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*********************************************************************************************Empathy..
I was visiting one of my favourite facebook photography page yesterday and I saw a picture of bats (the animals). It reminded me of something that happened years ago.
I must have been around 10 years old or maybe younger than that when one day my parents found a baby bat lying on the ground at the back of our house. It seemed that the bat had hurt one of its wings. I remember feeling very sad for the bat, I really thought it was going to die. Yet, I slowly picked it up and made a cave-like shelter using our batte-ogeyo kallu (cloths washing structure that's usually found in India) and slowly put it inside. I kept some water for it (I didn't know whether bats drank water - Google tells me they do :-D). I even got a cockroach that was killed in the house and put it inside the "cave". Again, I didn't know whether bats ate cockroaches (Google tells me they do! Yay!), but I was happy that the next the cockroach was gone and there were only a couple of its wings found. For all I knew the cockroach might run for its life :-p. I used to visit it everyday and even slowly stroke its small furry head. Then after about 5 days or so, when I visited one morning, it was gone. The younger positive self that I was, was very happy that it had recovered and had flown of. The older negative me does wonder whether it was eaten by a bird or something :-p.
This is not one instance such a thing has happened with me. There was a time when I found a dead butterfly in the garden and I was so sad for its death that I made a grave for it by digging a hole in the garden and I think I even made an epitaph like thing for it. I used to visit its grave every day and "pay my respects". Yes, I was weird :-p. And then there was this huge caterpillar living on our jasmine plant who I used to love. I hate worms of all kinds and they give me the heebie-jeebies. But somehow this caterpillar was different - it was a beautiful green in color and had these 5-6 yellow-orange eye-like spots on its body and was so soft to touch. One day it vanished and I didn't see its pupa anywhere. But I was positive that it had turned into this beautiful colorful butterfly and was "happy" somewhere :).
I don't really know what I want to say in this post, just that I've always felt empathy with the oddest of creatures. To this day, if I see a spider/fly/even ant inside the home, I try to gather it and leave it outside. The only exceptions to this sympathy are mosquitos and cockroaches :-p. Those need something more than sympathy and empathy :-D.
I must have been around 10 years old or maybe younger than that when one day my parents found a baby bat lying on the ground at the back of our house. It seemed that the bat had hurt one of its wings. I remember feeling very sad for the bat, I really thought it was going to die. Yet, I slowly picked it up and made a cave-like shelter using our batte-ogeyo kallu (cloths washing structure that's usually found in India) and slowly put it inside. I kept some water for it (I didn't know whether bats drank water - Google tells me they do :-D). I even got a cockroach that was killed in the house and put it inside the "cave". Again, I didn't know whether bats ate cockroaches (Google tells me they do! Yay!), but I was happy that the next the cockroach was gone and there were only a couple of its wings found. For all I knew the cockroach might run for its life :-p. I used to visit it everyday and even slowly stroke its small furry head. Then after about 5 days or so, when I visited one morning, it was gone. The younger positive self that I was, was very happy that it had recovered and had flown of. The older negative me does wonder whether it was eaten by a bird or something :-p.
This is not one instance such a thing has happened with me. There was a time when I found a dead butterfly in the garden and I was so sad for its death that I made a grave for it by digging a hole in the garden and I think I even made an epitaph like thing for it. I used to visit its grave every day and "pay my respects". Yes, I was weird :-p. And then there was this huge caterpillar living on our jasmine plant who I used to love. I hate worms of all kinds and they give me the heebie-jeebies. But somehow this caterpillar was different - it was a beautiful green in color and had these 5-6 yellow-orange eye-like spots on its body and was so soft to touch. One day it vanished and I didn't see its pupa anywhere. But I was positive that it had turned into this beautiful colorful butterfly and was "happy" somewhere :).
I don't really know what I want to say in this post, just that I've always felt empathy with the oddest of creatures. To this day, if I see a spider/fly/even ant inside the home, I try to gather it and leave it outside. The only exceptions to this sympathy are mosquitos and cockroaches :-p. Those need something more than sympathy and empathy :-D.
