Babbit, one of the male rabbits was injured in a fight and ended up with a bad cut on his right eye. Thinking it would heal, we left him. Couple of days ago the eye lid swelled and ,... there were maggots oozing through some whitish liquid on the outside . The maggost had made a pouch beside the lower eyelid. We sprayed some "Magout" medicine, cleaned the eye area, and used my long forgotten forceps that I had used to dissect cockroach motyh parts, and intestines etc. We pulled out the maggots, each as big a s apuffed rice.
Wehn the vet arrived , he said the Magout sparay would ahve taken care of the maggots.
Poor Babbit.
Almost blind. Now after we put Gentamycin eye drops, he doesn't seem as blind.

The pet shop man left seven white rabbits at the office. The two brown ones ಬನ್ನಿ (Bunny- "come" in Kannada) & ಹೋಗಿ (Hogi - "go" in Kannada) attacked all the white rabbits. The pet shop man never came to take them back because we never asked for them. So we took them home in a box. Rabbits are messy. They are cute but messy. And they eat too much. Its so much work to look after all seven , minding them during the day because preying birds, cats or dogs may attack them. They ate up all of the yellow Cosmos plants. Just before sunset we have to carry all of them upstairs and leave them on the terrace for the night. They always want someone to tuck them in for the night.

And today a fledgling pigeon fell from its nest. My sister put it in the picnic basket along with the rabbits. All the rabbits were curiously trying to peer through the basket, as if almost pitying whoever was inside. And for a moment it seemed the pigeon and the rabbits were communicating with each other.

I think rabbits look best when they are left free in the grass in the fields.
I found out an interesting fact. Rabbit meat is the leanest meat - leaner than chicken.
I'm not going to eat rabbit meat though. Especially since they belong to the rat family and even though rabbit meat is halal, I don't think I could ever bring myself to eat it.

I don't think I like rabbits very much.

Each morning when I look at Neelamma I can't help but wonder how she could carry
such a heavy basket on her head. Sometimes she asks me or my sister to help her
lift her basket filled with green leafy vegetables and place it on her head. Lifting
such a heavy basket is easy, but to carry it on her head and walk and walk and
walk... She's so frail and leaves home without breakfast. I don't know where she
gets her strength from.

The other day I saw woman selling , hmm, I am at a loss for words here, because I don't know what you would call it in English. She was selling those long broooms
that are used here to remove spider webs. Its a long narrow bamboo stick ending in
a tuft of tough grass attached tightly; they look like elongated versions of a witches' broomstick :D. She was very short and slim but she carried those long heavy broomsticks with perfect balance. I asked her if i could hold the longest which was around twelve feet long. When I held it I almost lost my balance even though I towered over her by more than a foot and half. It was so heavy and looking up at it made me dizzy. And she was carrying maybe ten or so on her head !! And walking straight with ease.

All these women work so hard.

In April, my brother, my sister and I have decided to film Neelamma's typical day.
She starts her journey to buy her vegetables at 4 am. Maybe we should arrive at her
home at that time which seems too early, but if she can do it everyday, then we can
do it too. She doesn't stay too far away from here. She once invited my sis and I to
her younger son's home with whom she lives. We went walking with her to her
home. They welcomed us so warmly and I guess we were embarassed because the
attention they lavished on us was far too much to take.

Looks like our house is turning into a little menagerie.

