Tag: monkeys

The Animal Farm

This particular post is during the time I was heavily pregnant with my first born, GBee. So, it was in 2017.

It all started with me returning to Hyderabad.  Living in an apartment in India is not new to me, but finding myself in the company of many animals is!

One fine Sunday afternoon, when our home was filled with guests of all ages, we were immersed in talking about various topics, when all hell broke loose! I heard cries which scared the hell out of me. The cries came from our veradah. Inspite of my present state, I rushed to see what the matter was.

There, standing near the utility area were two monkeys, eating the snacks mom had given our house-help. The monkeys scared off our 60 year old house help like a couple of predators and began munching her hot bajjis. (Mom had prepared bajji for all our guests and gave some to our house help.) Our house help was so scared, she cried in blood curdling scream, ran towards our watchman and that was the scene before our eyes. Both the monkeys were munching away the snacks, like there was no tomorrow!

It is all together another story of how the monkeys were shoo-ed away.

And then, there is the cat!

The stubborn little creature can’t be scared and shoo-ed off easily. Even when we shout or shoo it away, the cat doesn’t bat an eye! It looks on with little respect at our “cat shooing away skills”!

The first time I saw the little monster was when I left the door to the verandah open and the cat found it too tempting not to barge in. I had to hurl a slipper near the cat (taking pains not to hit it. Yes, PETA,I am not cruel to animals, but I don’t like being taken for granted either!) The stupid one, didn’t budge! It took three of us to force it away.

One or two such incidents left me with bad taste for cats! (I had a cat as a pet for one day in my childhood! Did I happen to tell you that story? If not, will do that in the future)

What do you do if the said cat empties the dust bin, yes, every single day!

And I once caught the same cat staring at the coconut tree, what a weirdo! ( on second thought, there is a belief that cats can scare away ghosts, so this stray kitty was probably scaring off a coconut tree ghost! Lol)

                                                                 Cat staring the coconut tree!

I also took a picture of a tiny little mud structure made by mud wasps, which now reminds me of the cartoon GBee and KBee watch regularly,  Ben and Holly, where Ben is an elf and Holly is a winged fairy. (There is a belief in our state that if  wasps built a mud structure in your house, it implies good things are on their way to you, in my case, birth of my GBee)

Mud structure made by hardworking wasps

That was when I decided that living in the heart of the city, one can still feel like they are living in a modern ranch with lots of animals for company and there it is, my own Animal Farm!

P.S:

  1. You can hardly control a child these days, let alone shooing away animals, who are less intelligent than a child.
  2. The concept of cats scaring off ghosts was also seen in the movie The Mummy, if anyone cares to recall it!
  3. On totally unrelated note, I love two songs from two sitcoms, “smelly cat” from F.R.I.E.N.D.S and “soft kitty, warm kitty” from  The Big Bang Theory.
  4. With industrialization, more and more monkeys come into cities and are creating nuisance on a regular basis. I recently saw a video of monkeys taking a respite in the over head tank of a house. They were having an unorganised pool party! I deleted the video by mistake and it’s not AI generated one, it’s an original.
  5. I always imagined there were fairies in our garden etc and Ben And Holly has similar concept of humans interaction with elves and fairies.

Disclaimer: Come on, Mr.George Orwell (Desi born British novelist), I am just using your highly popular book title, but that’s it. My post is not plagiarized in anyway. Thanks for letting me use the title! 😛

To Ooty, at last!

Day 2:

Originally we had planned on starting our drive from Bengaluru to Ooty at 6 in the morning but ended up starting little after 9:30 a.m. Inspite of that, there was little traffic. Thank Ram, Sita, Lakshman and their gang! (Just saw trailer of Adipurush and no wonder I keep remembering the said Gods!)

Mr.Bee rode us through the Nice Road, from Bengaluru to Mysore.  It was a good road and a drive on it felt like flying on the clouds! (I am scared of high speeds and Mr.Bee is a fan of speed racing.)

We made a brief stop near Mysore City Bus Nildana. I wanted to reminiscence the good old days of my life at Infosys, Mysore campus. My friends and I would come out of the campus every weekend to Devaraja Wodeyar Market and enjoy hours of retail therapy, called shopping by mere mortals! We would buy fresh fruits to last the week and I also remember buying a number of books by Agatha Cristie, along with clothes and accessories.

I showed one of our regular haunts to Mr.Bee, the Cauvery Emporium. He loved all the Rosewood furniture on display there. GBee refused to leave the Rose wood sofa set on display, whereas KBee was mighty impressed with the Rosewood inlay frames of Lord Ganesha on display!

