Some years ago, when we were small, flocks after flocks of rose-ringed parakeets used to fly westwards in the early morning mists, screeching loudly. We would jump out of beds and run out barefoot through the streets, calling them with promises of mangoes and guavas till they flew out of sight. Then one more flock, and one more, and one more. It would get very bright by then, and we had to return home to prepare for school. They flew back in the evenings. Sometimes, one or two parrots would get drawn to something down on earth and descend mid-flight. Ours was a small village, and we all would gather on rooftops, under the trees, walls, wherever they happened to get down. Their green feathers and curved, red beak and curious eyes impressed us greatly. Somehow, they excited us more than the sound of the snake charmer’s pungi, or the voodoo man.

One morning a parrot’s wing got caught between the iron bars of Nausheen Apa’s window. Apa had boarded up all the windows on the second storey. It was Amir who first spotted the parrot. He saw its mate as it flew screeching into the window where, between the boards and the bars, the parrot had got stuck. Before long, we all were there, everywhere, straining up our necks to the window, leaning from Apa’s rooftop to get a better view. The other parrot sat panicked, flying repeatedly into the bars and nipping the imprisoned parrot with its beak, goading it to fly.

• Tags: fiction, India, Issue 25, Sobia Ali