We see others in front of us. Can others see themselves as we see them in front of us? Yes, they can see themselves with a mirror held in front of them! When a baby sees first its own face in a mirror, it will be some another person or an object; but later, it understands, learns and identifies it as its own image!
In my childhood days, I had wondered about a nut that remained stuck on the eaves tiles. How had it gone there? Crow had swallowed it and ejected it in its droppings on to the tiles! Is it not digested? It is a hardy nut and hence it is not digested! What is the name of the fruit that contained this nut and was tasty to the crow?
I had then found an insect walking out of a cut mango in my boyhood days. The mango seed was having a hole on it; from that hole black and soft grains had come out and spilled on the mango slices and lay strewn all around too. When the insect was touched with a stick, it folded in its legs and pretended to be dead lying still! After sometime it put out its legs and moved away hurriedly! How and when this insect could have entered inside the mango and how could it survive inside the mango? These were the questions arising in me.. Likewise, I had also wondered how worms could have entered in our body and make their living inside us!
Fruits that are available seasonally are the most desired than those available year round. One of such most desired fruits is the Custard Apple (Sugar Apple, Annona squamosa, 'Seethapazham' in Tamil)!
Tiny creatures moving differently often attracted me in my childhood. Unlike the insects' movements, they creep on the ground and move slowly, and don't fly at all. One of them is Caterpillar (Larva, 'Puzhu' in Tamil). These caterpillars are different from worms; they are only the intermediary forms in the development of insects from eggs to the adult forms, the insects.
This following article points to the fact that one should not be excess and cross his limits in everything:
Body
cells really tolerate your excesses. Most of the time your body
corrects the altered chemistry due to that. And the body cells are
satisfied with this correction and oblige to work as before with this
satisfaction inside your body. But when these excesses become more and
more, some of the cells revolt against getting the compromised supply of
nutrition that results by such excesses.
When I was living in an apartment house, I watched two small birds frequenting the top floor of the next house. They were of large sparrow-size, moving their tails up and down. I had seen such birds sitting on the overhead tanks of buildings; they sing for a few seconds and fly away. But I found these two birds to remain on the house for days together!
Fragrance on the air makes you expect some flowers near you. But there is a leaf instead of a flower doing this fragrant job! In my childhood days I identified this leaf in a garland made for the Gods' worshiping. A few of these leaves were seen tied alternating with flowers.
Moon is the cool satellite for our Earth and its occupants. It influences the Earth's sea water, materials and also the minds of all the living creatures in it. It is needless to think further about the effect of the visible full moon. Now, this full moon is super in its size - Supermoon!
With my parents we went to Courtallam, the 'Spa of South India' quite often. We were on one such visit to this place of waterfalls in 1960s. At night, I was then shown a green dot of light that flashed on a bush by my elder sisters. In the dark I searched for it and found it.
While I drive my two wheeler at night time, I often see two bright spots move away across the roads. Now I know what it is; but in the ancient times people interpreted it to be a devil out of their ignorance. It is the Eyeshine found whenever animals such as cats and dogs run across the road.
A white round sweet-like substance that smells pleasant and strong to the nose shall attract definitely any child towards it. When it is lighted up, its flame also attracts the child to touch it - but its heat makes the child to retract its hand back! It is our Camphor ('Karpooram' or 'Soodum' in Tamil).
Recently there was news about an Indian-origin doctor implanting inside heart directly a miniature pacemaker, that is leadless - that too without surgery! Pacemaker is a device that stimulates heart when it fails to beat! Without heart's functioning, there is no life at all; so, this life providing device is much more important than anything else.
I had wondered in my childhood about the straight lines found on the muddy soil: it was raining the previous evening; who would have drawn them overnight! As I grew up, I understood who it is: the lines were drawn by worms, the Earthworms! (term and names: Lumbricus terrestris, Rain worm, Night-crawler, Angleworm, 'Munpulu' in Tamil). Though these brownish worms are found in rainy season, their presence in summer can also be inferred by the mud-disrupted lines on the irrigated farm grounds.
At evenings, whenever I walked on the outskirts of my hometown, I used to see small birds flying on the sky in darts here and there. I had wondered in my school days whether they are insects, bats or birds. These arrow like flying things are only birds known as Asian Palm Swifts (Cypsiurus balasiensis, 'Panaimara ulavaran' in Tamil).
In my school days, I have heard my elders tell stories about mongoose apart from that popular story, 'Riki-Tikki-Tavi.' One of such stories is here: the mongoose stole daily a hen from the hen house and left out the hen's body after eating its brain! It simply entered into the hen house burrowing down the earth next to the fence!
Whenever I get some itchy skin rashes, my mother attributed it to the bite of a bug. Wondering about what it could be, I searched for it near me; but could not find one. One day my mother pointed out to that bug: it was greyish on its back and whitish underneath; its body was segmented; it was about 6mm in length.
In my boyhood days we were cheered up by elders about elephants approaching us in the street whenever we heard its chiming bells. We rushed out to see these trained elephants with the mahout, the trainer, mounted on it. We also had heard about the stray incidents of such elephants turning aggressive suddenly, and thrashing down the mahout to death. We call these beasts as 'Madham pidditha Yanai' in Tamil; this violent nature of them though temporary is devastating to all those nearby.
In school days, I found often shells of snails stuck to the stems of bushy plants. I thought they are the shells of dead snails. Then, I tried hardly to remove one of them from the plant's stem till it give in. On inspection of its mouth I found a white paper-like structure closing it. I pierced it with a stick to strip it off. To my surprise there was the snail still alive, retracting itself further into the shell! This snail is the Vineyard Snail (Cernuella virgata or Hellicella virgata , 'Natthai' in Tamil).
Then, in the heart of our town we didn't hear any sounds overnight during our sleep. There were no disturbances except for an occasional terrorizing sound - the screeching of owls! We consider here the owl's sounds heard at midnight as portending the presence of ghosts, and a bad omen. But in the modern West and the ancient Greece it is considered as to be a wise bird! What we see here in our town itself is the Spotted Owlet (Athene brama, 'Aanthai' in Tamil). It is a small bird of prey having the size of a dove. It is totally nocturnal.
