Emotions all around

 

We humans tend to project our emotions and thoughts onto animals and humanise them as a way to accepting them in our lives and homes. That is why I think we have Uncle scrooge a miserly duck, the lovable pranksters cat and mouse ie tom and jerry. And the loving couple rats mickey and Minnie mouse. I realised this tendency of ours today when we sisters got together after a long time. I think we today was the second time we met since the imposition of the lockdown in march. A very long time for the three of us who used to meet every week.

As usual once the usual talk of our loved and hated ones tapered off the conversation went on to nonsensical things. My sister has set up a small garden in her modest balcony and in it has a bird feeder and water bowl. After giving us a visual tour of this green corner of her apartment, she proudly informed us a lot of birds come to her balcony to feed, and speaking of these birds she narrated this story of two parrots that visit her garner every morning. It seems a parrot couple has been coming everyday for the last month and have been joined by a new female parrot for the last few days. Now according to my sister, since the new female has joined the couple there has been a drastic change in their dynamics. Whereas previously the parrots used to be lovey and dovey and cooed to each other, now the male parrot and the female parrot fight and argue the whole time they feed while the extra female parrot keeps quiet taking in her feed and minds her own business while looking at these two parrots with derision,  sometimes she butts into the argument the other two parrots are having, at which one of the arguing parrots snaps at her and she resumes her silent feed, eating till it is time to go.

Now my sister spun a story on this, as per her thinking the original parrot couple were husband and wife and the new comer must be the husbands new girlfriend and because of her the husband and wife have started fighting. The wife must be nagging the husband to get rid of the girlfriend but the husband parrot is adamant and is bringing her to the seed restaurant to date and woo her, which the wife is objecting to. And the silent parrot is the girlfriend who is having her seed and eating it too and needles the wife in between the other two’s argument for some fun and mischief and to show her hold over the husband.

My elder sister came up with her own version of the parrots family drama. According to her the arguing couple is the husband and the girlfriend parrot. And the girlfriend parrot wants the husband to leave his wife and move in with her. And the husband parrot is coming up with reasons why he cannot leave his wife. The wife parrot fully conversant with her husbands philandering ways is secure that he may dally with the girlfriend for some time but will not leave her come what may. Hence she serenely has been feed and in between advises the girlfriend to leave her husband and fly away for her own good.

An argument ensued between all of us as to whose version is more probable, before the argument escalated my brother in law who has seen many such arguments escalate from vague topics to sisterly accusations of deeds and misdeeds perpetrated in the past intervened and said, let us see how many more scenarios you can all can come up with to explain the parrots fights. At this my youngest sister who has spent the initial years of her married life in a joint family and is fully in tune with in laws politics, piped in saying the new comer could be either the sister or mother of the husband and has come to him with complaints on the wife. And the wife being the wise one is leaving the husband to defend her to his sister and mother. While at the same time adding in her complaints and views at strategic points in the discussion to keep the emotions boiling and giving feed to her husband’s agruments.

And the discussion continued with different and unlikely versions coming up like the new parrot being a bill collector to being a marriage counsellor and on and on. Finally my brother in law said, why are you all being so prim and proper and your versions are all like old times, you should come up with versions that are in tune with current times. He continued, may be the new parrot is the girlfriend of the wife and they both want to set up a nest together. And the husband is arguing against this. This new spin on the old tale silenced us, while we were still trying to think up a scenario to up the one my brother in law came up with, my niece piped up and said maybe the new parrot is a female Arnab Goswami and she and the husband are discussing the SSR case. End of story, none of us could beat it.