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Last November Ishani and her mom and dad went on a week's vacation to Tamilnadu & Kerala...Coimbatore, Munnar, Aleppy, Tekkady, and Madurai. It was a splendid time for Ishani and they brought back many goodies including a thousand photos with them.
And a charming doll. It has a parrot sitting on the branches of a tree with its roots slightly exposed on the grassy ground. It is battery-operated and with a chip in its innards. We call it 'Ishani's Parrot'.
There is a switch concealed in the roots of the tree, merging with its greens perfectly. When you press the switch, the parrot goes into action...chirping for all of half a minute, tweeting in between, blinking her eyes, flapping her wings and rocking her neck before falling silent. The parrot is simply charming.
Whenever some guests arrive, Ishani switches on her Parrot and gives them a live demo, the parrot falling silent after half a minute's fast action. And then on whenever the guests cough or clap or shout, the parrot goes back into her action amazing and amusing one and all. And after the guests leave, Ishani switches her Parrot off and places her high on the showcase.
Last night, being a weekend night, Ishani and her parents went to bed at midnight after watching Kapil's comedy show, and the entire gated community fell silent sunk into the holy night. And I browsed an Ukridge story and prepared to go to bed at 1 AM. And then, after a last (but not the least) visit to my attached bathroom, I happened to bang its door shut.
And all at once Ishani's Parrot went into her tweeting, shrieking, tooting regimen before I could gather my wits and run to the showcase and shut her loudmouth by switching her off...apparently Ishani forgot to do it before she went to bed. And I could hear our sickly neighbor cough and sneeze and clear his throat noisily...the old man was taken aback.
This is more or less always the case with alarms of all kinds in India...burglar alarms, smoke alarms, fire alarms, cyclone alarms, tsunami alarms, terror alarms, kidnap alarms, air-raid alarms, and all of a dozen others go off when there would be no real threat at all but fall grimly silent when tragedy strikes.
I was shaken the other afternoon when I was in half-a-doze at 2 PM expecting a call from Sailaja that she has started from her Eurokids school...a call for me to drive to the bus stop in my matchbox Maruti to pick her up and fetch her home.
Suddenly my cell phone rang and I picked it up thinking it was Sailaja calling. But saw, to my consternation and disorientation, that the call was from Rukmini, now safely in heaven. Half a doze is worse than a full one or none...all sorts of weird things happen then. And I was filled with amazement and wondered if I was really awake. And, pushing the Answer button, I heard the voice of Sailaja informing me that she has started walking to her bus stop in Kukatpally to take her bus to our Diptishri Nagar.
I leave it you to figure out what had happened...it was the simplest of false alarms...
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...To bird lovers the racket-tailed drongo is a never-ending source of pleasure and interest for, in addition to being the most courageous bird in our jungles, he can imitate to perfection the calls of most birds and of one animal, the cheetal, and he has a great sense of humour. Attaching himself to a flock of ground-feeding birds - jungle fowl, babblers, or thrushes - he takes up a commanding position on a dead branch and, while regaling the jungle with his own songs and the songs of other birds, he keeps a sharp look-out for enemies in the way of hawks, cats, snakes, and small boys armed with catapults, and his warning of the approach of danger is never disregarded. His services are not disinterested, for in return for protection he expects the flock he is guarding to provide him with food. His sharp eyes miss nothing, and the moment he sees that one of the birds industriously scratching up or turning over the dead leaves below him has unearthed a fat centipede or a juicy scorpion he darts at it screaming like a hawk, or screaming as a bird of the species he is trying to dispossess does when caught by a hawk. Nine times out of ten he succeeds in wresting the prize from the finder, and returning to his perch kills and eats the tidbit at his leisure, and having done so continues his interrupted song...
...Jim Corbett
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Last November Ishani and her mom and dad went on a week's vacation to Tamilnadu & Kerala...Coimbatore, Munnar, Aleppy, Tekkady, and Madurai. It was a splendid time for Ishani and they brought back many goodies including a thousand photos with them.
And a charming doll. It has a parrot sitting on the branches of a tree with its roots slightly exposed on the grassy ground. It is battery-operated and with a chip in its innards. We call it 'Ishani's Parrot'.
There is a switch concealed in the roots of the tree, merging with its greens perfectly. When you press the switch, the parrot goes into action...chirping for all of half a minute, tweeting in between, blinking her eyes, flapping her wings and rocking her neck before falling silent. The parrot is simply charming.
Whenever some guests arrive, Ishani switches on her Parrot and gives them a live demo, the parrot falling silent after half a minute's fast action. And then on whenever the guests cough or clap or shout, the parrot goes back into her action amazing and amusing one and all. And after the guests leave, Ishani switches her Parrot off and places her high on the showcase.
Last night, being a weekend night, Ishani and her parents went to bed at midnight after watching Kapil's comedy show, and the entire gated community fell silent sunk into the holy night. And I browsed an Ukridge story and prepared to go to bed at 1 AM. And then, after a last (but not the least) visit to my attached bathroom, I happened to bang its door shut.
And all at once Ishani's Parrot went into her tweeting, shrieking, tooting regimen before I could gather my wits and run to the showcase and shut her loudmouth by switching her off...apparently Ishani forgot to do it before she went to bed. And I could hear our sickly neighbor cough and sneeze and clear his throat noisily...the old man was taken aback.
This is more or less always the case with alarms of all kinds in India...burglar alarms, smoke alarms, fire alarms, cyclone alarms, tsunami alarms, terror alarms, kidnap alarms, air-raid alarms, and all of a dozen others go off when there would be no real threat at all but fall grimly silent when tragedy strikes.
I was shaken the other afternoon when I was in half-a-doze at 2 PM expecting a call from Sailaja that she has started from her Eurokids school...a call for me to drive to the bus stop in my matchbox Maruti to pick her up and fetch her home.
Suddenly my cell phone rang and I picked it up thinking it was Sailaja calling. But saw, to my consternation and disorientation, that the call was from Rukmini, now safely in heaven. Half a doze is worse than a full one or none...all sorts of weird things happen then. And I was filled with amazement and wondered if I was really awake. And, pushing the Answer button, I heard the voice of Sailaja informing me that she has started walking to her bus stop in Kukatpally to take her bus to our Diptishri Nagar.
I leave it you to figure out what had happened...it was the simplest of false alarms...
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