Karthikeya(KBee) admiring the Ganesha Inlay!

The above pic is sourced from search engine, but KBee kept pulling at my kurti, to make me move towards this one frame of the elephant headed Lord Ganesha, all the while uttering the words, ‘It’s an elephant, it’s an elephant, mommy!’ (KBee couldn’t differentiate between my favourite God and an elephant. He is only 2 years old, so, Saat Khoon Maaf!)

I really really wanted to have my lunch at Das Prakash, since it was already late, we rushed to the Kamat  Madhuvan, Ittige Gudu, which was nearby. The Kamat Hotel at Lakdikapul, Hyderabad is a personal favourite, so we gave this Mysore Kamat restaurant a chance! (Next time Das Prakash!)

Although we had to wait a little while to get seated, I loved the food that was served there. We had the North Karnataka Thali. The menu had Jowar roti, methi leaves and cucumber salad, sprouts curry to name a few. It is a win win for health conscious people. We bought a paan at the end, to round up our meal. (I worried myself silly, that Mr.Bee may feel sleepy behind the wheel, what with such a hearty meal!)

The brief lunch halt turned out to be more than a two hour break, but never mind, who is rushing us? No one!

The Mysore to Ooty road is a pleasant drive.  We hardly met any traffic and the beauty was scenic. Just before entering the forest area, Mr.Bee and I bought Kala Jamun and Choco Bar ice creams respectively. (The kids were fast asleep in the car-bed and we enjoyed our ice creams!) We drove to Ooty via Bandipur Forest as well as Mudumalai Forest, saw deers, stags, elephants, monkeys in huge numbers. We also saw a couple of peacocks too. That’s when we woke up the kiddos, who were excited to watch the animals up close. In the middle of the forest, among-st the flora and fauna, I felt at peace! (in-spite of two hyper kids shouting at the top of their lungs!)

Since, all the deer are ignoring the camera, enjoy the scenery!

The Baby Elephant with its two legged friend.

The drive in the forest was the best. We took the longest possible route to Ooty, hoping to spot more and more animals and to entertain the kiddos. The ghat roads are a fun drive and after every 3 turns, there would be a tiny stall, selling boiled sweet corns, wild baby carrots, pickled Indian gooseberries (Amla in Hindi, usirikaya in Telugu) , jack fruits (panasa in Telugu) in varied sizes. The mountainous region looked over-populated, if the traffic is any indication!

By the time we reached our hotel in Ooty, La Montana it was already 8 p.m. and the temperature was 14 C. Since the dinner would be served only till 9, we rushed to our room for a breather and rushed to the in-house restaurant to have our buffet dinner.

La Montana – Heaven on Earth

The buffet was memorable because, there was a musician playing live music on his tiny piano. He was playing a recent hit song from the Tamil movie starring Dhanush and Samyukta Menon, Sir, to be exact. I even recorded it in a video, but it is not presentable, thanks to my kids running here and there, in front of my cell, trying to distract me!

Anyway, we reached the room, tried to watch a little t.v., but soon dozed off into a deep slumber, thanks to the cold climate, cozy bed and comforters.

Ooty, we will check you out tomorrow! That’s my last thought before sleeping away.

P.S:

  1. My precious little gems, my chocolate filled muffins, GBee and KBee talk mostly in English, even if I talk in Telugu to them. Looks like the pink Peppa Pig is a bigger influence than the stay-at-home-mom! They even have Peppa Pig night wear, those little tv addicts!
  2. La Montana – The heaven on Earth, because, the view is to die for! From the balcony, we could see the beautiful estates, the rose gardens, people going about their business, the nearby mountains, the huge trees and far away valleys, look at the Sun Rise, feel the mild breeze and what not! If you don’t have your cuppa tea here, in the balcony, every morning during your stay, I don’t know why you even planned your stay there!
  3. I forgot the shop, but in the Devaraja Market, Mysore, we get the best asafoetida or hing. My uncle showed the store to me, but I have forgotten it with the passing of more than a decade of time! (Any Mysore locals reading this post can direct message me. Any help is appreciated.)
  4. While we were passing the Mudumalai forest, I remembered Oscar winning documetary The Elephant Whisperers which was shot here and wondered if I would meet the now famous duo! We didn’t, obviously!
  5. I wonder who named the jack fruit, it feels like cursing the poor fruit!
  6. This is not a sposored post. I am just naming the eateries and places, which I really enjoyed.

Wait for the next post. Till then, adios!

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