MUMBAI: A crow as a house pet may sound strange. But it’s pretty normal for a family in Dadar. This crow is not a fly-in, fly-away visitor, but a permanent resident at the Grace family’s home in Naigaum. Named Kuku, the bird eats, drinks, sleeps and lives in their home on the third floor of a building in Naigaum for the last couple of years.
All day, Kuku moves around the house, sits on a broken tree branch kept in the balcony, hops into the living room and parks itself on a perch with bowls of food and water attached. “Kuku understands basic commands in Hindi and Marathi,” says Esther Grace, a retired nurse, who treats Kuku like the baby of the house. When she calls out, the bird with poor vision hops on her finger or wrist, which is followed by some pampering.
When the bird first flew into their home, it had a swarm of nit-like creatures crawling around its eyes. It was taken to the vet and fed. Once fit, it was kept in the balcony to fly off. “Kuku did go away, but returned. After a couple of days, we set it free again, but it returned,” recalls Esther. That’s when the family decided to host the crow permanently.
Kuku has a unique manner of communicating with the family members. When it poops, it caws out in a certain way as if trying to tell them to clean up after it, says George, Esther’s son.
Kuku’s daily schedule is pretty much fixed. Breakfast around 7.30am, a siesta around 5pm is a must besides the catnaps that Kuku takes intermittently. After sundown, Kuku stretches lazily. Bedtime is around 8pm. The crow has makeshift “bedding” in a corner of the house—two boxes on a wooden stool abutting the wall, with space for its tail to jut out. “Kuku sleeps sitting on one leg,” says George. Other crows who are “Kuku’s friends” visit the home. “But Kuku is not too fond of a squirrel which scurries into our balcony as it chews on Kuku’s food,” says Diamond, Esther’s husband. The squirrel’s squishy sounds make the bird angry. “And then Kuku claws angrily at a stack of old newspapers in a corner of the balcony.”
In October, the family celebrated Kuku’s birthday. A cake was cut, and Kuku was gifted Rs 500. The bird held the currency note for a bit and dropped it, says Esther.
She admits, a tad hesitantly, that the crow could be some “ancestor reincarnated”. Not too long ago, Kuku proved to be a saviour for a neighbour who was observing a relative’s death rituals. With no crows visiting their building terrace that day to peck at the food that was kept for the departed soul, as part of the ritual, Kuku was specially invited to do the honours. Kuku happily obliged to that soul-satisfying act.