Hemant had tried his best. He stood for hours next to the huge glass window of the living room. And all he had in his kitty till now was some House Crows (Corvus splendens), and a few House Sparrows (Passer domesticus)! How booring was that!!! Now desperate measures were required. So Hemant was searching the trunk that contained old scrap books, text books, magazines, discarded by the family. Maybe he would find something of use! Aha…what was this? ‘Birds in my city’ by Mrinalini Sen. So maasi, too, had suffered like him, thought Hemant. But his eyes widened in shock as he turned the pages of the scrap book. What a riot of colours! Little Green Bee-eater (Merops orientalis), Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea), Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis)….

An agitated Hemant rushed to the balcony where his maasi was sitting with his grandfather. "Hey, hey, which sanctuaries did you visit to complete this project?", he asked as he waved the book in his hand. But Mrinalini smiled as she looked down on the bright pictures. "Oh I found them all here…around this house," she said. She turned to her father and said, "Remember that vacation baba? I was sick and spent most of it lying on bed. All I could see in my room was the courtyard and the gulmohur tree behind it. And I could fill up half the pages of this book just painting the birds that flocked there from the morning to dusk!", she said. "Yes, we used to store all our grains near the stairs then, and the courtyard used to be strewn with them. No wonder we had an army of our feathered friends visiting us!," laughed grandfather. Then both of them looked at Hemant—who was now staring at them open mouthed.