Animals and their whims

Animal lovers are often asked to state categorically if they are dog people or cat people.

I personally find this choice quite a difficult one to make. The answer to that question , is also supposed to reveal certain hidden character traits. Dog people crave for loyalty, cat people are proud etc. 

This sort of psycho-analysis , i will leave to the more intellectually equipped. Truth is , if you know them both well , you cant really pick one.

These are some of my my memorable experiences with animals.

1.Having had yet another unproductively long day at work (i am a "software type"), trying to figure out just why my code refused to run even though i had all but whipped it , I was lying on my bed pondering vaguely  about things as random as, trying to acquire a helicopter to avoid traffic like Top Gear's Richard Hammond , whether 25 can be considered a reasonable retirement age, and how car manufacturers, as a rule , always pick the most annoying music to be played when shifting to reverse gear and some other things hardly worthy of mention , even in my own personal blog.Basically i was staring at the ceiling  lost in thought .Suddenly i heard a set of hurried footsteps , making a click-click sound on the tiled floor. And moments later i could see out of the corner of my eye , a brownish-white bit of fur floating about. I was jolted out of my reverie and sat up on the bed to find a dirty white colored , fully grown dog , sitting with his front legs outstretched, patiently waiting for me to discover him. After the initial panic had subsided , i realized that my father would've left the gate to the house open on his way out , and this guy had walked in merrily to say hi and meant no harm. He made some attempts at friendly conversation , to which i politely responded with inquiries about what brought him to the neighborhood. This went on for a few minutes , till my father found us and urged our guest to leave. He made no fuss at all and left as quickly as he had come!

2. Anakin and Obiwan(cats) were named after the Star Wars characters when i thought they were both male. As it turned out , they weren't , but the names stuck long after Anakin had given birth.Cats are curious about the most mundane of things . Rolled up bits of paper would appear to them like little insects they have to hunt down , and if you drag a shoe lace in front of most cats, they would make it their life's ambition to chase it and get a claw stuck in it.These two are intensely curious about  TVs and computers. When in the mood , they can watch a tennis match , cricket match,or even the famed "News Hour Debate". Although only for five minutes or so. Perhaps they are just wondering what on earth could the humans of the house find entertaining, about bright lights flashing from a big rectangle. There was once when Obiwan decided she was going to read the pdf  i had open on my laptop . As expected she got bored and shuffled off after a while , in search of happier pursuits.

3. Great Danes don't have that suffix 'Great' to their names for no reason. The first time i met a fully grown one was an unforgettable experience. Mikey , i was assured was merely high spirited and still quite young and wouldn't hurt a fly mostly because he couldn't .I also came to learn that Scooby Doo , the famous cartoon character is a perfectly portrayed Great Dane and who can be scared of Scooby right?  So i bravely went up to meet Mikey. But my courage deserted me when i first saw him , My first instinct was to run and never look back. He was this humongous black dog , as big as a small cow and the sound of his loud barks made my bones rattle inside me and he had to be restrained from running up to me. After repeated reassurances that he was only being friendly, i meekly tried to pat his head.  And sure enough , he slobbered all over my hand in his hurry to lick it and almost knocked me to the floor when he tried to put his front legs on my shoulder as a gesture of welcome!(He was taller than me when he stood on his hind legs and i am all of 5 feet 6 inches). I couldn't get a picture of Mikey that day , but this is to give you an idea of his size.

And then there's Rajan the elephant who finds it groovy to go snorkeling in the beaches of Andaman, where he lives, Mittu a friend's parakeet who cannot  resist trying to pull the sock out of the hand of the person trying to wear it, Gundu the lazy cat who wouldn't take the effort to find an alternate route if he finds his way blocked by things like a chair or someone's foot.(He would simply wait till the objectionable item is moved out of his way).

There is really no limit to quirky animal stories and they just keep getting quirkier. Perhaps this is evolution too!