We’re a family with a child. Children like animals. Animals are fun to observe and usually even the smallest of cities will have an animal enclosure for the tourists. So while the idea of animals being caged bothers me, it seems to also be a way to get the kids up close and (im)personal with the creatures they usually watch on Animal Planet or Nat Geo.
Here are a few glimpses of the zoo visit Padmaja Naidu Zoological Gardens at Darjeeling.
The obvious lame hijack of the name aside, just lookit!
Basic editing has been done to show the places the way I saw them.
Landed in the motherland. Greeted by warm, wet air instead of the arid breezes of the homeland.
Before long a storm arose, the lights went out and 3 slightly giddy women of differing ages danced in the rain with lightning crashing almost overhead. Very primal.
Drying off by the candlelight where giant shadows danced on the wall; trying to make sure the clothes aren’t inside out or front to back is the challenge.
But the wind is sharp and cool and the rain water cold and shiver-inducing. New memories are being made here tonight in a place not usually so evocative or filled with mirth and belonging…
TO tells me a lot of stuff but he doesn’t always share stuff I want to know about…how he’s doing in school, something new on his radar or just things he’s thinking about.
Now that we’re in the vacay mode, he’s sharing stuff from his school backpack. His drawing book came out today and he came and showed me stuff he’s made all year long. All 3 pages of it.
So here’s a glimpse of the “mindscapes” of a child-
TO learnt a rather tough lesson today- about life, death and how you can’t save everyone.
A pigeon had laid her eggs behind the AC unit on one of our window parapets. It was sheltered from other birds, the strong winds and still gave enough access to the warmth of the sun.
In due time the eggs appeared and eventually a chick. We’ve been keeping an eye on le chick and seeing the day to day changes in him/her. But the chick was in the infancy stage still and not strong enough to fly.
Today TO came running to me to show me something “very bad” that was happening. A male pigeon was trying to attract the attention of mother pigeon and in the process, with all the flapping of the wings and the clawing that went on, the baby bird got shoved out of the nest and is now slowly dying.
It moved feebly in a rather pathetic creeping manner, trying to get away from the danger and managed to get itself further away from the nest.
The mother flew away in the entire commotion and now we have a tiny life ebbing out on our window. It’s sad. And what’s worse is that due to the grills on our window we couldn’t access the bird and get it back to the nest and keep it warm somehow.
TO kept hitting the glass to shoo away the bigger birds but they kept at it and in time the baby bird was well and truly done for. And such is the unavoidable aspect of life- bad stuff happens, you don’t get to save everything and everyone you want to and yet there’ll be another nest here again soon. Maybe by the same mother bird.
Resilience, circle of life or animal instinct, it’s all the same thing at the end of the day…you got to keep soldiering on. Or as Dory said, “Just keep swimming!”
