Of wildlife and other delights

Our stay in Bangalore has been a continous exposure to all types of wildlife (ok not really wildlife but animal life!) for S. Starting with lizards, we have a lot of paintings hung up all over the place and every evening a lizard or two will emerge from behing the paintings. At first S used to be quite terrified of them, insisting on being carried whenever she saw one. She even started recognising the sounds which lizards made. Over a period of time she has got used to them, and doesn't get frightened anymore. If she hears them when she is eating her food, she'll simply say, "I am eating soup and lizard is making noise" and continue eating. In fact the other day, she tried to lift up some paintings and look for lizards.

Then there is the friendly neighbourhood squirrel. We can see them running about on our flame of the forest tree from the balcony. They also visit my mom's room where they steal the lining from the bags to make their nest. The other day, we saw them running up to the bags, and since that is the room A spends a lot of time there we wanted to get the squirrel out from there. So the maid's husband and the driver took a ladder climbed up there and chased the squirrel from the storage area, then it ran across the hall, crossing a surprised S and went to my dad's room. From there it was finally chased out of the house. S was totally excited by this and proceeded to repeat the story to whoever was interested. Again a couple of days later, the squirrel reappeared in my mom's room. This time S ventured into the room and saw it being chased out.

Then there are the two dogs we have at home. They are big boxers so they are tied up when S goes down. S feeds them parathas, bone biscuits, bread etc. Sometimes they are tied, sometimes they are left free (i am more scared than S at this point!) but S is pretty cool. The dogs hate all other dogs in the vicinity and whenever the other dogs cross our house on their walks our dogs will bark at them continuously for 10-15 mins. S has become quite used to this, and says that dog must be walking past.

Then there are the large number of moths, dragonflies and creepy crawlies which are all taken in stride. The other day S was taking a cloth to hit a moth and i was quite surprised since earlier she used to come running to me saying 'carry me' everytime a moth came close. She has also seen all os uf chasing after the moths with the broomstick and finds this highly exciting!

There was a friednly visit from an owl also which came into our house and sat on top of the hall cupboard. I screamed and hid in a room. When S was a small baby also a baby owl came and sat at our window- wonder what it is with owls and babies?

All in all S is having a grand time here. We see different types of birds from the window and she has also started recognising fruits - she knows the mango tree, coconut tree etc. I wish we had a big garden in Bombay, but i guess for now the visits to Ajjji's house would have to suffice.