My first heartbreak was when Sampati, the vulture, cries at the sacrifice of his younger brother, Jatayu. How his old, weathered hook-beak makes a sighing sound like gurgling tonics of freshly-ground bird grief. I’ve heard hornbills die without their mates, as do sarus cranes – those beautiful grey bodies, their brilliant red irises, all losing colour. Once, a sparrow flew into our fan and landed in a pink tiffin box, filling it with death. Now when they rest on window bars, I shoo them away, like old aunts spit thoo-thoo when shielding you from evil-eye, especially their own. Thoo-thoo, dear birds, don’t enter my house of possible sorrows.