Friday, October 24, 2014

New Friends

An earthworm struggled on the gravelly road near my children's school. Once upon a time, I couldn't put enough distance between us. But that day, I picked up a twig, let it curl around it and dropped it on the mud patch nearby. My children and I watched as it burrowed quickly in.

After the rains, yesterday, I had walk to reach somewhere. I had to put my foot into slush covered by water. Once upon a time, I would have been mortally scared of insects catching my foot and whittling it to bone in no time. But yesterday, I confidently put my foot in, worried only about the water dirtying my feet rather than of being 'footnapped' and killed.

My balcony, with its plants and compost, has become home to several kinds of insects. Rains bring out the earthworms from the pots, and I am glad to see my daughter diligently trying to put them back in the pots.

This rain, black leeches started crawling around. Rather than being disgusted, I was curious to read up about them. Apparently there are many varieties of leeches, and one of them feeds on larvae and other insects. Reassured that they had come for the larvae in the compost, and were not going to stealthily attack my family, I had them collected in the scoop and put out in the garden downstairs.

Oh, I used to place water in the balcony for the birds and was horrified when a raven started using that small bowl to soak its meat in. I stopped keeping water, also because it has been raining on and off for the last few months. I now fully appreciate the wisdom of our forefathers in keeping only food, and fell into that practice. A young raven is as demanding as my little one, cawing every morning by 6.45 for its breakfast. It got addicted to bread since that is the easiest to give at that hour, but am slowly weaning it away by giving rice, chapathi, dosa etc. when I can.

The raven, which had got so used to me that it would only move a few fingers away when I brought food, now stays put, making just a token move! For the past two days, it has been bringing a friend, girlfriend?, who is yet to get used to me and flies away if there is any movement in the attached kitchen.

Oh, and my neighbour's dog, with whom I barely kept eye contact, felt confident enough to rub itself against me yesterday.

Years ago, a cat laid kittens in a room I had to live in for a couple of days. We had an understanding. If she wanted to come in or go out, I would go to the door and she would slip in through the window. The rest of the day, she was confident enough about me to leave them under my care!

I can't say I was just as thrilled when a mouse built a nest in my balcony... It felt very bad to be destroying that home, but it had to be done.

All this makes me wonder how we have the heart to kill and destroy animal habitat. When will we learn the implications of our actions and give the animals the space they need, while making a home and hearth for ourselves?

  

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