An owl drops in

Last evening, a baby owl crash-landed on my dining table. Luckily, I wasn't eating at the time or even sitting at the table.

The owl didn't fly in from the window, as bats sometimes do. It literally fell from the roof. How and why remains a mystery.

Why was it there in the first place? Are there some owl eggs I know nothing about sitting somewhere up there, waiting to hatch?

Was the owl recently hatched in the angle formed by the tiles in my roof or on the ledge outside?

Was it learning how to fly? Maybe it was just taking off, when some crows attacked it and in its terror the poor thing somehow backed its way into the house and toppled over. I heard a cacophony of crows just before the crash.

Owls eats rats and mice. Does this mean I have rats living in my roof again? "If this is so, they may lay more eggs to raise a bigger brood, being assured of feed for their little ones," an expert warns in the Times of India.

Oh my god.

I've seen little owls flying about at twilight around a tree near Patnem beach. It's an extraordinary sight. You can't tear your gaze away from the little round staring eyes. Creepy or sweet, depending on your point of view.

Sometimes I wish I was safely back in my nice barsati in Delhi where the only creature I ever encountered was a cockroach. Oh to be hounded again only by cockroaches. (I never thought I'd ever be wishing for something so absurd.)