Over the last one year, Nandhini Sharma has been feeding a few mongooses with scrambled eggs, milk and rice every evening at her backyard. “My grandparents were among the first few people to settle down in Mambalam when it was undeveloped and overrun with thorny shrubs. The garden at their house was characterised by flowering and fruit-bearing trees, which would draw parakeets, kingfishers, crows, mynahs, cuckoos, egrets and pigeons. Besides, butterflies and dragonflies, the garden was a home to chameleons, squirrels, mongooses and cats. My mother once told me a story of how when she was a girl, sometime around 1935, Thangavelu the gardener found a baby mongoose in the garden. The family fed the animal with milk rice and ghee rice. Everyone in the family was fond of him and called him Keeri. Keeri would respond when his name was called out.”
On days when Nandhini has not placed the food in the bowl, they tend to give a call to announce their arrival.
“However, you cannot expect them to be as friendly as dogs. They get scared when you go near them. So, after placing the food we watch them from a distance,” says Nandhini, a painting artist.
Nandhini is also passionate about gardening and has fenced the plants in her garden as the mongooses are capable of destroying it.
Nandhini is a resident of Thanikachalam Road in T. Nagar can be reached at 98410 18021.
