Smt Shefali Banerjee was born into a family of pet lovers. Her South Kolkata Bhawanipur home was always abuzz with barking champion pedigree dogs and chirping birds. She loved and cared for them ever since she was a small girl. After being married to Shri Satyendra Nath Banerjee she started building a collection of her own birds and mammals, which included canaries, finches, parrots, squirrels, rabbits, Guinea pigs, and even mongoose! The numbers and varieties increased with time. In 1961, a series of aviaries was completed at their residence near Lake Market in South Kolkata after three years of construction work. It was in this year that a large collection of finches, parrots and cockatoos joined the flock, which gave a flip start to their avicultural venture. Although Satyendra was not into handling the birds directly, he took upon himself the construction work for the entire infrastructure, with innovative electrical and plumbing provisions and was constantly involved in varieties of improvisations in the facilities, as required for the well-being of the birds and animals. The husband-wife duo complemented each other in their capacities as aviculturists and continued to work together on their passion for decades.

Shri Satyendra Nath Banerjee and Smt Shefali Banerjee

Their grand-daughter Anindita was brought up by them and was their helping hand in each and every activity pertaining to aviculture from the time she was a kid. Naturally, she never considered these birds and animals to be anything but family.

Anindita as a child with her birds

Life flowed on at a very fast pace and with constant cheerful activity and joyous engagements in this home. Satyendra passed away in 1987, after which Shefali lost her inner buoyant disposition for aviculture. She carried on, but the spring in her step was missing. Ultimately, when she saw the same fire of passion for aviculture in the eyes of Debashis, to whom her grand-daughter got married in 1997, she handed over her entire collection to them. By then, Debashis was already building up his own collection of birds and inspired by Shri Subrata Chakrabarti or Kaku, as he was called, the journey of Sunshine BirdWorld took off. Subsequently, Kaku also gifted a large collection of birds from his facility “The Abode of Birds” to Sunshine BirdWorld.

Shri Subrata Chakrabarti

Thus, the birth of the journey of Sunshine BirdWorld cannot be given a date and a time, as our roots are ancient, blessed by our ancestors and our mentor. Sunshine BirdWorld is like a river, which has expanded by various other rivers flowing into it, and is currently rushing forward with gusto, with the joy of a dancing minstrel.