The Bug!

A small mistake can bring about disastrous consequences.

I love Animals! I was ecstatic not when I had sex or when I gave birth to a baby girl (no offense Ela, maybe it was the heavy sedation that didn’t let me feel anything). I felt so alive and sensed the force go through my veins and all through my body, when I held a snake in my hands. It was non venomous, but a big one. When everyone was looking curiously at the snake but cautiously standing away, I pleaded the snake catcher to give the snake to me for a minute. The snake wrapped around my arm and it was so nice to feel that beautiful but very strange creature so close to me.

I always find it easier to be around animals. I don’t even kill geckos at home, as they feed on mosquitoes. 

Last month Ela and I started to get small rashes in our arms. It was very itchy and we scratched the hell out of our skin. After a couple of days we were fine again. Later, I found out that it was because of a tiny bug. So every time I saw that in the house I scooped it up and threw it out.

One day when I was already exhausted cleaning the house I noticed this bug under the sheets. It made me so angry that I just squished it with my fingers, and went with the cleaning work.

The next morning…

 

 

Thinking it would be fine soon I went to work. The swelling got only bigger and worse. People at work were grossed out as they thought I had conjunctivitis.

                                                 

 

  The pain, the itching, the classic black eye look that i had adorned several times in my married life and having to deal with it alone,acting like everything was fine... It felt like I hit rock bottom.

After spending  a few hundred money and a few more days of hiding from the public eye, it got better.

A tiny damn bug…was not the problem actually. I will not blame the bug.

 I killed it with my fingers and didn’t wash my hands and that had brought all the trouble. Small mistake of mine that caused me great stress.

 Snakes I can handle, but some devious tiny “bug” I scream.

Me and Them.

                   Picking a side - how hard is it?! It is always  a struggle for me. At work, at home, you have to be with someone, be part of a group, stand with them so that they can stand with you too. I can’t and don’t want to be identified with others. I function better alone. And I hate that. This is not because I lack people’s skills, I think. I need my space, and my ways.  

                   Seeking good friendship was the biggest step I took recently.  Have you ever had the feeling, when you are with a group of people, of being not like them, and wondered what is wrong with you?  If the answer is yes then, Good, I am not alone. It can do a lot to you when you don’t feel ‘at home’ with anyone, be it friends or family. You feel special but at the same time, also like a weirdo.   

Yesterday when Ela was talking about her day (which we do every evening) she was telling me how her friend yelled at for a simple mistake. She had dropped her friend’s book and when she picked it up she touched the book and her chest only two times and not three.   

 (btw if you don’t know what I am   talking about….It is a thing we do in this country…when you drop something, especially a book, you need to feel sorry that you dropped it, you touch it and then touch your heart ideally 3 times and that's how you apologize to the book.)   

  This had upset her friend. She thought I would be on her side and be mad at her friend for her bossiness. Instead I was displeased with Ela, I said why did she even have to do something meaningless and silly like that, twice or thrice that didn’t matter. “If you drop something, all you need to do is pick it up,” I said to her. She looked at me for a few seconds and asked me,” Why do you have to be different? Everyone in school does it. Everyone in our family does it. Only you don’t!” She was not mad at her friend anymore. Her question left me frozen. I didn’t know what to tell her.

My dad told me once, when I was 14 or 15, that it is okay to want to be “different, to not to comply” but then everything that follows will also be different and you should be okay with that.  Now I know what he meant. 

Cages.

My recent visit to a Zoo turned horrible.  I am not a zoo person and I knew I wouldn’t feel right in there, but I wasn’t ready to see what I saw there.

He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him
More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

                                                    Ted Hughes “Jaguar”

This poem echoed in my head when I was standing in front of a hyena. But it was the exact opposite of what the poet felt when he was in a similar situation.

What the hyena is going through looks like pure torture to me. I don’t see the Stride as wilderness of freedom. Craziness of imprisonment is what I see. Pessimist or Realist but I like to bring the negative or the blunt truth out in the open. A cage is “no cage to him?” But it is!

 Notice Boards and Placards everywhere

Don’t Tease the Animals          Don’t shout at the animals

 There was an ape which resembled Gollum of Lord of the Rings .

Its deformity, odd appearance made the crowd go wild. They cheered when it looked at them. It didn’t want their attention. It didn’t want them there. The animal looked deeply disturbed. At one point the ape threw a stone at the crowd and instead of getting the message the crowd was Wowed by it. Knowing nothing it did would make the ‘evolved’ species understand, the animal walked away.  My spirit was broken seeing all this. And the crowd which looked really happy and satisfied moved to the next cage craving for more.

Not all animals were kept in cages. But that doesn’t give any relief, as a small piece of land with deep pits around it and high fences can’t be seen as a better option. A bear looked highly perturbed, slightly schizophrenic scratching the wall with bobbling head. One consolation was that it had another bear in the enclosure.

Most apes were kept alone. The boards with their name and other details portray a happy family.

 It was heart wrenching to see them just sitting there with a blank look and an empty heart. There was no symptom of pain or suffering or eagerness to leave, what I saw was plain numbness.

The Aviary looked beautiful with all the big, tall trees. But all the birds could do was merely look at the trees from inside the wire fence around them.

A fancy separate section for the Snakes repelled the fragile souls.  It does need courage to see the poor animals kept that way.  Nine feet cobras in what looked like a cupboard.

 

And the funniest thing, the stupidest – what I saw in an Anaconda’s cage. Man thinks he’s making the cage ‘home’ for the animal and paints the walls with Green plants!