MA Narasimhan has fastened the sparrows’ “dining table” to a wall at the open anterior section of his brother’s house, number 6, South Mada Street, Triplicane. | Photo Credit: Prince Frederick

Here is the submission of a change of address.

Occupants of Number 14, South Mada Street in Triplicane have pulled up stakes, shifting seven blocks away and settling for a less spacious home at Number 6.

Unfortunately, no packers and movers on earth could transport their most prized possessions — a jasminum auriculatum (jasmine) climber and a vitex negundo ( noochi ) tree — to their new stomping ground. These residents had to also turn their brown backs on feeding vessels, succeeding in only having a dining table carted over to the new address. Though poorer by the loss of some possessions, these residents have hardly lost their chirpiness, a fact attested by other residents of South Mada Street.

Credit for the smooth spatial shift goes to MA Narasimhan, who had for years let these residents — who incidentally are house sparrows — lord it over Number 14, leaving the entire home with its expansive rooms to the passerine creatures, and even supplying them with generous sacks of unmilled rice. Never once — not in a fleeting moment — had he made the sparrows feel like freeloaders.

In the whole of Triplicane, number 14 was known as a 24/7 restaurant for house sparrows, as the supply of unmilled rice seemed ceaseless, with Narasimhan making four trips to the house every day, carrying this staple food. The antechamber where feeding took place would be matted with rice husks.

Right under the Jasmine’s entwining and meandering vertical course, the stepping stones to the house would be plastered white with house-sparrow droppings.

Number 14 is now marked by cleanliness, order and silence, as the old, weather-beaten house has been torn down and a new residential structure erected in its place.

Amidst the changes, Narasimhan did something to make sure that the chirps continued at South Mada Street.

He has fastened the sparrows’ “dining table” — a long, customised wooden rice holder — onto a wall in the front portion of Number 6, where his brother MA Parthasarathy (more popularly, MAPS) resides. “MAPS is in fact moving into the new house at number 14 soon,” says Narasimhan.

Narasimham notes while one hundred sparrows would feed every day in the old house at Number 14, now around 50 visit Number 6 for food. Narasimhan leaves unmilled rice at Number 6 so that they can keep the sparrows’ dining table continually replenished. Narasimhan lives at Peyalwar Koil Street on the other side of Sri Parthasarathy temple, and has a clear view of Number 6 from his home.

Number 6 has also had a long history of fostering house-sparrow families. “For over 100 years, it has supported successive pairs of house sparrows in raising their young. There has been an occupied nest from year to year,” reveals Narasimhan.

Meanwhile, at Number 13, South Mada Street, TS Purushothman finds the silence enveloping Number 14 almost unreal. The neighbour has been accustomed to chirps of a massive number of house sparrows and their visitations, as they would enter their ‘restaurant’ via a grilled window overlooking his house.

“Even now, four to five sparrows visit our garden,” Purushothman observes.

He notes that following the closure of the “restaurant” on South Mada Street, sparrow populations seem to have increased at “Sunguvar Street, near Krishnan Koil. This street can be accessed via North Tank Road. There are five to six trees at the spot and the house sparrows seem to be making the most of them.”

Narasimhan throws greater light on the matter. “Sunguvar Street is part of a trail followed by the sparrows. Marina beach and South Mada Street form the extremities of this trail. The sparrows come from the Marina and go back to it.”

He also pooh-poohs any view that may attribute to sparrows a tendency to be specially attached to certain spaces for no apparaent reason. He instead suggests that a place might continue to remain special in a sparrow’s eyes till it serves one of two purposes or both: a provision for feeding and roosting.

For that very reason, Narasimhan persists with “running” the hotel for house sparrows, though on a diminished scale and at a new address.

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Printable version | May 14, 2022 11:06:16 pm | https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/sparrows-move-house-in-triplicane/article65411453.ece