In this story, Khushwant Singh draws a pen picture of his grandmother. He describes how he had spent his childhood with her in the village. He also describes the change that came in the relationship in the city. Ultimately, he describes the moving scene of her death.

Khushwant Singh draws here an interesting portrait of his grandmother. He presents her as a tender, loving and deeply religious old lady. Singh says that his grandmother was an old woman. Her face was so wrinkled that it was difficult to believe that she had ever been young and pretty. Her hair was white as snow. She had a little stoop in her back. She could be seen reciting her rosary all the time. A picture of the author’s grandfather was hung on the wall. He appeared old too and it was difficult to believe that he ever had a wife.

He appeared to have only lots and lots of grandchildren. Singh was the only child at that time. His parents had gone to live in the city leaving him behind in the village under the care of his grandmother. She would get him ready for school, and would also feed him with chapattis. The school was attached to a temple. All the children sat in the verandah reciting the alphabet while his grandmother was engaged in reading the holy scriptures.

Finally, in the evening, the author and the grandmother would walk back home feeding the dogs on the way.

After a friendly relationship with his grandmother, he had to adapt to a new life in the city. This was a turning point for the grandmother and the grandson. Both of them were sent to settle down in the city with his parents. The author went to an English school but the grandmother never liked the way he was taught. Though Singh and his grandmother shared the same room, she was unable to help him. Apart from this, she was also disappointed that he was learning music that she considered inappropriate for gentle folks.

In due course, when Singh went up to University he was given a separate room. This indeed made the common link of their relationship snap completely. The grandmother accepted the fact, and she would spin the wheel from sunrise to sunset to compensate that. Only during the afternoons, she would relax by feeding the sparrows with little pieces of bread. They were her best friends and the sparrows also liked her company.

Later, Singh went abroad for higher studies for five long years. He had a doubt in his mind whether his grandmother would survive or not until he came back. He also thought that it might be the last physical contact between them when she came to the railway station to see him off. However, after five years, when he came back, incredibly he was welcomed by his grandmother who seemed had not grown older by a single day. Singh noticed that even at that time when everyone was joyful about his return, grandmother’s happiest moments were with her sparrows.

Later in the evening, there was a change in her attitude. She celebrated the return of her grandson by collecting some women of the neighborhood and beating the drum for several hours. But, in the morning, grandmother’s health deteriorated and she revealed that she was nearing her end. So she decided that she was not going to waste a single moment by talking. So she prayed. Quite suddenly, the rosary fell from her hand and she exhaled her last breath and it was clear that she was no more.

After making the preparations for the funeral, the family members went to fetch her body for the last journey. The golden blaze of light of the setting sun glittered in her room. And to pay their last homage to the grandmother, thousands of sparrows gathered in and around her room. The sparrows never did chirrup nor did they bother to notice the bread pieces thrown at them. When the grandmother’s corpse was carried off, the sparrows flew away quietly.