I and Blue Cross, cross each other yet again

Summer's almost going away and ocassional rains have made last year and this a lot cooler than the previous years where we had record highs for summer temperatures.

Last year around the same time I rescued a female Koel chick from attacking crows by taking it with my gardner and delivering it personally to Blue Cross. The parent crows in the farm beside my home were trying to look after three Koel chicks (wonder what happened to their own) and after a while one a male one succumbed to either starvation or injuries the two other females were luckier. One, as I wrote earlier got rescued. The other I kept in a box after rescuing it from pecking crows. But it was dead when Blue Cross came to fetch it. Another male chick I observed was being looked after well into adulthood by another set of crow parents. This year of two Koel chicks one female was caught by the security guy in the farm. He insisted he was going to look after it and I was suspicious about it. I later came to know that he had killed, cooked and ate it. How could anyone be so sick. I would have paid him to go buy meat instead. A couple of weeks ago they had left a dog to die there by just abandoning him. For days I misunderstood the cries of the dog thinking they must have left it tied up until one day I saw the helpless animal lying beside a tree. Blue Cross was kind enough to come and take it away.

The male Koel chick was lucky. I got someone to fetch it after I saw it lying on the ground being chased and pecked by crows. As a defense mechanism he tries to look ferocious by opening his mouth wide, pecking you (but it doesn't hurt) and making some noise which hardly resembles his sweet call that you are familiar with. Here is a pic of him in my hand.



I got a box made and put him there for the night. I tried to feed him but he would eat only very little. Blue Cross took him away yesterday.

Get teary-eyed

If I can be so attached to a small thing as the Chipmunk you can imagine how someone should feel about a big animal such as a lion. I have re-united the chipmunk to another chipmunk family. More on that later. But here is a video on YouTube that has gone so viral on the internet that it has generated over 3 million hits and counting. Sure to get you teary-eyed, take a look.

Broadband problems

It has almost taken a week to fully and properly restore broadband and it has affected my blogging and work a lot. Will have to compensate for the delays now. BSNL is so unpredictable. Your neighbor may have broadband working perfectly and yours could be down. I wonder how.

Post Idea Star Singer and Super Star Global (2007) report

After months, yesterday I get a call from Roopa the winner of SSG. A few days earlier she had sent me a message saying how sorry she was for not calling as she was giving her exams. As I was unable to talk to her I replied a text message informing her about the same. Earlier I have been trying to call her but in vain. I realized after calling her dad recently that she was giving her exams. Roopa confirmed that yesterday. I didn't know she had Mathematics and Sciences in her Musical exams. That was really interesting. She asked me about Praveen and she also shared a similar story. She has also exchanged her Mercedes Benz that she won on the competition for a Maruti Swift Dezire and in the process also had to pay 9 odd lakhs as income tax from the prize money.

Najim the winner of ISS was lucky to have his share of the tax paid (I guess that is 15 lakhs) by the Confident Group and get the flat as prize.

Meanwhile Roopa's debut film song is out. It is for the film Madambi. I did tell her that it didn't bring out the best in her and that Shwetha's solo song for the film sounded better. She agrees the song was done more for music director's Jayachandran's promise to have her sing in a movie of his.

Meanwhile the ISS 2007 contestants have had a memorable concert in Dubai. One of them Varun J Tilak has also been offered a movie role. Varun was my initial favorite for the winner of ISS but somewhere down the lane he seemed to lose interest in the competition and eventually had to go out.

A lovely new addition to the family

The chipmunk I rescued, sleeping on the palm of my hand.



As if to take off our minds on Praveen whose passing away we still haven't overcome God sends us another life. This time in the form of an abandoned Chipmunk baby (I have stopped called it Squirrel) in Chaithanya's school. Both Adithya and Chaithu located it and no one at the school seemed to be caring for the little baby almost abandoned and helpless by its mother. In fact it would have been difficult for the mother to contact it anyway amidst the chaos of the school. I am surprised it wasn't finished off by the crows, a cat or a stray dog.

As of now it stays with my sister as her children have welcomed it as a pet. Here is a picture of me feeding the little one with with milk using one of those ear-drop/eye-drop bottles.



It is actually a miracle to see it feed on the tiny drops I put on its mouth. It hasn't opened its eyes yet. When it does I'll post another pic.

As a coincidence another chipmunk has actually build a nest (a second one) in one of the bathrooms of the first floor of my house. But I think it has abandoned it after sensing some intervention from the family members. They are very sensitive. When I removed the first nest thinking it was empty I actually found two chipmunk babies inside. Minutes after returning the nest to its position I was surprised to see the mother come to the nest and carry away the babies one by one in her mouth to another undisclosed location.

Death comes calling again

The shocking news of Praveen's passing away came as a blow to all of us today. This time my good friend and someone who was more like a little brother to all of us, just 27 years of age passes away after suffering a bout of high fever for just four days. It is difficult to believe how such a sweet person, hale and healthy (weighed 85 kilos and was a regular at the gym) could just slip away just like that. Constantly thinking of him is only throwing me deeper into some morbid depression. Being the only son of his parents he has left a void that can never be filled. I pray God to give his parents the strength to go through this agonizing moment of trial. Iron Maiden's song "Only the Good die young" was so befitting of Praveen. May his soul rest in peace.