Where have you all been?

          We have been missing those lovely, feathered friends for a while. We all wondered where all our birds had gone to. Yesterday, as I was helping an uncle prune his garden, I had a realization for an obvious reason. The peaches and figs in his garden have been left mostly unharvested. As the orchard was well-walled, no one dared to step in, and the birds would in no way be prosecuted for fruit poaching. They must have been feasting on it. There were too many fruits fallen and rotten under each. The season’s harvest is too big for little birds to devour. And they can’t squirrel it away for winter. The ground was littered with a rainbow of rotting fruits, the sweet scent of decay filling the air.

We had grown friendlier ever since we moved in, and they seldom flew off even when we walked closer. We moved in the winter; at a time, they were desperately looking for food. My wife readily sensed a need and kept a bowl of grain and water in another one against the wall. They were happy and Umar was the happiest at sighting them early in the morning.

And those days, our paved yard hosted many parties within its walled privacy under the starlit sky by our family and friends in our neighbourhood. It can be birthdays, ifthar, a weekend get-together, anniversaries, holiday events or even just friendly dinners. They were usually at night and the partying would go on till early morning around a campfire. The kids would dance around the fire lit in a purpose-built iron box caring not to come too close. The interesting thing is that there will be another feast for birds on food crumbs, scraps, and tidbits left over early in the morning. The fallen morsels from rice dishes will dry back to raw grains and these sparrows will clean up the floor for the next event.

As our little Azadi fig tree started fruiting, they were the first to claim it. Azadi is the name we fondly call it for it was a gift from a South African colleague Azad Hayat as we moved in. The birds were quick to notice the ripe time and didn’t wait for us nodding permission. As my mom would say, the fruit goes to those who first claim it. Therefore, we left the unfinished fruit on the plant for them to feast on, part by part taking turns. Thank you, lovely birds, for showing up this morning to wish us our 15^th anniversary.