Abbreviated thoughts.

A lot has been said and probably a lot will be said about the social networking sites. Here are my two bits too.

1. A limit of 140 characters. Some one came and thought, hey people are very verbose. Why not cut down on these words and get to the essence of communication. And if they cant do it in 14o characters, they dont deserve to be heard. So now we have character limits on status. Ergo, status messages like, Morning peoooopleeee!! Aw hot coffee burns..! Just out of shower. Water is sure wet!

2. No limits on friend requests: I am guilty. Its kinda hard for me to refuse a friend request. Am planning to now though. Earlier, I thought it was kind of cool to have a gazillion friends on FB, Orkut (Does any one still go there) etc. Now, I have a friend list of about three million and I dont even know one percent of them. So the shears have to come. Now.

Kitten Kitten in a box!

A kitten in a box.

Mewling pathetically to one most certain to ignore it, there lay a kitten in a box. It was not a big box, it was not a natural box, it was a box of red iron. It had a fire hose curled around the central wheel like a rubber python. But in these strange environs, there it was, mewling away, trying to find some warmth in this cold cold world. Drenched in milk left on a saucer by some good hearted samaritan, foolish enough to believe a day old kitten could lap milk in a saucer.

Well, it couldn't. So there it was swimming in this saucer of milk. It had already been there a night. I ignored it thinking it's mother must have gone to hunt or something. By the next day, it's mewling had risen to such levels that it was hard to ignore. Looking in, I saw this pathetic creature, half drowned in this huge saucer that seemed to contain some rancid milk.

The moment I put out my finger in trying to scratch it, it mewled piteously and struggled towards my finger. Probably the only warm living thing to touch it since it was born. So, how could I resist? Unlocked the door, took it in my palm and carried it home. Straight to the bathroom. With warm water and some anti-septic, I cleaned it up. Took an old sock of my brother and dried it up. It stopped shivering then. Out came a carton full of old rags and paper and voila there it was, a kitten in a box. A proper box. A box to keep it warm and cosy.

How to feed it though? For all the wisdom of my years on this earth, I never had to feed a very young kitten yet. What to feed, how to feed, these questions raced in my fertile mind. Going over every nature-documentary, I had ever watched on National Geography and Discovery, my memory banks rolled. I harked back to those insomniac nights spent trying to find succor in the raising of leopards by tough looking women in shorts. Finally an idea came back. Syringe and milk. An advantage of living in a doctor's house is that these kind of kitten raising paraphernalia are easy at hand. Off I rushed to raid my dads dispensary and came back with a small syringe and a glass of warm milk and water to thin it down a little.

Little by little I syringed some milk down it's throat, till it started sneezing milk out. Pretty soon it was coughing and I could see drops of milk exploding off it's nostrils. Mortally afraid of aspirating the poor kitten, I cursed the tough young ladies with leopards. Then I did what I should have done earlier. Called a vet. Pat came a suggestion. A cotton wick dipped in milk.

All this while, my dear sweet mother tried nursing this kitten. She would take it in her lap and coo to it as if it was human and try feeding it with a small plastic spoon. Play scolding it for not drinking enough to grow up to be a large lion. (What's it with moms and them trying to make all small kids big and strong? While they try their best to remain slim and trim? Never could figure this out)

Pretty soon the cotton wick was applied and we could get some nourishment in the poor soul. But, alarmingly the volume of it's mews had come down and it no longer showed much enthusiasm towards the finger. By late afternoon, we were down to force feeding the poor thing. Grasping it's scrawny head between my fingers and pouring the milk down it's throat using cotton, syringe and spoons. Whatever worked. Then rubbing it's belly to make it pee (thanks Wikipedia!!).

Night fell and the hour of all decent men's sleep came about. Having received strict instructions to keep feeding it every couple of hours, I took the box and kept it beside my bed. Looking around for an incubator, could not find one. So, lay it on my belly while I lay reading a book. Pretty soon, I find this small chit asleep peacefully on the rising and falling mountain of human flesh. Tried lifting it out and it awoke instantly mewling furiously. So, I took it in my palm (it was so heartbreakingly tiny) and let it sleep in warmth.

Next day was work day. So off to the office with strict instructions to Ma regards to taking care of the kitty. Worked hard and worked long and returned quick. Saw a worried look on mom's face and thought the worst. She said, its not making any noise at all. Hurried to the box and poked its belly, still warm I thought and there it was struggling to mewl and crawl back into the palm.

Another night of feeding and warming, it was day soon. By now I had gotten used to the musty smell of this lil kid. The small weight in my palm, ensconced comfortably and sleeping. So, trusting the care to my Ma again, I left for work.

