








But right now I want to tell you about our New Year surprise; a tiny bunny who was left abandoned at the farm near Ninder Mahal. One of the stable boys picked him up and brought him over, just as we were packing the car to drive back to Delhi. How could we leave it alone in the cold? And our dog Scruffie is the area patrol at the farm. We had to bring him.
He is a Desert Hare.
Now, adopting a wild creature is a huge responsibility, and feeding him milk from a dropper was how we started out, enclosing him in our picnic basket with a hot water bottle under a towel. He somehow survived the first few days, and now, a week later, has grown from a "dinner roll size", to a small "croissant size". He doesn't weigh as much as a croissant yet!
Unni is showing his long hare-legs. He is so fluffy now, and likes to keep warm nestled inside our sweaters, and at the moment is in my lap under a shawl.
I worry that he has already bonded with humans; now, in our Delhi apartment, he lippity-lipps underfoot, as the basket is far too confining. He is safe enough closed in my room, but scampers right over and sits up on my foot as soon as I stop moving. If my foot is not there, he sits on the empty slipper!
What does mother bunny milk taste like? No idea, but I was pretty sure that cow's milk was wrong. (though he laps it up) I finally found a source of info on wild animal rescue online, and sure enough, the only thing to feed wild bunnies is goat's milk. Easier said than done, though there are goats a-plenty over the road in the Nizamuddin basti (village). Hard to figure out, but goats' milk is never included in any of the Indian cuisine, the main dish is kebabs and such!
It was suggested that I buy a goat to solve the supply problem. Well, I might have done that if we weren't living in an apartment! So I will keep trying to find goat milk somehow.
He is finally getting tiny needle teeth, and I am trying to get him to nibble on greens and oats. He has learned to lick yogourt from a dish.He is ever so furry and has beautiful camouflage markings.
Unni calls him,"Captain Moonbeam". He licks our hands and cuddles. He is Desert Hare, and needs to go back in to the wild at Ninder.
Hares wean after nine weeks, much later than domestic rabbits. I wish we had a wildlife centre to consult here.
What are we going to do??
The lock-up is hot, jam-packed, and swarming with flies. Might as well be in a barn.
Having been thru all-level security, we are trapped within, and here comes an announcement " passengers on Jet Air flight 605, may I have your kind attaantion, there is a deelay in departure of this flight.." an hour goes by. We are herded outside to identify our checked, twice xrayed bags, another tick on the boarding card. My boarding card is starting to look like a palimpsest, it has so many stamps and signatures. Later a security man approaches, "madam, you must have your hand bags checked and stamped" , and he leads me back to the ladies table, to an evidently superior officer. In deliberate Indian-English she asks me to take out everything from my bag. Ok… (regretting all the multitudindous little survival accoutrements I carry around, particularly needed as journeys can take much longer than expected). Now all the four lady-guards are watching, they are, after all, very curious. So are the row of women passengers seated right behind this fascinating examination table, most women would crane a bit to see the contents of another's purse, and here, they have a ringside view. One by one, starting with kleenex, hankie, water bottle, comb, pencil, the notebook is rifled, eyeglass case opened..then it gets interesting..she pries the back cover off my lipbalm and breaks it. A tube of sunscreen, I make a rubbing motion on the back of my hand. Advil, "high BP medication" I lie. And so on. The senior officer seizes on my camera, and is a bit disappointed; I have already removed the "cells" (batteries).
Then she finds a little plastic bag containing two tampons. Aha! They all move in closer to have a good look, take a pinch.."whoh kya hai?"
Searching her vocabulary, she utters " whaat izzit?" Now I have the chance to make my move, and I deliberately set out to embarrass them to end the curiosity show. Ok, it's a bit mean, but I do it anyway. "Oh my gawwwd!" I gesture, hands flying to my face," this is LADIES ITEM!, you know for PERIODS" they draw back slightly. " You know, LADIES item, for BLEEDING?"
"I am bleeding…we don't use big ones like you ladies do..fanning my hands below my waist..." "ok ok, put it away", I have managed, finally, to fluster the leader into stamping and signing my damn handbag tag. As I repack, I hear them chattering and giggling in hindi, .."itna chota, so small, how can it go!"
