(Continued from last fortnight)

There have been – and continue to be – many other interactions with nature. To give some examples, I have had a Rat Snake slither over my foot and nearly trodden on a Krait – one of India's most venomous snakes – while walking to Gratitude in the dark; had a semi-wild cat urinate on me through the mosquito mesh of my open windows as I slept below; had a rat run over me one night while sleeping in a friend's house; and several times had huge bandicoot rats dig up my potted plants, or shrews nest in my storeroom; been bitten by a venomous centipede as I slept (nowhere near as bad as a scorpion); had countless problems with ants, ranging from stings of well named 'scorpion ants' and multiple bites from columns of small ants that occasionally got into my bed, on my towel(!) or into the open jampot, to invasions of a 'night-marching' variety that come during the night in battalions to occupy some dark place in the house, usually the clothes cupboard; rarely had less than a dozen-or-so gecko lizards in my rooms, constantly challenging, chasing and mating with each other, and then laying their eggs in hidden places; have more than once been driven half mad with itching, and on investigation found a tick digging into me for a meal; encountered freshwater crabs walking cross country during the monsoon rains, and once briefly played host to a freshwater turtle; had difficulty several times getting into my residence at the end of the day, because a predatory wasp had stuffed the lock with rolls of cut leaf full of caterpillars; had a nest of five mice in my motorcycle seat, which poured out one after another at a mechanic's place in Pondy when I called in for servicing (one of them got so panicked as it fled across the hot street in blinding sunlight that it decided to bolt for the first dark hole it spotted. Unfortunately it was the 'rear end' of a reclining bullock!).

To a typical foreign visitor, unaccustomed to the profusion of wildlife we experience in Auroville, life here may seem a bit bizarre, and perhaps it no doubt is. There are even times when I think you must be a bit of a masochist to live here. But when I reflect how I have delighted at the discovery of all-gold chrysalises hanging in trees or seeing so many beautiful butterflies, and have marvelled at the splendour of peacocks in my garden, or birds like the Paradise.

Flycatcher flying past my window. have lain in bed at night enjoying the calls of crickets, frogs, owls and jackals; and have seen flocks of flamingos in flight over nearby Kaliveli Lake or watched spellbound as skein after skein of what appeared to be wild duck flying overhead in the pre-dawn semi-darkness, I cannot also help thinking how lucky I am to have such an abundance of nature all around me.

To end this series and justify the title of the book, let me relate one final exerience at Gratitute, involving a feisty young orphaned owl Dietra was rearing to release named 'Cardigan' (so called because he reminded us of Lord Cardigan of the Light Brigade fame, charging unhesitatingly at any food he saw offered).

We were having lunch, when 'Cardigan', who was standing on the table with us, spotted something of interest on the far side of the table and set out to investigate. He strode forward, reached the edge of my plate, and stepped up onto the rim.

For a moment he hesitated, then proceeded to walk straight through the lettuce and sliced tomato, circumnavigated two boiled potatoes, placed one foot in the mayonnaise, another on the far rim, and stepped down to continue towards his destination. Dietra seemed completely unperturbed; I was dumbstruck!

That was many years ago. Nowadays, like 'Cardigan', I tend to take such things in my stride, realising as I do that it's a rich and wonderful natural world that we are surrounded by here in Auroville, and there's much more to be enjoyed than to be feared or get upset about in our constant interaction with it.

(Concluded)