Tuesday, February 21, 2012

What is it like having a gold beetle as pet!


"Marks Pet Ownership Guide Challenge" reminded me my childhood days in the village where I was born and brought up.

I recalled my old friend, a "gold beetle" whom I admired for his lustrous golden wings that were quite amazing to my child's mind full of curiosity and enthusiasm.
My one day pet - Gold Beetle

To the village school where I studied, few of my classmates used to bring some metallic bugs hidden in match boxes. They used to come all the way walking from far off hamlets where there were no schools, and they had to wade through the farm fields and rough terrain hedged with thorny bushes infested with some strange insects, of which creepers and fliers were often spotted as you walked along.
During the breaks when the teacher was gone after the teaching session, my friends used to flaunt those shiny, flying bugs whose necks were tied to some sewing thread not letting them fly away. I didn't know that they're calledGold Beetles in English language, because the medium of instruction in my school was my mother Tongue, Telugu.
Even I didn't know what they were called in Telugu, because I had never come across such beautiful creatures as I never ventured into the farm fields or the little bushy jungles to know what kind of bugs existed in the wild, away from my home.

They called them 'Bangannalu (బంగన్నలు)' (the singular is Banganna (బంగన్న) ) in dialectical Telugu, even now I don't know what they're called in standard Telugu literature. So Banganna () means gold beetle when translated into English --- Bangaram (బంగారం) means gold and anna (అన్న) means brother, so to say Banganna is agolden brother.
So, my classmates from the hamlets brought the gold beetles in match boxes which contained some fresh marigold leaves for them to munch while imprisoned in those tiny boxes.

They used to bring those wonderful bugs mostly during winter because winter is the time marigolds grow well and bloom to their full extent attracting many kinds of flying insects in the farm fields where the farmers plant them along side as hedges along the bordering edges of main crops.

I was fascinated by the colors of their glittering wings, and with great excitement I used to tell about them to my parents and siblings at home while we had our night meal.

I didn't know how it happened, but one evening a friend of my father came to us and gave me two match boxes telling that I must give one to my younger brother. To our surprise, there were two bright gold beetles one in each box having some marigold leaves that were so fresh and smelling great. Each of the beetles had a thread tied around their neck.
The next morning we carried the beetles to the school to show them to our friends. We played with them as they tried to fly away but we didn't let them off and held the string and pulled them back. But we never felt the pain they would have experienced while restrained with the strings around their necks.

When we returned home for lunch in the after-noon, they were found dead in the boxes, as we opened them to add some more marigold leaves for them to eat.
I still remember what my mother told on that day. She said, "It is sin to play with the insects tying strings around their necks. Those who play thus will be born as the same kind of insects while those insects would take birth as the humans and play in the same way as you did today".

The words were very strong and we understood their seriousness and the pain the beetles would have experienced while they were dragged with the strings and suffocated to death imprisoned in the confines of the match boxes.

My brother and me never ever had enjoyed playing with the gold beetles and our children do not know the pride of possessing those golden wings.

But I searched for the gold beetle played in my childhood...

To write this article narrating my experience of school days, I searched the internet to find some appropriate images of the gold beetles that resembled the ones we played that one day that became the last day of their innocent lives, but could not find anything as beautiful and lovely in their creation, maybe the images of such beetles were not yet uploaded to the internet by the enthusiastic photographers.

Maybe some day I hope to meet them when I go around in the farm fields of my village and I'm sure I would find some enthralling golden wings that rest on the blooming fragrant marigolds bordering the chili crops.

I have inserted some YouTube videos that found fascinating to watch.

References

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Saturday, February 11, 2012

How the cat killed a snake entering our house?

I never thought I could write about pets. I was thinking this "pets business" was not my forte. But I'm excited tell you some cat experiences of mine from my childhood.

This article is an outcome of the inspiration I got from reading Sheila Newton's article 'What is it Like to Own a Cat?' that was written for "Mark's February Factual Writing Challenge".



Cats were our friends, when I was at my village-home




A cat can be as ferocious as a tiger!

I didn't have an inkling of writing this page when I first saw "Mark's February Factual Writing Challenge" but my memory brought back the experiences I had in my childhood that I spent at my village, after reading Sheila Newton's 'What is it Like to Own a Cat?'.

Mark Gordon Brown once prompted me to write about my village; he wrote this comment,
"I would love to see pictures of your home village - perhaps one time you will do a Travel article!" , but I could not write one as I don't have pictures of my village. But this one is my village experience.
_____________________________________________________________

Owning a cat is a beautiful experience, though I never owned one for myself, but cats used to enter my house at the village, and as children we always enjoyed holding them and playing with them.

And my mother used to warn us to be very careful with cats, telling that they might pounce on us if we were not cool enough with them while playing. She used to say, "Any cat is like a wild tiger in the jungle, and when it gets angry it might behave as wildly as a hunting tiger.

In most of the villages in India, cats and dogs are a part of a farmer's family and, though they're not specially raised with great care, they help the farmer in many ways.

We never raised the cats as pets. But there used to be some cats around the houses in the village, though they were never kept as pets. Cats used to lay their kitties in some farmer's cattle shed and they they freely entered any house in search of food.

How the cat killed a snake entering our house?

                           Such a cat can kill a snake easily!

Sometimes, my mother used to feed the cat that used to visit our house and they used to have some peculiar way of talking.She was able to understand the cat's language and she would throw the leftovers when it entered the house with a hunger-cry.


After relishing its food, when the cat would go very close to my mom to express its gratitude, she used to keep herself away from it, saying, "Now go away, it's done. Go out now".

The cat would visit us in the morning and night especially at the supper time. It knows we would not drive it away without feeding something.

One night, after our meal was over, the cat was continuously meowing at my mother and she sensed something had happened. The cat would come to her, meowing all the way and return back to the window on the wall of front-yard.

She followed the cat as it hurriedly guided her to the window and showed a snake hanging from the window. The cat had already cut its throat and it was almost half-dead.

We were all surprised to know how a cat could sense the danger of a snake entering the house. I could never forget this incident in my life.

We were as casual as we used to be from the following day, but we never entertained the cat to be out pet even after such an unforgettable event of the previous night.


We never had the habit of raising a pet, and the same is true even now.

But, it's a fact that cats as pets are very loving and helpful to the humankind.



Image credits:
A cat can be as ferocious as a tiger! from Wikimedia under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Such a cat can kill a snake easily! By Clavecin (Own work) , via Wikimedia Commons


Can you write your experience for Wikinut?

Wikinut author Buzz has also written an article on pets from his own experience.

Click and see his page about "What It Is Like To Own An Arowana".

Can you write your experience for Wikinut?

Then just try and see once!
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

All my Wikinut published Pages


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