Have you ever read stories in which animals talk? There are some stories that are supposed to be about real life in which animals talk - like the ones in the stuff we call either `holy' or `mythology' today. Like some people who swear by the stories, and live their lives by them, claim that these are Real Life Stories. In fact, I used to think that it was impossible that animals spoke to each other and to humans until I met some strange people recently. And now I dont quite know what to believe.
I was visiting the Sentosa Island Butterfly Park in Singapore, when a lean brown man in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts began to scoop out scorpions about 6 inches long from a tank with his bare hands. Of course, you don't get to see such stuff everyday, and I stopped to watch as he put them one by one onto his body. I asked,`Arent you scared?' He said he wasn't and that if the creatures smelt fear on him they would sting. He said the fear scared them.
Made sense to me. If I'm scared, I'm more likely to harm the scorpions than if I'm not. So I asked him, `How did you learn to do this?' He said he was taught by his father and he was teaching his three kids already though they were still not all in school. I asked how. He said he takes them into the forest on the hill and shows them spiders and scorpions and all by putting them on their hands.
I asked him if he did this for a living, and we started to talk. Somewhere in between he told me that he regularly talks to animals. Once a line of ants made an antline across the threshold of his house. He bent
down and told them to make an antline over the top of the door so no one stepped on them, and they did. Another time a wasp wanted to make a house in his house and he spoke to it to say that he's got small kids and if they poke their fingers in they'll be hurt, so why doesn't she make her house outside...and she left.
Then a little girl who is an orphan from a village, so now she lives with us said she understood animal language. She likes to talk about her village a lot now that she has to live in the city (it sounds like a pretty place with a forest on all sides and two streams flowing on either side). And one day she and I were walking, we heard some dogs barking. She said, `they are speaking differently from the ones in the village.' I said what do you mean? She said, `I dont understand what they are saying. I used to understand the ones in the village. They used to tell who is coming if they knew the person, or describe the stranger to each other and I used to hear them talk.' I dont know. She's about 11 years old and came to stay with us two years ago.
"Hmph," I thought. Now on the internet, in what is called "a chat room", some Americans were talking. One person described how he made friends with a fly. He said it took a long time. Once a fly came humming around him while he was having coffee in a cafe, it kept coming back and sitting beside him. He would try to think of it respectfully and humbly and try to "think-talk" to it. After a while going on like this, the fly came and sat on his hand and he could stroke it. Talking tall? Americans are known for it, right? But this guy is someone who's been around on the net for some time and I've known him to be pretty serious and responsible...so I'm not so sure he's talking tall at all!
Well, another guy in the chat room began to describe how mosquitos wouldn't sting him because he'd made friends with the "mosquito consciousness." I've been trying to talk too. No luck so far. The respectfulness and humbleness and getting rid of my fears doesnt come easy to me anyway...
If all of this makes sense to you, try it. It might just work for you!
Front cover
Page 1
Cheese Balls Recipe by Tania Das
A visit to RCFC by Mini Chaterjee
Titans of the deep by Aparupa Biswas
Memories of being small by Miki Deb
Animal Corner: "Talk" to the animals ?? by Johara Shahabuddin
Craft Idea by Bidisha Das
Our Earth = A Garden Green House by Gautam Basu
Thank you
Back cover
