Kitty…

In our old house my room was on the ground floor. I used to leave the windows open in the evening for Fenny, she loves sitting on my bed and looking out of the window. One day after a really long afternoon nap I woke up to find a small black bundle at my feet. I thought it was Fenny, but then this black fur ball was really small. I switched on the lights and to my surprise, sleeping on my bed was a black kitten. I don’t really like cats all that much. I poked the bundle, the little thing looked at me mewed and curled back to sleep. I poked it again, and again and then it finally got up and stretched and yawned then looked at me as if expecting an explanation for disturbing it. All this while Fenny my puppy was sitting on the other bed observing this new visitor. She didn’t bark or attack the cat, for which I was thankful. I picked the cat and it was so skinny and frail and the silly eyes did it all. Instead of throwing it out I let it sleep. When I went to check on it a little later it was gone. I guess it understood that we already had a pet at home, which might prove to be a threat to her, so it left as silently as it came. So I guess I had a cat as a pet for a few hours:)

Happy Campers

When in first year of law, 10 students from our college were sent to a leadership camp. The gist of the camping experience is that, the resource persons tried to break our ego’s, made us questions our goals, and we did get to do a few fun things too. We were made to walk the Burma Bridge, which was much easier than multi wire traversing. There was also a nice pond in the camping area and we were warned not to swim there. So the day we were kayaking, we were given a task, which we were to do on our kayaks. Our team was without oars so two members had to maneuver the kayak to its destination while two sat in it as passengers all this was to be done without us talking. For the first few minutes the whole exercise seemed to be going right and suddenly chaos broke loose. I had been eying the pond since we got to the camp. For this task we were made to wear the life jackets, which only made me uncomfortable. Taking advantage of the chaos I removed the safety jacket and started swimming. The resource persons had no option but to allow everybody to take a dip. There were 10 other students from another college, and one girl from that college was petrified of water, her kayak had catapulted and she was in the water screeching her lungs out, I decided to go help her. (!) I held on to her arm to help her get to dry land and that ungrateful creature pushed my head under the water (I wasn’t expecting that) so I just left her hand and let the resource person take over. But after this chaotic incident a meeting was called where we were told to get into dry clothes and were then driven off to a village called Megni. On reaching Megni, we were again divided into groups and me the unluckiest of all was sent off with this other guy to a villager’s house. There we were told that we would have to earn our meal by working for them. It was already 8pm when we reached the village, and I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, and all the exercise in water had made me hungry. So I was all set for dinner, only to be told by the family that they don’t eat dinner but just breakfast and lunch. Then we were led to the kitchen. The other guy who was my teammate was TOTALLY useless. Since we were not having dinner he enquired about breakfast, the lady said she’d be preparing akki rotti (Rice dosa). But they hadn’t yet ground the rice. So “I” had to grind the rice on an antique grinder with my silly teammate criticizing my methodology. It took me 2 ½ hours to finish that. I was really very happy to finally sleep.

Next morning we had to wake up at 4 and start watering the garden sans hose. Remember the heavy pots? Yeah… had to use that to pour water. Not being used to carrying that I had to fill half the pot for each trip. I’ve never enjoyed breakfast the way I did that morning! Later we had to go into the forest to collect firewood and dry leaves. When “firewood” was mentioned, I could imagine pieces of wood cut neatly in a pile. But that wasn’t to be! We had to haul a tree trunk ( not exaggerating) all the way back to the village with a basket of dry leaves hanging on our backs. For lunch we had unpolished rice, curds and pickle. The family also had a pet dog named Raju, who was our constant companion. I was told he was very notorious as he had a tendency to have a biting spree. But he and I hit it off pretty well. Which surprised the family very much. In the evening a vehicle came to collect us. We bid good-bye to the family and headed for the camp. What happened there later is just not relevant. We stayed on at the camp for two more days, and knowing that it would come to an end and that I’d be on my way home soon was the only thing that kept me going for the last two days. Finally at the bus stop my friends and I heaved a happy sigh. Our journey back was uneventful and even if anything did happen I was oblivious to it.

Last Rites

My brother and I always buried any dead insect we found. The usual victims of calamities were ants. They would either be stepped on or sat on. For some unfortunate ants, their last memory would probably be of looking right into a big black pupil. Scrutinizing ants is a tough thing; you never see one alive if you are 3 years old while doing so. I’ve learnt that ants are always at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are lucky that there are plenty of them still around the world. So we took the dead ants to the “burial ground”, which was a little spot in our garden.

We always wanted to “cremate” the ants. As we were both still really small, matchboxes were a Big No! No! Then one day my brother discovered the utilities of a magnifying glass. We carried our loot of dead ants to the terrace and gathered leaves and made a tiny pyre and then let the magnifying glass do its magic. Of course such happy moments never last long, what with parents stalking us like we were criminals!

INSECTOPIA

A jar with some sand and lots of grass was my idea of an ideal set up to keep grasshoppers and ladybugs. Whenever I went out to the park I would look out for them and pick the ones I thought were the nicest and put them in the jar. I did this daily and soon I had a very colorful collection of ladybugs and a bunch of irate grasshoppers who always tried to escape. It failed to hit me that, maybe these hoppers didn’t like their new home. A few days later my mom advised me not to add more insects to the jar. So I stopped, only to notice on the very same day that there was a hopper in the jar that wasn’t moving. I removed it from the jar and inspected it closely, there was no movement and for once it wasn’t trying to escape. I carried my precious jar downstairs and set all the bugs free, and buried the dead one.

I knew then that I needed to start with a much smaller pet and I saw this red ant climbing the wall. I picked it. I had been warned not to go near them. But really how painful could an ant bite be? I soon discovered and discarded my “prospective” pet in fury.

It was obvious that trying to hold any creature captive without knowing the proper know how would only result in tragedy. I decided instead that I'll just befriend them and set them free after playing with them. I developed a knack for catching roaches. Initially i used to pick them and throw them out. But when i discovered that my brother didn't like them all that much, it gave me cheap thrills to scare him. Holding a cockroach by its antennae and running around the house after my brother bring back fond memories;)

A Lizard's Tail

Curiosity in kids is obvious and I was super curious as a kid. I liked catching bugs, insects and any creepy crawly creature. When I was 3 years old my interests in four legged and some eight-legged creatures was encouraged by my dad. My very first attempts at having a pet failed miserably. I had a fascination for lizards, and so I wanted one as a pet. Having decided that, I had to figure out how I would catch one. I didn’t think I had to consult anyone about trapping lizards so I decided to catch one my own way. So I ran after them, chased them, climbed the furniture trying to reach them but all failed. Then one day I saw this really fat happy looking lizard crawling on the floor and the next instant it was on my palm. Then it began its struggle, so I tried to get a grip on it and held it by the tail and the next thing I know the lizard’s tail was in my hand and the rest of it was escaping. The tail fluttered on my palm with what little life it had in it and then stopped. I didn’t tell anyone about this. ( I pretty much convinced my self of having killed it.) I thought the other remains of the lizard would be found by someone else.

A few days later I thought it was time to ask my dad the exact manner of catching a lizard. He said I could do so by trying to delicately hold it right below its neck. I tried, but I always thought that the lizard would bite me. (!!!) So I resumed my old method of catching them by the tail and well, you can imagine that ours was probably the only house which had lizards without tails for quite some time : )