Flying sparrows

'When are you going to learn to tie the shoelaces?'
This was the only reason, why my grandmother used to scold me with her lovely black eyes.

A quintessential poet, she had her white worded philosophy confine within her home veranda. By ‘white worded’ I complemented her unruffled knowledge of life’s real exposures. A woman who always relished her glimpses of glorious past, at the same time was the one who loves the vivacity of emerging time.

We used to have this pomegranate tree in our veranda. It was a very old tree, which occasionally used to flurry us with some heavenly tasted pomegranate and was home to some more than hundred sparrows. Now my grandmother used to have a very strange bond with that tree. Where at one moment she used to adore it there on the other she used to curse it while cleaning the never ending trash caused by sparrows and over grown pomegranates over her beloved veranda, with all her priestly decorated plants.

While those sparrows never missed any opportunity to annoy her with their sprinkled litter over the entire veranda, I somehow believed that they secretly adored her strolling presence near the pomegranate tree with their loud chants. Also my grandmother without confessing her love for those sparrows always nurtured them with particles of grain at regular intervals. She used to enlighten us about the virtue of discipline and the value of unity through the actions of those sparrows. How they are the early risers and how thy always pray to god as the first action of day and how they flock together for food and how female sparrow shields her child and how they sleep early with everyone intact to their souls.

Years gone by , she is not with us today , though her face with mouth filled with ‘red paan’ and her lovely metaphors are still the remains in my heart. I just cannot stop remembering her when ever I see these sparrows flying in a line up in the sky.