One day, he came flying at my face.

The next day, she almost bit off Teja’s finger.

Teja looked around here and there for a while. It’s only when he flattened  his face against the window, and squinted to his left, that he saw the nest with two eggs behind the neighbor’s air-conditioning unit.

The couple cawed away while he looked, flying around agitatedly.

For days now, we cannot open the window. Usually they sit on the bit of scaffolding jutting out at one corner. Sometimes they are at a window in the building across, for a better view.

Every morning, when I draw the curtains, and move the window panes, they come flying in, to make sure I know they are around.

In the afternoons, when we take a nap, they wait for us to wake up. At this time they are usually already sitting on the scaffolding near the window, and as soon as I draw the curtains, they begin cawing loudly, wanting to pick up a fight.

If some day, none of us are around, or refuse to play the game, they come to the grill and peer inside the room, cawing, calling us out.

But whenever we take out a camera, they either fly away or pretend they’ve never been hostile.

The other day, Dhanno mischievously cawed back at them. They’d caw, she’d caw teasingly back in a very bad imitation of their call, until they grew quite frantic. Then she moved a pane, and they came lunging at her, really, really angry. She screamed with fright.

I went and yelled loudly at them and they flew off.

I said, “Right, I’m going to keep yelling at them now. This can’t go on. They’d better behave.”

Dhanno said, “They were protecting their kids, right? So I guess it’s OK for you to want to protect me, no?”

I said, “Yes, they’d better learn who’s the boss.”

Teja said, “Sure, just as long as the window’s closed.”

The little crow babies meanwhile are getting ready to fly.

*fotoos by Dhanno