Elderly couple Chennai's parrot whisperers

Parakeets for breakfast. Image by Jatinder JoshiEvery morning, 74-year-old C Krishnavenni wakes up before sunrise. She doesn't have many domestic chores to do. But she has a large company of parrots to feed, with the birds flocking to her house in Sai Nagar, Virugambakkam, at the same hour.

The birds chirp and squawk in unison to let Krishnavenni and her husband, V Chandrasekar, 77, know that  the day has begun. "These parrots are like our children. If you listen closely, you'll realise that their sounds are not a cacophony but more like children calling their parents," Krishnavenni said. Age may have slowed her, but before she goes to sleep every night Krishnavenni fills a small box with grain and keeps it by her bedside for the ritual the next morning.

"It's amazing how punctual the parrots are. I don't need a clock to tell what time it is when they arrive," she said. When Krishnavenni opens the wooden door leading to the terrace more than a dozen parrots are already waiting for her, sitting side by side on a small wall opposite the door. The sight of the birds never fails to make her smile. She begins feeding them by throwing a handful of grain in front of the birds. In the blink of an eye, the parrots surround the grain.

More parrots soon join in and soon there are more than 30 birds feeding on the terrace. Other, more cautious parrots wait on a neem tree in front of the house before they join the earlier arrivals.

Krishnavenni and her husband earlier lived in Madurai, making do with the income Chandrasekar earned from a printing press. When orders dwindled, the couple closed the business six years ago. They moved to the city where one of their daughters had settled. The elderly couple rented a single room with a terrace in a two-storey building in Sai Nagar.

The couple makes a living by selling flour to houses in the neighbourhood. They buy a large quantity of rice from a PDS outlet to make the flour and use a portion of the rice to feed the birds. "Our neighbours too chip in as there are more birds now," Chandrasekar said.

The parrots face stiff competition for the feed from pigeons and squirrels. "Pigeons often pull out feathers of parrots to make nests and also eat grains faster than parrots," Krishnavenni said. The couple feed the parrots first to prevent the pigeons from fighting with them. "We ensure that the birds do not go hungry even when we are away by asking our neighbours to put grain on the terrace every morning and evening," Krishnaveeni said.