Encounters of the Natural Kind

My Encounters of the Natural Kind may have begun on the farm in Pennsylvania where I lived as a little girl, but these daily tidbits rival any previous story I had from my childhood!

-It is common at weddings to receive a small lime with your meal as a gift to take home. I went to a Hindu wedding this past Wednesday (which means there was delicious vegetarian food!) and took home my two limes to make juice. The only ingredient I needed in order to finish making it was sugar. I went into the kitchen and asked Eeche, "Panchasara theramo?" as I proudly displayed my water and squeezed lime mixture. She led me to a steel canister. Taking off the lid and steadying the canister on the shelf of her bosom, she stuck her hand in the sugar and poured a large handful in my cup. I watched the huge grains of suger fall with a "ting" in my metal cup and wondered silently about the black specks I noticed falling with the white crystals. As I poured my sugar into the juice, I shrugged when I realized the black specks were ants. A little extra protein for my lime juice!

-Mice run around the hostel like little rats of Nymph secretly causing the daily power-outtages that we naively blame on the "low-wattage," (if only the Indian government knew it might take care of the nuclear energy issue). One day a student presented to Ammamma a tiny trapped mouse cowering at the bottom of a wooden trap. "They destroy our clothes," she said. I wanted to let her in on the secret of their success in stealing our energy and building their own little "Special Economic Zones" in the walls of the kitchen: tax-free auction of grains of rice and the occasional bit of fruit. I decided not to.

Instead I watched in stupid horror as Unni, the youngest of the hostel staff, dunked the wooden cage into the hostel lilly pond. He held the cage under water for less than one minute and the frantic ripples in the water soon dissipated. I was watching from my room and Unni noticed. He flashed his rockstar smile and held-up the dead mouse by its tail. I made a face at him and shut my window. I heard him laughing as he walked past to throw out the mouse...I'm sure they're plotting revenge.

-Today I asked Ashwati to introduce me to her cow. She scampered me to the back of her hut and pointed to the two cows in an attached room in the back. The lively 4th grader grabbed the rope running through the cow's nostrils and pulled its head to face me. She explained something I didn't understand, then took my reluctant hand and made me pet the complacent cow. She gently patted the cows protruding tummy and said, "baby." Good, I thought. A baby cow means more money for this Dalit family of five.

-A few weeks ago The Hindu reported the attack of a small herd of inebriated elephants. The elephants had imbibed an unidentified alcoholic substance (probably
"Toddy," an alcoholic drink made from fermented coconut water), and in their rowdy drunken state had wreacked havoc. I think this may beat UW-Madison's Halloween parties.