Almost every morning I spread out on our window morsels of chapatti, boiled rice, biscuits, hotgrams for the birds. I enjoy watching the bands of marauding crows squabbling among themselves as I perform all the household chores. Woodpeckers come in next and they consume the food in silence and fly away imperceptibly. The little sparrow is the sweetest as it jumps in and out of the window and chirps excitedly with its companion. Occasionally, the sparrow enjoys a swing on a vertically slung T.V. cable passing our window and that is a picture of pristine innocence and heavenly beauty.

But the crows steal the show. If they dislike the food, they do not hesitate to express their displeasure. It happened one morning that I had dished out food which was not to their liking and a molecular fragment of a piece of biscuit was lying unobserved on the window sill. The smart crow looked at me contemptuously and walked all the way to point out the morsel to me with its beak! My mother also reported one day that the crow had assumed an air of superiority and had pointed out with its beak a leftover of a previous day.

One evening three of us (my parents and myself) were watching the T.V when I observed three crows perching themselves on our window sill. They were observing my mother in complete disregard of my father and myself. My mother, on the other hand was engrossed watching the T.V and did not notice them. I pointed out their august presence to my Mom who showed them a slap with her right hand.

As soon as they saw her gesture, they began tugging at our window curtains, with a rare vengeance. I was forced to serve some tit-bits in order to end their wrath. My father was irritated by their demeanour. "Both of you are to blame for this sort of erratic behaviour!".

By the way, the crows have also showed a rare sensitivity! Earlier whenever they saw my father consuming biscuits, they would queue up before our window and start cawing loudly. "Stop this noise"! said my father and they complied. Nowadays they wait politely for their turn without cawing. At the most, they gently tap the window sill with their beaks to attract our attention.