap. Unlike its two siblings, this one still had that natural "fight or flight" instinct.

It was really unlikely and strange of the baby sparrows to approach human settlement, and so we asked our maid Seema to look around the roof upstairs, and later she came down carrying a dead adult sparrow.

Awwwwee poor momma sparrow. Seema found her lying next to the water drain on the roof, probably close to where her babies were hatched. She was probably ill or injured, and yet made one final attempt to reach her precious babies. :'(

That was definitely the reason why her babies approached us, because they were extremely hungry. I said to myself, "Don't worry momma sparrow, I will look after your babies for you, your death will not be in vain!"

However, the problem of the third baby sparrow was still there. Every time I climbed up the ladder and tried to grab it, it darted back inside the gap. And then after sometime, it would come out to the edge, chirping for food, and then scrambled inside the gap again as soon as I climbed up the ladder.

Finally, after a long game of cat and mouse (or human and sparrow, if you will), I finally caught it with one quick (but gentle) swoop, and finally it joined its siblings.

I spent the rest of the day feeding them every half an hour. Lalani told me to feed them small pieces of vegetables and fruits using forceps, and that the pieces must be extremely tiny because of their size. It took me some time to get used to it, but the baby sparrows were extremely receptive and gobbled up every piece I fed them.

My mom too fed them occasionally and it really made her happy. :D

Soon it was night time. I took the cardboard box up to my bedroom and kept it next to my bed. I had their food ready nearby in case they got hungry again during the night. However, one of the babies, I'm sure it was the one that fell down to the floor, wasn't eating properly. It was just... staying silent in one corner. :(

I bade them good night and went to sleep, but I remained alert at the same time.

The next morning, I woke up with a feeling of trepidation and peeped inside the cardboard box immediately. Just as I feared, that one baby which was becoming inactive, had passed away during the night. :'(

I fed the other two babies immediately after removing the corpse. Poor baby birdie. :'(

The other bird in the box too was slowly starting to become weak. It stopped chirping for food as well, and by afternoon, he too joined his brother. :'(

I was quite devastated, not just because of the two innocent lives lost but also because I didn't keep the promise I made to their mother.

However, Lalani reassured me that baby sparrows are extremely vulnerable and fragile, especially when there are no parents to feed them and they had also gone without food for a long time too. She lifted my spirits up and gave me new found strength to focus on the last remaining baby. Love her so much for that.

Apart from all the instructions that Lalani gave me over the phone, I also did my research on baby sparrows. I looked at more than 20 different videos on YouTube about baby sparrows and how to take care of them.

My sister too helped a lot by doing her own research. She called up her pet food contacts and soon, Thanmoya delivered enzymes for the baby sparrow to our house.

I continued reading different baby sparrow adoption articles and even applied for a PhD on baby sparrows at MZU. :P Kidding, but I did read up a lot on how to nurture baby sparrows properly.

I even collected all my old socks and snipped them up into thin, long pieces.

I took those pieces and filled up the cardboard box so that it would feel like a natural nest. The cotton socks also provided some amount of heat.

Thadaa, welcome to your new and revamped home, little one. This was like moving from your tiny 1BHK apartment at Andheri East to a more expensive and elegant but still tiny 1BHK apartment at Bandra West. :D

Little one, you will not die on me. :)

This one was a fighter. He (sorry for assuming his gender) was the same baby that kept running away in the beginning, so you know he had a lot of energy inside. He was always hungry, always pooping, always active, and always so cute.

I read a lot about imprinting too, and it was no surprise that he had considered me to be his mom.

The days passed by slowly. My sister gave me her stash of cat food and I soaked them in milk and hot water. The baby sparrow really loved that mixture! In fact, he was starting to be extremely picky, lolz. If we fed him pieces of cat food or mangoes, he would immediately open his mouth widely, but when we tried to feed him boiled rice pieces or vegetables, he would completely refuse to open his mouth, lolzzz.

Yeah, he was slowly becoming one spoilt brat. :D

But see how super cute and adorable he was!

Sometimes he would move all the sock pieces I had laid down and instead huddled at the corner, as you can see above. And in the night I would cover him up with a few sock pieces to keep him warm.

We would do a lot of things together, from listening to music together to watching movies and reading bedtime stories. His favourite song was "When Doves Cry" but he really hated the rock band "Eagles", and when it came to movies, he wanted to watch "Gone With The Wind" but was utterly disappointed the movie was not what he thought it would be about. His favourite movie character was Captain Jack Sparrow.

After 2 weeks of loving and caring, he started fluttering his wings. He even flew out from his cardboard box but I had to pick him up immediately because God knows what our dog Snowy might do to him!

Soon, the escape started happening more and more frequently, and Lalani told me he was trying to learn how to fly. And so we would lock up our dog inside the bedroom during the afternoons and I would place a towel on top of the cardboard box when Snowy was released in the morning and night.

