TUMAKURU: When their favourite pet flew out of home, their world turned topsy-turvy. Everyone around suggested they give up hope of finding the bird again and move on with their lives.
But they were determined to find it: They distributed thousands of handbills with an appeal to people to help find the bird, and announced a cash reward of Rs 50,000 for the finder. A miracle happened after one week: The three-year-old male Kannada-speaking
African grey parrot
came back to them on Friday night.
The fascinating story of the parrot’s homecoming unfolded in the house of
Arjun MS
, a businessman and animal lover, at Jayanagar in
Tumakuru
. The bird, named Rustama, had flown out of his house on July 16 when the door was open.
So, who spotted the parrot? On July 17,
V Srinivas
, a resident of Bandepalya, 3km from Jayanagar, found it on a guava tree. As it was dark, he thought it was an eagle and tried to rescue it from dogs which were trying to attack the weak bird. “I was surprised when the bird did not fly away when I went near it. When I held it, it bit my hand. I brought it home and gave it water, carrots, guavas, chillies, tomatoes, green gram and horse gram. I also made a small cage. I wanted to keep it in my house as I love birds and developed a bond with it in a week,” he said.
On Friday, he had gone to a hotel in Kyathsandra in Tumakuru and while sipping tea he found a handbill about the missing parrot. He immediately contacted Arjun. “Arjun’s family came to my house and with a heavy heart, I handed over the bird to them,” he added. The family gave Rs 85,000 as a reward to Srinivas. On Friday, TOI had published a report, ‘Pet parrot flies away, bizman announces reward of Rs 50k’. Arjun’s seven-year-old son Vihaan and their well-wishers had visited every house in the neighbourhood and appealed to people to help find Rustama.
Arjun told STOI: “We are very happy. We had made a harake (vow) to Kukke Subramanya temple that my wife and I will do ‘Urulu Seve’ if we find the parrot.” He said they had also increased the reward to Rs 85,000 apart from engaging autorickshaws in the locality to make announcements.
Arjun’s wife Ranjana said: “It was such a happy moment. We didn’t cook food at home and slept only for 4-5 hours as we were desperately searching for it. Rustama was very happy to see us again.”
