What parrots teach us about resettling

As we are efficient in parroting things - repeating thoughts and sayings without thinking or understanding their meanings - it should be easy to pick up another lesson from the tota. How to be perfect emigres. At least 60 of the world's 380-odd parrots species have a breeding population outside their 'natural geographical range'. How do they reach far-flung places away from 'home'? If economic reasons or 'a better life' make people settle in foreign cities and towns - and 'foreign' does not have to mean crossing international borders - for parrots, its mostly through pet trade and animal trafficking.

Take the monk parakeet, native to central South America and now thriving in cities as diverse as New York and Barcelona. The birds adapt to climates very different from 'back home' by building colonies of stick nests. Much like immigrant humans adapting in what they wear - say, from jackets to kurtas if from New Haven to New Delhi. The rose-ringed parakeet, after moving from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, even pushes other birds out in the feeding order in their new homes. Much like migrant humans performing better 'abroad'. The tota even changes its breeding patterns, much like appropriating new cultures. Something that emigre humans should learn - apart from highlighting the silliness that national-notional borders are.