And then one day he flew all across the dining hall and kitchen to the sitting room and up to the false ceiling. He was ready. It was finally time to let him go. :'(

I fed him one last meal comprising of his favourite cat food, along with one drop of the enzyme medicine. We took one last selfie together.

Here's a video of me releasing him back to nature. That day was Friday, 22nd April, and it was also World Earth Day. What an apt day to give him his freedom back to Mother Earth. Do look at the video below along with the music background. Click on enlarge to play in full screen.

Bye bye birdie. :'(

A big thanks to my girlfriend Lalani, my sister Dinpuii and my niece Tomi for all the help they gave me in taking care of the little bugger. Even with no parents and two dead siblings, he survived. He survived against all odds. The world says he'll never make it, but love says he will.

They've heard it's all uphill

But all they know is how they feel

The world says they'll never make it

Love says they will

        - Tanya Tucker (Two Sparrows in a Hurricane).

Chp 856. Lockdown Birthday, again.

As we come to the last day of April, here's an important blog update. Earlier, on the 21st of this month, I celebrated my birthday. :D

Last year, I spent my birthday with just my family at home because our whole country was under a lockdown. Back then, we were living in extreme fear of the pandemic and there was absolutely no question of meeting up with any friends or relatives to celebrate.

This year, things were starting to look better. Life pretty much bounced back to normal in Mizoram, except for the few mandatory rules like wearing a mask and sanitizing oneself, and so I thought my birthday this year would be a bit different, you know, like we could at least order a nice dinner from some fancy restaurant or something like that...

Ahhhh it was as if the hands of fate decided to play a mean prank on me, because on the 20th of this month, ONE DAY before my freaking birthday, our State government imposed a lockdown! :D This was the first lockdown since the long series of lockdowns last year when the virus first entered India. Lolz, talk about luck!

On a serious note though, it was a necessary step. At the beginning of this month, the total number of CoVid-19 cases in Mizoram stood at 4000+. [source: DIPR Mizoram, 1st April 2021.]

And then the second wave happened across India and as of today, the last day of April, the total number of CoVid-19 cases in Mizoram had jumped to 6000+ [source: DIPR Mizoram, 30th April 2021.]

That's a whopping 50% increase! The number of cases in Mizoram during this month alone is HALF the entire cases between March 2020 and March 2021. Dayyyym! Delhi High Court last week was absolutely correct to call this ongoing CoVid-19 second wave a "tsunami and not a wave".

Anyway, coming back to the less depressing topic of my birthday, some of you may know that I've been staying at our farm since October last year. Our farm is secluded and free from the pandemic, with enough farm-work to keep me busy the entire day, and I would have continued staying there had it not been for my birthday. Because of my birthday, I came down to Aizawl 2 weeks ago.

And of course you all know how the rest of that story went. Sudden lockdown. Back to square one. :D

But there is one very stark difference between my lockdown birthday last year and my lockdown birthday this year, and that is...

Yes, with Lalani in my life now, my lockdown birthday this time was much more colourful than last year's lockdown birthday.

For starters, when I got back home from our farm, there was this special gift basket from Lalani delivered to my house, an early birthday present, consisting of various supplements I require at the farm! :)

Last year, I was single (or "sangle" because it is past tense, according to the book of Lalani) but this year, nothing can beat the satisfaction and joy of being wished by the love of your life on such a special occasion. The sweetest birthday wish ever.

So how did I spend my birthday?

Well, here's the irony. I came down to Aizawl from our farm to spend my birthday at home, but on the eve of my birthday, we received the sudden news that the Khanghu (Climbing wattle) stems we had ordered a long time ago were to be delivered the very next day! Of all the days. We had to plant them immediately once they were delivered or else they'd die, and so, on my birthday, I reluctantly went back to our farm, lolz!

First, the sudden lockdown imposed a day before my birthday, followed by the sudden work requirement at farm on my birthday, it was as if somebody up there didn't want me to celebrate my birthday. :P

Since we were under a lockdown, I had to go to our Local Council office to get a permit to go to farm. The queue at the LC Office was very long.

Many requests before me were rejected by the Council, like the ones who had to attend a wedding or family function etc., and so I kept my sanitized fingers crossed. Luckily for me, when it was my turn to sit in front of the chairman, I stated my reason and I was granted permission immediately! Apparently, people who had farm-related work were kept on high priority as it involved agriculture for self-sustenance.

Of course people can lie while stating their reason, but the advantage of being a small community is that everybody knows everybody, and so they'll know immediately if you're lying.

And so off we went to our farm on my birthday. My sister too came with us because she didn't want me to work alone on my big day.

We took Snowy along too for the trip. :D

Once we reached our farm, we sorted out our Khanghu shipment immediately.