A hard day full of meetings and fire fighting at work. I came back home and Mom was distressingly hopping from one foot to another. Naturally, asked her whats up? Looking guilty and sad at the same time, she said, I have let it go. With a sinking feeling, I said let it go?

Apparently all her friends and family told her that the kitten will die if not re-united with her mother. Feeding it every half an hour is not possible and esp. with just milk. So, when one of the cleaners of the building told her that they saw a cat near the terrace, she got the neighbor's son to drop the box off there. I went up and had a look. It was not there anymore.

So, without a fare well.. with out a good bye..
My kitten, gone in the blink of an eye.
May it be alive and happy as a cat can be.
On cold and rainy nights, remember me.

Adios little one. May you live long and feed well.

Langkawi Langkawi!!

I went, I saw and I floated.

It was a beautiful place. Pretty sunrises and beautiful sunsets. A place just like Goa, but without the crowds or the drugs. And murders too. Langkawi Island or Pulao as they like to call them, is about an hour's flight away from Kuala Lumpur and man is it beautiful.

It is a small little cluster of islands, with no buildings higher than three stories in the main island. I went there for training and was there for a week. My week started on a Sunday and I was free for the whole day. With no training or most importantly Jet lag after just five hours flying time, I immediately started exploring the hotel. The hotel was a resort on a beach front. White sandy beaches and blue waters full of miniature hermit crabs floating in them. Just sat down and took it all in. Collected all the small crabs and built a small cancerian army to command and conquer. With only about 15 neural ganglion between them, was kinda hard to get them to come out of their shells and parade in any semblance of a war like formation, but it was not due to lack of initiative or invective. (somehow Hindi abuses don't seem to work as well on Malay crabs, but what the bloody hell, right?)

Rushed back to the hotel room and got in my swimming costume, this really weird floral red shorts I had picked up in a nearby market for about 10rm or around 150 Indian. With me and just my non swimming colleague in the whole beach, it was kinda fun lording over all the Malay life forms littering around under our feet.

The water. It's something else swimming in the calm bay of langkawi's andaman sea. With barely any tide or waves, its almost as still as a saline swimming pool. Waded in deep and started swimming away. Had been a long time since I swam and pretty soon was out of breath. After 15 minutes of splashing in the sea water, I gave up playing shark and pretty much was back to the more natural Vibhu position; prone on my back. It's amazing how something so light can support a 90k frame so easily. Watching the sun set between the V of your feet lying back on the sea's surface is something I am not going to forget anytime soon. By now my friend was bored watching me frolick like a sea nymph and wanted to get about exploring the market places.

So off to the showers and a quick change, we caught a cab back to the main town. The town market has a lot of small shack like shops selling Langkawi T-shirts and other apparel also exorbitantly priced souveniers. Like true blue Indians, immediately we started bargaining, half this price, reduce it further and all that jazz. There is something really different in conduction complex negotiations in english, it's just not a language conducive to big reductions. But, we managed. By the end of our extended shopping spread over a week, we managed to make two pretty malay girls bow down and exclaim " You are indeed Lucky. This we sell for thirty ringie and you have gotten it for twenty" This was after a long protracted negotiation involving lots of vigorous head shakes for no and displaying of the wallet contents to convince them about the poverty of Indians traveling abroad on business. We even went to the extent of telling them, if you reduce the price, we will take photos of the shop and ask all our friends in India to buy from them when they come to their beautiful paradise island.

What else was there except for beaches and pretty Malay shop women? Well, there was this water world theme park with some amazing marine and terrestrial life forms. Again when we went there, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. So, we snapped photos of all the seals frolicking and the penguins giving the cold shoulder to each other. All the fresh water sharks and piranha cousins. Jelly fishes, sea anemones and puffer fish. It was real interesting if a trifle expensive. Then again there was the langkawi cable car, the one main attraction of the island. It goes right to the top of the one huge mountain around 710m high. The platforms there command an amazing view of the islands, with sea on one side and all the beaches on the other. The whole mountain is pretty much preserved with lush green forests. A suspension bridge connecting one platform to the other is also a pretty good sight. At the bottom of the cable car towers is a small petting zoo. Where wild hare and fowl run amok in a small enclosure. Every time you go near the fence, they would gambol up to you; expectantly looking at finding some small tit bit or other. We just scratched behind their ears and disappointed the little buggers with our empty palms.

Pretty soon, my week was up. With a heavy heart and a considerably lighter wallet, I returned back to my city of love, Mumbai. A short flight and here I was. All the smoke and all the smells, the rickety taxis and the long queues to get in them. It's all worthwhile though to hear that voice again.