When the gr andmother had left for her heavenly abode, her dead body was laid on the ground and covered with a red shroud. In the evening they went to her room with a crude stretcher to take her to be cremated. They had to stop half-way in the courtyard. All over the verandah and in her room right up to where she lay dead, thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. The sparrows were not chiruping at all. The author’s mother fetched some bread for them. She broke it into little crumbs, the way her grandmother used to do. She then threw the crumbs to them. But the sparrows took no notice of the bread. When the corpse was carried off, the sparrows flew away quietly. Next morning the sweeper swept bread crumbs into the dustbin. This is how the sparrows expressed their sorrow
