Now regarding our strange surname, the tale went in our town and also in our family, that our great great great grandfather was a fierce warrior. He fought many battles under the Lord and won many victories and reputation spreading far and wide. In one such battle, where he was losing, a flock of crows suddenly struck the opponent army from nowhere. Grandfather took the opportunity and defeated his enemy, which led to a magnificent victory.

However, since then he found utmost interest in observing these little blackbirds. He would pet them, feed them and nurse them when needed. Soon his home was filled with wild crows. There were crows everywhere. Legend says that when he would call the crows to feed them, it would look like a great black cloud was descending on the earth. Not just this, he would always be clad with crows, which would look like a marvellous black cloak from far away. Naturally, people started calling him with strange names. And hence there came the 'Karasu'. Soon he retired as a warrior, and instead started spending more time with the crows. He would often talk with the crows, like they were some old-time friends. And some said that even the crows used to listen and reply to him with their hoarse cries. Soon the neighbourhood was filled with wild crows. There were feathers and crow crap everywhere. Few neighbours became sick. People said that the roofs of the houses were so much clustered with crows that they seemed like black snow from far away. The crows would cry coarsely from early in the morning to the end of the day.

After a while, both his neighbours and family became intolerable to the situation. So he left his home and the village, and went to a hill a little far away and lived by himself. Once or twice in a month he would come down from the hill and collect all the necessary ration. Once it happened that his family went to check him out after not seeing him for quite some time. And they found both the flock of crows and he had vanished. He had left all his belongings in the small hut he used to live. The search party looked for him for a week, and then as usual people forgot about him and life went on as usual. People said that the crows took him to their kingdom.

Now nobody in our family ever thought about changing the surname. I didn't have any problem either, till I got into the city school. I never realized that Kei Karasu sounded like Cactus. So mistakenly or intentionally I became known as cactus through the whole school.

We were the family of crows. I had once read somewhere that crows can't build their own nests. We didn't have our own either. We tried to make one ours. But we had no idea that the nest was not ours and what was waiting for us was certainly not good.