It has not been long since the fragrant scent of Shiva Ratri fires were yet in the air, especially with one such shrine practically across the road, but nonetheless, the recent improvement in the weather makes a change for the better. Indeed, it is like a calm in the eye of the storm, as it falls between the cold of winter and the heavy monsoon rains. Thus, the season changes towards warmer times, and the rice soon to be planted, a time for all ages to rejoice.

Each year, at about this time, the barn swallows, as is their tradition, casually return to the Aalu Maila Shop, on Ganeshman Sinha Maarga. Usually the males drop by first, to check out the nesting site and to attract a female, if one hasn’t chosen one already. So, from dawn until dusk each day, once the wide entrance panel doors are removed, the swallows briskly swoop in and out of the low earth-tone yellow and brown shop, for they have already set about their diligent housekeeping. The male swallows, like metallic blue and off-white long-tailed darts, will then constantly flit back and forth from the exposed low ceiling beams, where fifty to sixty nests hang.

The birds are perhaps on a mission with a mouthful of mud, or some old chaffed rice husks, tidying and repairing the nests from past years, though the nests generally are in good shape. This is due in part to good construction, and to the shop proprietor seeing the nesting birds as a blessing and auspicious omen and therefore the old nests are left alone. Besides, the customers respect and tolerate the swallows’ buoyant presence, despite soaring only inches above their heads, just as the swallows ignore the human traffic of commerce, going on below. In any case, it is rare that new nests are constructed by the birds, unless the colony numbers have recently increased.

Nonetheless, soon the swallows will settle down somewhat, as only one set of each nesting pair will come and go in search of food, while the other unwearyingly sits to incubate the newly laid egg. They are very clean birds, nest wise in any case, as by beak they remove their droppings elsewhere. This is just as well, since the shop floor is a rather tight and narrow space, roughly three meters by eight meters. In that limited area, there are various open bins of rice, lentils and beans, and shelves of various household goods along the inner walls, together with sacks of flour and heaps of packaged goods in the center.

There are other elements of the small retail outlet to note, like a slight recess along the front wall for the cash box, as well as a nook at the back of one half of the shop, and a narrow passage towards a back storage area. However, the barn swallows seem to nest exclusively in the main front part of the structure, presumably for easier access to the outside. There is an optimum of natural lighting here after all, with sufficient cooling shade at the same time, as well as an abundance of insects and various water supplies nearby.

When the heavy rains have again arrived, the hatchlings will begin to emerge from the snug confinement of their shell. Meanwhile, the human traffic below will chatter and gossip, and try to haggle prices, despite the young swallows, in the rafters above, warbling up quite a deafening storm. The featherless chicks, understandably, are in fierce competition against one another, with head raised high on stretched neck, and mouth wide open, awaiting a parent bird to regurgitate a sloppy insect meal for them. Therefore, the parents are extremely busy, constantly zipping back and forth to feed their three or four frail and fragile looking offspring, get water, or clean the build-up of guano from the nest.

Meanwhile, the clerks on the shop floor, tally up the customer’s numerous purchases, their nimble fingers flying on the calculator keys. Not just once do they do so, but twice in quick succession, to double check, and rarely are they wrong in their calculations the first time. In fact, nothing seems to distract them in their line of duty, even though one might think that all the racket of the birds, all day long, would eventually drive them up the wall.

However, much like the shop owner, the clerks seem quite chuffed to work in the presence of the active swallows. Indeed, every now and then the clerks might pause momentarily in their work, look up at the hatchlings and smile affectionately. In this age of constant change and rapid modernization, even in Nepal, it is indeed refreshing to know that somethings don’t change and are in fact caringly preserved.

The first lively brood of barn swallows quickly then grow and mature into fledglings,throughout the monsoon season due to the parents’ frantic efforts, and so it’s not unusual for a second brood to start. Often the first brood, even though now able to fly and fend-for-themself, will hang around to assist in the raising of their weaker pint-sized siblings. This apparently also makes the initial fledglings more likely to return to the same nesting site, than those which migrate soon as possible. Either Way, Hirundo Rustica has spread out around this planet, much like the human affiliation it commonly follows.

By the time the monsoon ends, a steady breeze has dissipated the misty clouds, which until then had concealed the Himalayas, and so a drier season gradually arrives. Therefore, the rice is harvested, from the terraced paddies, so that it might be dried and then the chaff winnowed from the grain. Particles of husk suspended upon the warm eddying currents of air might drift past the now empty, or soon to be, nests. The parent swallows, and their young fledglings then migrate off to South-East Asia, and perhaps even further. In any case, the swallows will return, for they are the shops' legacy, to be passed on down through the centuries.