Natural pest control is my new mantra. But now I understand the reluctance to use it because it can be slow and very difficult to procure. There are numerous species of ants (I could count eight) crisscrossing the walls in my home, trailblazers creating pathways and passes through mountaineous territory where hitherto none existed, processions of Her Royal Highness the Queen , of different sizes and colour depending on the species, their hunting skills are honed to perfection as they sniff out food in a matter of a few minutes and alert everyone else in the community for the feast. They are resourceful and hardworking. But I am not sure I can be tolerant anymore and grant them refugee status in the house. Considering also that I don't like to kill them in one swipe of my hand, I needed a solution.
Upon consulting the house expert, my sister, she had a novel idea. Why not get a pangolin as ant control. Pangolins in her estimate devour around thirty thousand ants per day. Wow. What a brilliant idea !
Now I wonder where I can get a pangolin from. Maybe the zoo. Maybe we can borrow it for a day and then return it after its had its fill. We could even hoist it up near the ceiling to catch any ants that may try to escape.
I need a pangolin.
~~
For a month a large rat was digging up holes in the backyard and ruining the neat layout we had made. It uprooted every plant we had, ate up the roots, and dug deep tunnels into the ground. Unsure what to do, we tried to flush it out from its hole. I think it was trying to protest or plead because when it came out of its burrow, it fixed a stare and had a confused look, that wondered why in the world anyone in their right mind would want to fill up a burrow with water. A few days later, it made a new burrow and has been making newer ones.
The only way to get rid of the rat was to use a trap with some food. But when we searched for one, they said they don't make rat traps anymore because its far easier to poison one. I'm reluctant to use rat because it causes a horrible death - rats eat it, become very thirsty, rush for water, then they die. It does something to the kidneys. I am not sure we would like to use it unless the situation becomes really bad.
For now we have only two options - try to lure it with food around a large bucket with water at the base so that it jumps into the water and cannot come out, or just pray hard that God will make it go away.

When I joined Facebook somewhere at the end of 2006, I wasn't aware that one day it would serve as a meeting point for all my friends and family. I dismissed it as another social networking site (which it is anyway) - one that going by my compulsive obsessions , I had to join and explore. Not knowing what else to do I invited my two friends Sonia and Ana and a few months later I had my profile deactivated because you cannot delete it completely.

Quite recently my sister and my brother encouraged me to reactivate my profile because they wanted me in their friend list. One evening as my sister & I were talking about her classmate's photos on facebook whilst looking at them, my father curiously peered over his paper and asked us what we were doing. I never quite expected him to beg us to help him make his FB profile next because his friend had sent an email invite and he wasn't sure how to join fb. So that was done, and we put his smiling picture on display.
A few months later, my mum's brother and us were talking and the topic veered round fb. He was joking about my dad's display name when my mum looking astonished asked him, "oh my god, you have a fb profile ?" .
His superior smirk fuelled my mum into making her own profile. She stormed off along with my sis and presto, she had her own fb profile with a pic of her with my dad. Next my father added her as a friend and changed his status to 'married to SBF'. When my mum found out that he had a display photo of just himself, she protested asking him why he hadn't thou7ght of displaying a photo woth both of them. Ofcourse my father protested his innocence because we were the one who put it there. She went right ahead and changed her display pic to a single one of hers.

Finally my parents held a truce and decided no more made up wars over fb.

Soon enough all my aunts and uncles and cousins became 'friends' with my parents. And because I had super privacy settings no one knew I was on it.

Now that everyone was on the bandwagon, I had no choice but to be 'available' once more. Which gave rise to reactions like , "I never knew you were on FB !".
I never expected that family members from both ends of the spectrum would be there on fb. Family who you meet once in a bluemoon, family against who you have grudges, aunts, uncles and cousins you would rather avoid were all there on fb. To my dismay.
And to my greater dismay they were all on my brother's ever growing friend list. My brother - the peace maker, whose constant refrain is "peace on earth, goodwill to men", who brokers truce among all warring factions of religious divides, community divides, and every possible division you could think of.
Now that everyone saw me as his sibling, naturally I got so many requests from family even though I tried to keep as low a profile as possible.
When once I deactivated my profile, I got emails from my aunts and uncles saying "you recluse",
"you antisocial" ,
"where are you ? come back right now",
"are you alive ?"

Looks like I can't win the war against facebook.
My mum seems to enjoy being on fb because she found all her St Agnes school classmates. Names that I've only heard of since my childhood like susan, prathiba, vihba, lynn, hyril, sybil - for the first time I could put a picture to their names. Now she's a fb regular adding photos to her album, photos that I would die if anyone else saw. She isn't concerned about privacy or that anyone could see them - she loves 'showing off' her children like any parent. I guess fb works when you meet friends and classmates after so many years.

