Of flying rats and parakeets
By Anjali Majumdar

FLYING rats, that’s what they are called in England, our friends told us. How I hate pigeons; the pot is the best place for them though I have never eaten pigeon pie (incidentally a term of endearment often used by Mother Kennis when I was in Loreto Convent). We carry on a never-ending battle to get them out of the ducts which conceal our building’s pipes. But none of the other flat owners seem to mind these carriers of disease.

One of them feeds them every morning on the terrace. When I asked him why he doesn’t feed the poor instead, he replied sanctimoniously that God looked after them. I see that London is trying to get rid of them from its landmark Trafalgar Square; it’ll be a tough battle.

Mynahs, owls and parakeets; now, these I like among others. My mother had an African grey parrot for years until a stray cat got him. His repertoire — they are champion mimics — included my mother’s laugh, and a naughty phrase or two.

Alec Guinness kept one for years. Percy’s range included the first two lines of a Hamlet soliloquy: "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here...", except that he substituted ‘parrota’ for ‘player’, and went into gales of laughter.

Perhaps my favourite parrot story — or perhaps it was a macaw — is the one of a burglar working away in the semi-darkness when he hears a voice, "Jesus is watching you". Startled he looks around, sees nothing and continues his nefarious work. Again: "Jesus is watching you". This time a thorough search reveals only a parrot. Much relieved, he breaks the tension by asking its name. "My name’s Gabriel. Jesus is the rottweiler."

Alan Coren tells of another burglar who ignores the watching parrot. Giving up the struggle to crack the safe, he starts on the booty lying around. Watching him with a beady eye, the bird who hates his owner to perdition, quietly comes out with "What about the real stuff, eh". The thief takes no notice, but the bird persists: "What about the real stuff". And then lets out the combination which works the safe.

To return to those awful pigeons in urban areas, civic authorities the world over are waging a grim battle to get rid of them. A civil servant in his memoirs, tells of them adding a bit of variety to the menu when he was on a tour of inspection in the country. And an Englishwoman married to such an official writes — this was in the nineteenth century — of how doves and pigeons sustained their party on a long haul on foot and bullock cart to join her husband. Oceans away at about the same time there was a parrot on a warship of the Royal Navy. The bird drove the first lieutenant mad as it could imitate exactly the different pipes (orders given on a type of whistle). As can well be imagined, this could cause havoc.

One evening some guests were being hoisted aboard in a bosun’s chair. A lady was in mid-air when the parrot piped ‘Let her go’, which the sailors did. Alec Guinness who tells the story says that the lady was rescued from the drink.