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.
Whenever I see hand lenses, I am reminded of my father using it to read fine prints - moving/focusing it towards and away. And also of my experiments with it in my boyhood days. Then I focused a lens on the house wall to get the inverted image of the windows! I tried also to make a camera with it, and a negative film of the inverted windows' image! With it I even viewed film strips on dark room wall using battery light as light source! I also used it outdoors on a piece of paper or a wisp of cotton to burn them - by sharp focusing of sun rays!
There is a double pump that receives fluid from various places and pumps it to be purified. And at the same time it receives also already purified fluid and pumps it to those various places. This pump is our wonderful Heart pumping the fluid, the blood!
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.
In my younger days, whenever I went to a temple, I noticed that there is a prickly tree in its courtyard. It bore oval-shaped fruits that resembled a Sapota fruit or an Elephant apple ('Vilaampalzham' in Tamil). On inquiring the elders about it, I was informed that it is the tree that bears the leaves which are used in the worship of the God, Shiva. And that it is not a sapota or elephant apple bearing tree. Then what is it?
In our school days, we used to track any rare aeroplane that we spot on our skies with its booming sound. We shouted at the sighting of it to alert all other fellow students to view it. Now, it is needless to say about the reactions of sighting of a 'planet' that moves like an UFO! As I alerted about its visit this month, both adults and children reported back about its visit with awe. What is this moving 'planet'?
Recently, I was stung twice by wasps unusually. I got the second stinging when I tested the wasps whether they differentiate between my body odours or between the colours of my dress. The result of the test, apart from having a stinging, is only that the wasps have become aggressive recently! This kind of wasp is the Paper Wasp (Ropalidia marginata, Vespa ferruginea, 'Sengulavi' in Tamil). These social wasps are much different from other wasps. I find them often build nests in the dark undisturbed storerooms, inside rain water pipes and also even inside the bedrooms!