Khanghu (Climbing wattle) is a delicious Mizo vegetable usually boiled, fried or made as broth (Bai). It can also be used to wish somebody a happy birthday. :P

I will soon write about my experience of planting Khanghu and what procedure to follow in order to cultivate them (along with information on other farm vegetables). Once we were done planting all the Khanghu stems, we did other important farm tasks, like clearing and burning weed, collecting some of our fresh produce to take back home, and watching the workers work. :P

My sister made maggi for all of us in the afternoon.

Once we had our fill, one of our hired farmhands, Pu Marina, suggested that we should do something wild and exciting since it was my birthday, something that I had never done before so that I would remember that day forever! And so it was decided that we would break into our neighbour's farm to pluck Sarzuk (Grapefruit).

After much thought and hesitation, I said what the heck, and decided to take part in the shenanigan :D. Breaking into a private farm is illegal, but then again, we were just going to pluck Sarzuk that were going to ripen and break off anyway.

The only problem though, was that the particular neighbouring farm we were breaking into, belongs to Pu Lal Thanhawla, the former Chief Minister of Mizoram. :D Ahhh, so exciting! I was already making up excuses in my head, in case his guards catches us, like "Please spare us ka pu, as it is my birthday" etc etc. We climbed across a steep cliff in order to go around the barbed wire fencing separating our two farms. One slight misstep could lead to a certain death.

Finally, I stepped inside Pu Hawla's farm for the first time with this deep sense of notoriety and anarchy, like as if I was the infamous outlaw Jesse James about to rob a train or something. :D :P

We got to work immediately, plucking as many Sarzuk as we could find. Zorema was fast and moved like a pro. That was definitely not his first time breaking into somebody's property. :D

Here are the "birthday" Sarzuk we plucked that day. Yummm!

Once we were done with our "criminal activity", we headed back to our farm. Here's a glimpse of Sakawrhmuituai mountain from Pu Hawla's farm.

And here's a view of our farm from Pu Hawla's farm. Notice our burnt land, there was soooo much drama involved when we were burning it (Jhum cultivation) last month, I'll write about those funny experiences on my blog soon too.

On our way back to our farmhouse, I stopped by at our dragonfruit plantation section to mark the height of our tallest dragonfruit. My babies were growing up so fast! :)

And of course here's the permanent mark of my undying love for Lalani etched in concrete for eternity. :D

Finally it was time to head back to Aizawl.

Back home, there was this amazing surprise birthday cake ordered by Lalani waiting for me!!!

Such a thoughtful and cute cake! Lalani had designed it in the form of "Dampa Tiger Reserve", in remembrance of our trip there 2 months ago (in case you haven't read my previous Dampa Tiger Reserve blog updates, please do so).

Lalani even instructed the baker to include images of "Tonton Friends" in the cake! Tonton Friends are our favourite comic strip together. It's like how some couples have "their" song, we have "our" comic strip. She also ordered some butter cookies with Tonton Friends design! This is sooo adorable!

Yuta and Bella are the two main characters of Tonton Friends, and they represent the two of us because there are so many similarities between these two characters and us. Also in the picture above is Dobby, our son. *kisses*

In case you haven't come across Tonton Friends, here are some of their comic strips.

My sister and niece too ordered this awesome birthday cake for me. Apparently they wanted to put an image of my "hunter boots" on top, but since the baker couldn't make it properly, they decided to use these shoes instead, lolz.

So eventually, I ended up having two amazing birthday cakes, courtesy of people who mean the most to me.

Cake cutting time.

My niece Pensy enjoying the tasty cakes.

We had a simple family dinner after that. We invited our cousin Dr. Mash too, because she is leaving for ZMC hospital again shortly to attend to all our new CoVid-19 positive patients.

My birthday meal. :)

A wonderful end to a beautiful birthday. But that was not all. The next day, my birthday gift arrived from Dehradun!

It was supposed to arrive exactly on my birthday, but due to the sudden lockdown imposed in Mizoram, it got delayed by a day. Lalani felt extremely terrible that I received it one day late, and I had to reassure her many times that it was perfectly fine. God I love her so much!

Here are the gifts that she had carefully selected and sent to me.

Yup, a proper camping and trekking gear! I love these sooooo much!

Can you see me? You probably can't because of the camouflage! :D

Looking forward to so many camping trips with Lalani in the future with these clothes and accessories! I sure am so lucky to have a girlfriend that loves and cares this much. What started off as a day I thought would flop because of the sudden lockdown and farm work, turned out to be the most memorable day I had spent in a long time. Thank you so much for everything. *kisses*

Here's to many more wonderful birthdays in the future, and hoping Mizoram and India recover from this tsunami soon.

I'll be updating my blog regularly from next month onward as I already have a lot of interesting topics lined up for you, so do stay tuned. Until then, take care everyone. God bless.