Tamil Nadu GTE typing test, Senior grade

Love and care have been showered on pigeons for centuries by emperors, princes and queens in their marble palaces, as well as by the poor, in their humble homes. The gardens, grottos and fountains of the Indian rich--the small field of flowers and fruits of the common folks, each has its ornament and music,--many-colored pigeons and cooing white doves with ruby eyes. Even now any winter morning foreigners who visit our big cities may see on the flat-roofed houses innumerable boys waving white flags as signals to their pet pigeons flying up in the crisp cold air. Through the blue heavens flocks of the birds soar like vast clouds. They start in small flocks and spend about twenty minutes circling over the roofs of their owners' homes. Then they slowly ascend and all the separate groups from different houses of the town merge into one big flock and float far out of sight. How they ever return to their own homes is a wonder, for all the house-tops look alike in shape in spite of their rose, yellow, violet and white colors. But pigeons have an amazing sense of direction and love of their owners. I have yet to see creatures more loyal than pigeons and elephants. I have played with both, and the tusker on four feet in the country, or the bird on two wings in the city, no matter how far they wandered, were by their almost infallible instinct brought back to their friend and brother--Man. My elephant friend was called Kari, of whom you have heard before, and the other pet that I knew well was a pigeon. His name was Chitra-griva; Chitra meaning painted in gay colours, and Griva, neck--in one phrase, pigeon Gay-Neck. Sometimes he was called "Iridescence-throated." Of course Gay-Neck did not come out of his egg with an iridescent throat; he had to grow the feathers week by week; and until he was three months old, there was very little hope that he would acquire the brilliant collar, but at last when he did achieve it, he was the most beautiful pigeon in my town in India, and the boys of my town owned forty thousand pigeons. But I must begin this story at the very beginning, I mean with Gay-Neck's parents. His father was a tumbler who married the most beautiful pigeon of his day; she came from a noble old stock of carriers.