Down The Memory Lane: Of One Legged Crows & Days Gone By

Owais Mughal, over at Pakistaniat, frequently relates with nostalgia tales from his childhood neighborhood. Today he had told us all the poignant story of of a certain “one-legged” crow:

In our neighborhood there used to live a crow. Although the neighborhood was filled with thousands of resident crows, this one crow was special. He was special because in an unknown accident it had lost one of his legs. Seeing this crow flying around with one limping leg had given rise to many legends and myths in the neighborhood. The children who played in the street openly talked about these legends. According to some, the crow lost his leg while rescuing his female from the clutches of a hungry ‘cheel’ (a kind of an eagle which is very common in Karachi), some said he lost his leg after falling from his nest while asleep, some said he lost his leg while trying to walk ‘huNs ki chaal’.

It’s a fascinating post that effectively relates the vibrancy of street life in Karachi in the early 1980s, an era I ceased to exit in. By the time of my own childhood, in the mid 1990s, Karachi had already become too dangerous to venture outside alone. Consequently I have very few of such captivating memories involving lively discourses with with other kids in the muhulla and older neighbours’ swear word ridden observations on a certain one-legged crow, and who knows, perhaps other regional bird varieties as well.

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