Back in my corner seat, fanning away flies that cluster on me as if I were a horse turd, I notice a scrum in one corner of the room. Our 2:45 flight is "estimated to arrive from Jammu at 4:00 , inconvenience is regretted". Jet Airways has sent over boxed sandwiches, and I join the heaving mob of parents who are flapping 5, or 7 boarding cards in the face of the hapless fresh-faced ground staff boy who is unpacking the boxes. He is also trying to pour out little plastic cups of coke, but the close jostling makes this difficult and slow. I perform my usual crabwise trick, skin in to the front by cutting around the sides of the mass, an essential survival trick in the absence of queues. I skip the drink. This lock-up has no water, no edibles, and the coffee machine kiosk closed an hour ago. I notice that the tables of five male and five female security officers are in a picnic mood, joking and lunging about to refill their plastic cups with bottles of hijacked Coke and Fanta. Good thing the lady officer let me keep my water bottle.
The toilets are vile, reeking of urine and made more eye-watering by heavy sloshings of phenoyl ammonia. The power shuts down several times, including once when I am locked in the pitch dark toilet. My mobile phone lights me out of there.
A massive thunder storm breaks, all over our double-xrayed luggage, marooned on trolleys out on the tarmac. " Due to bad weather, flight 605 has been delayed, incovenience is regretted"
Indian children, durable travelers, run about playing hide and seek, pestering each other instead of their parents. One rustic family are in possession of a boy of about 3, who continuously shrieks, a regular car alarm of howls, and I notice that the adults are baiting him and teasing him, then cuddling him, like a puppy. Nice little slaps upside the head, more piercing screams. A very tall bearded security officer approaches, picks the kid up off the floor, places him on a seat, and gestures finger to lips, the family says nothing, they smile indulgently. Boy children are sacred. The tormenting part I don't understand.
Flight tickets are very cheap in India now, and a large proportion of holidayers have never set foot on a plane before. This is hilarious, but aggrivating for the service staff. One hears of plane-loads of passengers all rushing from their seats in a mass to crowd into the "drivers cabin", to urge the pilot to stop circling and PARK! This leads to weight imbalance and emergency landings. An elderly hoary Sikh was seen (I have an eyewitness account) elbowing the pesky toilet doors apart, cursing, jetting his arc of pee towards the "latrine" from the corridor. One man was prevented from opening the door hatch, which he was attacking, because the plane was "stuffy".
Seatbelts are optional, and everyone surges up to open the overhead lockers at touchdown, aircraft still rolling on the runway. There is a gap between the essential firm training of first time air passengers, and the air hostess staff, who are young, wimpy, lacquered in make up, and dressed in sexy "modern" uniforms, short plaid skirts with cute matching headbands. I expect that after awhile the leering, groping and catcalls will harden them into learning to take the rowdy passengers in hand.
In the end our plane arrives, in driving rain, and middle aged gents are backslapping the young ground staff, crediting, "well done, my boy, you got the plane in", as they dash about with their walky talkies.
Before boarding we are herded into yet another search cabin on the tarmac (women must always be enclosed in a tiresome curtained cubicle, losing sight of one's belongings at the heaped xray belt is worrying) and we board our flight, three and a half hours late. I have had all my bags xrayed 3 times, had my breasts and hips caressed in a curtained cubicle 3 times, and the contents of my purse viewed by dozens of curious women.
But it was a lovely Kashmir holiday…
( in case you are wondering..no, I did not risk taking a single photo of the soldiers, bunkers, armed roadside guards posted at 8 yard intervals, army vehicles, sandbagged and razor-wired crossroads, or police, though all are very thick on the ground. I did not want my camera seized. You must imagine that part of the scene).
Tiny dresses in every colour of the rainbow, and jewelry, provide sets of new garments for every festival. The doll-sized thrones, in wood, or velvet, are also available.
Freindly.
A sign-painter's tiny shop in Jaipur.
The graphic in Hindi says "Pentr".The box on legs is his shop/storage, the board serves as doorstep, and the paint can is his client's seat. Samples of the lion and actors are set out daily. Jeetu's shop is squeezed beside the on-ramp of a 6 lane national highway.
Maybe something could be done to perk up the Queensway in Ottawa? Something tells me it would be regarded as graffiti, rather than as a respectable career.
Resourceful.