For now I am fiddling with the idea of deactivating my profile once more because my uncle and his wife had a minor tiff over a comment that my sis posted complimenting my aunt's children. It was all about saying Mashallah. Since they've deleted their comments and deactivated their profiles, I think I could do a great escape without my cousins noticing. Then again, I just know my mum would question my whereabouts and confront me with my frequent absconding acts. She simply does not get it that Facebook isn't where I want to be especially since I want to avoid zillions of classmates from school and college.

As for my father, he's happy that he has a profile on fb, and both my parents are happy that they can show the world & the net that they are married to each other !

And me, I'm still trying to unentangle myself from the fb web. As my mum told me just now that fb is like the devil , cutting int your time when you should spend it on better things.

I so envy people who live without facebook. Dang, you are so lucky .

This is my most favorite poem and will remain so for all time to come. It was written by Lewis Carroll.

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden dream -
Life, what is it but a dream?


~~~

One of the most difficult things to follow in life is to practice what you preach.
I'm also quite culpable of the crime. And I think its so very difficult for me; to go ahead and tell someone what they are doing is wrong and sometimes do it myself.

But in my view, it is important to stay away from making strong statements about certain issues when you are unable to fulfill them yourself. The key words here are "strong statements ".

While I understand that views and perceptions about things may change over the years, and each day we are a new person because we grow, learn new things, add to our experiences in life and we are not who we were yesterday or a few years ago.

I thought of posting this entry because a person that I was briefly acquainted with made very very strong statements about immorality in the context of an Islamic view over relationships with the opposite sex, over how women are normally of loose character, etc.

I searched for her Facebook profile and I saw her friend list. Among her friends was this man who in my opinion at least didn't have a very decent display photo. It wasn't of himself, and I know people would call even nude photos as aesthetically shot etcetera but it isn't the kind of photo I would ever display on my profile. He has only women friends and a majority of these women don't seem to have good intentions, and other stuff and maybe I'm conservative at heart but I found his wall posts by his women friends indecent, I found his comments indecent, the women who he is frieds with indecent...

I should not, and generally do not comment on what other people do with their lives because frankly I don't care what someone else does in their personal intimate lives unless I have direct business with them. But this lady had made such a strong statement on morality in the Islamic perspective.
If I were the one to have made such a statement I don't think I would have ever accepted being friends with such a person, in real life or on Facebook.
Infact I would have been quite embarassed to have such a friend on my friend list.

I know everyone should be given leeway and everyone has goodness in their hearts and its so wrong to write off anyone. But if you are going to make such a strong statement and go to the extent of making everyone else feel that they cannot reach upto your high standards, that they (the other person) do not have any decency or modesty, then I think you should also ensure that you follow it in every aspect of your life and not just dismiss a FB friendship as a trifle when it has bearing on what you stand by.

She may not in her personal life be a bad person but she would still associate herself with a person who goes against everything she holds to be the correct moral behaviour.

I came to know today of the imprisonment of a Muslim butcher in this city for the crime of slaughtering a cow; he was incarcerated for seven years. I think seven years is too much for killing a cow.
Amidst all the brouhaha over the climate change debate, a bunch of crazy scientists have blamed poor innocent cattle for global warming. It isn't a ruminant's fault if methanogens are doing its dirty work. I'm not sure what their point is, but if the cattle population multiplies excessively, are they suggesting that we cull those animals ?
It looks like we may have to do that soon because in any case cattle in India overgraze, and are eating into forest land.
So if this scenario does come to pass, I wonder who will then go to jail ?
Cricket balls are made of cow leather. As also boxing gloves. So that means that a lot of sports that Indians play should not be played ?

Maybe Nandi should speak for itself.

Millingtonia longifolia

Acacia

Australian Pine

Rain Tree

I love february because

~it always reminds me of preliminary exam days in school when we had to come home by 12 noon

~its always the start of hot summer and the time to eat ice candies all day long

~the promise of summer rains is never too far >

~something good always happens in february

~the rain tree sheds its leaves in feb and everywhere there is a carpet of its leaves, they fly shimmering through the air, fly in through the bathroom windows, sometimes land in my hair like decorative hairpiece & with every hard wooosh of the wind they fall like a golden rain and i always miss the chance to stand under the tree at that time.