PRETTY POLLY

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A bird with a heart









From the time I can remember, there was a parrot in our house, and it was there until I was fifteen years old. My mother had found it in our garden when it was very small and had reared it tenderly, hand feeding it and fussing over it.

It always sat on my mother's shoulder or on the arm of her chair. She taught it to talk, and it picked it up very quickly. She called it Polly, and the parrot learnt to say `Pretty Polly'. It also said `God is Love'. At that time there was a popular song that went `I Love to Whistle'.

My mother taught Polly to whistle the entire tune. When my uncle (mother's brother) went off to college in another town, my mother taught Polly to ask "Where's Bhaskar?" And Polly kept asking that even when Bhaskar was at home on vacations.

Polly's Cage


We bought a very large bird cage from an Englishman who was disposing off his goods prior to leaving India for good. This cage had a rod for the bird to perch on. It also had a swing and two containers, one for food and the other for water. The bottom of the cage was detachable for cleaning. Polly was mostly outside the cage sitting on the arms or the backs of the chairs in the drawing room.

When my mother left for school in the morning (she was a teacher), she put Polly in the cage amidst vociferous protests from the bird. She saw to it that Polly had enough food and water for the rest of the day. Polly sat on the swing for awhile whistling and chattering away, and then started dozing on its perch. When my mother came back in the evening, Polly screeched to be let out. And as soon as it was out, it rushed to my mother, climbed on her shoulder and started cooing and clucking.

Polly's cage was kept in the backyard of our house. And Polly was better than any watchdog. It raised a rumpus every time some vendor came to the back of the house. It flew about in its cage and made high-pitched sounds of alarm. After someone in the house had come to deal with the vendor, Polly would stop screeching and go back to whistling its usual tunes.

Polly's Friends


Sometimes a bunch of wild parrots landed up in the garden at the back of our house. Polly would get highly excited. And my mother sent it to meet the wild birds. Polly flew up to the tree where the wild birds were. And then followed an animated dialogue between them. We could make out that the wild birds were inviting Polly to join them. But Polly invariably declined the invitation and came back to perch on my mother's shoulder. Polly was quite a dancer. If a mirror was put before it, it started making clicking sounds, and moving into a kind of dance. It assumed that the reflection in the mirror was its dancing partner. It stretched its wings and touched the mirror with its beak in a kind of rhythm that was very well maintained.

Polly usually gave me and my friends a wide berth. It didn't trust youngsters since they were prone to teasing it. In fact I did tease it now and then. And Polly never missed a chance of giving me a few sharp nips before flying off to the sanctuary of my mother's shoulders. But if I were punished for some mischief I had done, Polly would loudly oppose the punishment.

Polly quite often sat on the back of a high straight backed chair in the drawing room. It fluffed itself into a ball and made itself inconspicuous. Unsuspecting visitors who sat in this chair were in for a shock. Polly started nibbling on the ear studs of ladies or the ear lobes of men, causing them to leap up in the air yelling. We usually warned visitors about Polly's domain.

My mother unexpectedly died after a very brief illness at the age of thirty six. Polly set up a terrible screeching the whole of that day. But we couldn't attend to it right away. After the funeral we found that Polly had not touched its food. It refused to eat though we tried our best to feed it. It had also become unusually quiet.

A few days later the wild parrots came to the garden and set up a racket. Polly went to meet them. And as usual the wild ones invited it to join them. This time Polly agreed to do so.

That was the last we saw of Polly.


J. VASANTHAN


(e-mail: jvasanthan@sancharnet.in)

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