I like to run off to Telenkheri Gardens before it gets too hot. Actually, I don't care if it gets too hot. I like it best when the sun is right over my head and the grownups are asleep.

I look for parrots while crossing the patch of jungle that separates my house from the gardens. Parrots are difficult to spot because they are yellow-green like the leaves that suddenly grow from the trees after the first rain. And I remember Balbir.

Balbir was the first parrot I ever had. And the last. My mother says they are very dangerous for people because their beaks turn black and then they die. I don't see how this can hurt us since we don't have beaks. When he fell ill I thought it was because I had fed him too many chillies trying to teach him to talk. But this was not so.

Anyway, one day I decided to take his cage to the jungle and I opened it and let him fly away. At first, he did not know what to do. But then he quickly flew away without looking back at me. And that hurt!

I like to run off to Telenkheri Gardens before it gets too hot. Actually, I don't care if it gets too hot. I like it best when the sun is right over my head and the grownups are asleep.

I look for parrots while crossing the patch of jungle that separates my house from the gardens. Parrots are difficult to spot because they are yellow-green like the leaves that suddenly grow from the trees after the first rain. And I remember Balbir.

Balbir was the first parrot I ever had. And the last. My mother says they are very dangerous for people because their beaks turn black and then they die. I don't see how this can hurt us since we don't have beaks. When he fell ill I thought it was because I had fed him too many chillies trying to teach him to talk. But this was not so.

Anyway, one day I decided to take his cage to the jungle and I opened it and let him fly away. At first, he did not know what to do. But then he quickly flew away without looking back at me. And that hurt!

I sometimes think he might still be up there, behind the green leaves of that tall tree. Or he might have flown higher up to join his noisy friends in the sky. Or he might have drowned in the lotus-pond near the summer pavilion. If I ever come across a dead parrot with a wrinkled blackened beak, I'll bury it under the shady banyan tree.

I enjoy that patch of jungle because everything is so wild and untidy. And I love Telenkheri because everything is so neat and tidy. I still haven't decided whether I like the jungle because it surrounds Telenkheri or whether I like Telenkheri because it is surrounded by the jungle. The gardens look like the pretty stones that my mother keeps in her sea-shell jewellery box.

What I love the most about the gardens is the mica that covers the red gravel footpaths. I like to pick it up and stuff it in my pockets. It is like glass that bends. My father has explained why this is so, but I have forgotten. He is a scientist and he knows many things.

I also enjoy dipping my fingers in the cool water of the lotus pond. I let the water slowly drip on the round lotus leaves, until it forms a fat trembling drop that shines like a mirror.

And when it's really hot, I flop on the fallen tree trunk and pretend that I'm all alone. And I usually am -- until someone comes to fetch me.

It is generally Moti Lal. He sometimes picks me up on his bike on his way back from the dairy. I like to listen to the cling-clang of the milk pails as they swing under the handle bars. I sometimes stick my fingers into the pail and lick the warm sticky buffalo milk. But my mother says that raw milk can give you TB. And then I remember the old woman in the servants' quarters who coughed and coughed until she spat blood and died. And I get scared.

And when I get home my mother always says:

"What have you been up to?"

"Oh, nothing!"

I then wash my hands before tea-time.

© Maya Khankhoje

Image by: Susan Dubrofsky