The Rooster Is No More

It's 6:30am in the morning and Yinon and I are walking home after picking up some extra milk packets at our corner vendor. Yinon woke up very early today and I decided to take him out of the house before he woke everyone else up.

We see a man approaching on a bicycle who happens to be a guard of a construction site right next to our house. He is riding his bike holding a rooster by its feet. The poor bird is dangling upside down and banging its head to the bicycle frame. The man recognizes us and makes a quick facial grimace while pointing at his rooster. Oh no, they are heading to the butcher. The rooster wasn't exactly our pet, but we did get used to his presence as he sang his morning cock-a-doodle-dos inside the guard's shed, and spent his days tied to a tree. At least Maya is not here to witness the scene, she would have been devastated.

As we stroll along, we hear sweet devotional music originating from some temple nearby. Further ahead, at the other end of the street, we see two little boys squatting and splashing in the puddles. We can't really hear them, but two of them seem to be having a great time. They also live in a shed next to a construction site, and their shelter which is no bigger than a camping tent is the only perk their father, a guard at the construction site, gets. It sure is the best time to play in the street. It's cool and quiet, there is absolutely no traffic other than sleepy cows and dogs.

Here is Blackie, one of our neighborhood dogs. Maya told me it's ok to pet Blackie, as she has been "adopted" by the kids living in the street. Blackie lives under the bush across from Mallavika's, one of Maya's friends, house. The way I found out was one morning I followed a strange howling sound originating from that bush and I discovered Blackie snoring loudly. Yesterday Maya told me that  Blackie was a mommy. Yinon and I are checking under the bush, and sure enough, we find three black puppies snoozing away piled up on top of each other. The puppies are quite large, they are definitely not newborns. I wonder where Blackie has been hiding them until now.

"You know where our house is, Mama" asks Yinon. "Do you know where it is?" I ask him back. "We go over the puddle, and that's our house!" he tells me confidently. I feel like we are characters from Dora the Explorer's world - over the puddle, passed the sleeping dogs, and that's where we find your house.

I take the freshness of a cool morning in. Everything is quiet, yet a lot of people are awake, doing their morning rituals in complete silence and peace. Women are washing their doorsteps with water and applying fresh kolam designs. Men are wiping off dust of their motorcycles. As we approach our house we are greeted by a man who seems to never sleep. He is a guard at the Maruthu Rukmani school. The guard acknowledges our presence with a quiet nod of his head and a peacuful smile. All is well, we are ready for our day.

Time for morning pooja at a neighborhood temple

This is where the construction guard lives

Distance from our doorstep to construction guard's shed

Sleepy cows on our street

Blackie with one of her puppies

Pale Tail and Mr. Greeners

Pale Tail and Mr. Greeners are our first family pets that haven't been properly introduced yet. When we first told Maya that we may possibly be moving to India, she agreed to go on one condition that she can finally have her own pet birds. As soon as we landed in India, Maya was in anticipation that perhaps today was her lucky day when she could get her birds. Of course, we had no idea where to find them, but we spread the word around and kept our eyes open for a place to purchase birds. Naturally, it was Maya herself who about one week after our arrival spotted a shop with bird cages on one of the side roads.

One happy girl and two lucky birds were united in a quick transaction. Love birds, as they are locally known, were the only kind sold so that's what we got. According to Maya, this species is also known as warbling grass parakeet, shell parrot, canary parrot, budgerigar, or zebra parrot. Maya got right to work crafting some bird toys, feeding them and taming them to hop on her finger. She did some research online about food preferences, and she is dreaming about her birds laying eggs some day. The first day she reported to us that "I am so happy Mr. Greeners is eating because he needs lots of energy to make sperm".


So far so good. Maya has been tending to her birds, feeding them, and cleaning the cage. She even had to overcome her phobias of dirt and ants. I say Pale Tail and Mr. Greeners scored with Maya as their owner. 

We asked the rickshaw driver to pull over when Maya spotted bird cages in one of the shops

The clay pots have a hole on the side and are used for birds to nest in

Maya made her selection

One white and one green, a male and a female were Maya's requests

Lovebirds are riding home on Eial's lap

Raphael gave up his spot for the birds, so he got to ride with Mr. Kannan in the driver's seat

Still quiet and unsure of their new home

We put the cage on the stairs next to an open window

Here is Pale Tail

Maya is showing birds to her new friends

First night in our home, they cling to each other

Here is a painting of Pale Tail and Mr. Greeners in their natural environment watching a sunset

The first item Eial ordered from Flipkart.com (an Indian version of Amazon) was this book for Maya. She's been reading and studying it daily

There is a house in our neighborhood with huge bird cages attached to the tree. We stop by there a lot to watch the birds

This time the owner of the house opened the gate and invited us to take a closer look

One happy village of lovebirds. We were told they started with only four birds, the rest of them hatched from the eggs

Mr. Kanaan and the Chicken

Last week while walking to school one morning with Raphael and Yinon a rickshaw driver pulled over to greet us. It was Mr. Kanaan, our favorite driver. Kids call him Mr. Funny Horn for the amusing honking sound that his horn makes. Mr. Kanaan is a busy man, I suspect he is everyone's favorite driver. Every time I call him asking for a ride he is always busy on another assignment. So we were quite surprised to see him pull over for us.

It appears that Mr. Kanaan was on the way to our house with... seven baby chicks in a plastic bag. Wow, that was a real surprise, but it kind of makes sense. He was the one driving us when Maya spotted bird cages in a pet shop on a side road (will write about that later). He also pulled over every time kids noticed baby goats or puppies on the road. On one of our weekend excursions he had taken us to two pet fish hatcheries. Him and Maya must be on the same wavelength when it comes to animals, and today he showed up with this precious gift for her - seven baby chicken.

I won't lie, I was quite excited as well. Right away I started exploring options in my head of how to set up a chicken pen. I thought Maya will be ecstatic. She's been asking me to let her raise chicken since we first got to Madurai.

But as soon as we reached home and let the chicken out in a shady area under the stairs, my fantasies have been put to an end. Mutamma, our cook and housekeeper, gave me a very serious look and a categorical "no way".  She thought live chicken would attract snakes and rats, and I should also mention ants, Maya's big nemesis. Eial-Sir was of the same opinion, we can not raise chicken neither inside nor outside of the house. Although the vote was tie with Mr. Kanaan and me in favor, and Mutamma and Eial against, we decided it was better to get the chickens out of the house before Maya  finds out they were ever here. So we sent Mr. Kanaan away with seven baby chicks packed back in the plastic bag. But before we did that, we did take some pictures - see below.

On the way to school boys climbed these stairs of an empty office building and requested to be photographed

Surprise gift in a plastic bag

Would this be a good place to set up a chicken pen?

Right away, the chicken start eating and checking out the place

Sorry Mr. Kanaan, but we appreciate the thought

Goats on the main street, in search of some green grass

Mr. Kanaan pulled over when he spotted these puppies

At the fish hatchery that Mr. Kanaan took us to

Worker at the fish hatchery

More fish hatchery pics