Meeting Gimbo...

It was a bright summer day. I was 16 years old. We had gone to the new vacation house my father had bought a couple of years ago. People in this part of the country grew all kinds of berries and tomatoes. It was a day designed for picking berries and eating as much as we like. I was playing with the other boys and girls of my age, primarily children of my father’s friends. We were skipping and running around and falling on the green grass and climbing on to the branches of the trees, hiding, sometimes relaxing to a game of cards or boards, etc.

At one point during the day, we were playing hide & seek and I thought of hiding behind a large banyan tree. I ran towards the tree, holding my breath and was looking where my friend ‘seeker’ was. The very next moment I saw a giant serpent looking into my eyes. It was large, rubbery, shiny and throwing out his feet sized tongue. I wanted to shout and cry for help but was not willing to become a seeker the very next moment. So I kept my mouth shut and instead said a ‘hello’ to the serpent. The serpent replied. He said a ‘hello’ back. I hit myself at the back of my head and re-arranged my skirt. It was true and was happening. The serpent was talking.

‘Where do you live?’

‘I live in this large hole inside the tree with my family and friends’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came out to chart out a plan for my hunting trip in the night. Who are you?’

‘My name is Lily. Lily Simpson. I’m here with my family on a picnic. We are playing hide & seek and I don’t want to be caught’

‘How about you come home then?’

‘You mean, your home inside the tree?’

‘Yes and I will introduce you to everyone. They will be pleased to know you’

‘But I’m too big to enter your house’

and the next second, I felt a prick on my right arm. I was so tiny and we were going through the hole. There were hundreds of stairs inside that tiny hole of the tree. As we were walking down the stairs,

‘Can everyone in your family speak?’

‘Yes, all of them can. I will introduce them to you in a short while’

‘Why didn’t you eat me up? Don’t you all eat humans?’

‘We never eat humans. Humans come to hunt us for the skin or to have us as pets. We hate those ones. But we can differentiate the good ones from the bad. Most of the humans run away or faint after seeing us. You did not. You must be a brave one’

‘Yes, I’m brave. I want to protect sea animals when I grow up but now I want to protect land animals like you too’

We were there in front of 20 other serpents who were doing different things. Most of them were sleeping, some of them were taking care of the little ones who looked cute in their own ways, some of them were cleaning the place with their large tongues and some were making things from the tree leaves, flowers and twigs. I hit my cheeks this time to check if I was day-dreaming or something but no, this was happening for real.

‘O I forgot to ask Mr.Serpent, what’s your name?’

‘My name is Gimbo Amazon. My great grandparents belonged to the Amazon forests and that’s why the surname. When we migrated here 500 years ago, a lot of us died because we couldn’t adapt to this climate. But some of us managed to live and now we are fine’

‘I understand Mr.Amazon and it’s a great privilege to meet you and your family’

I realized everyone asleep had gotten up now and was staring at me. I feared for a moment but holding hands with Mr.Amazon made it easier. It wasn’t too long when they were all sitting together and I was offered flower tea, cherries, pineapples with honey syrup. I hadn’t tasted anything like that before. I sang some poems and shared some stories from my memory. I also told them about the snake stories children are taught at the schools which took them by surprise. I played with the little serpents till I realized Mum and Daddy would be waiting for me. I badly missed my camera because I wanted to take a picture with the Amazon family. I promised that I will take care of their species when I grow up and will come to visit them again.

We hugged each other and I started walking up the stairs again, this time though Mr.Amazon was holding me and I loved the touch of his shiny skin. As we were coming out of the hole, I felt a twitch on my skin again and I was back under the large tree. I could hear my friends and Mum shouting my name. Before they found me with Mr.Amazon, I quickly removed the wrist watch Daddy had bought me on my birthday and threw it towards Gimbo. I started to run but once when I turned, I found Gimbo waving at me and crying.

I knew no one was going to believe my story when I united my family. They looked so relieved after seeing me and I gave no explanations whatsoever. Till date, meeting Gimbo has been the most memorable experience of my life. I have never gone back again but I would do someday.

Dear Betty…

Betty is tiny, pale white and shivering to hell as we get home. She is 4 years old and has lived quite a life – separated from her mother and sold to an American couple when she was hardly 2 months old. They left her in a public park a few months ago from where she has been picked up by the ‘Animals without names’ organization. The only good thing her old masters did was to tie her old pictures in her legs. The pictures clearly reveal that once upon a time she used to be a happy person, very comfortable in her surroundings. Now she is here and I haven’t seen her barking even once in the last 7 days.

My main house is small but I have a large backyard. I hope Betty likes spending time in the backyard as much as I do. For now, I have made a cute house for Betty and placed one of my sofa cushions there.  The fostering house has told me that I need not train her for bathroom habits or walking & running habits as she knows them very well. It’s lunch time here and we are planning to have some rice with a lot of vegetables. I plan to take Betty out tomorrow to the nearby supermarket and will buy her her own food. She shivered again right now but I cuddled her and I felt that she took less time to recover than before.

It’s 4pm and I’m planning to show Betty a few clothes that I have designed for her from my wardrobe. She looks at me with anticipation. We have tried all 4 pairs of clothes I made for her. Blue and Pink would suit her I feel. I hope as she regains her original colour in a few weeks from now, they would suit her even more.

We are going out to the garden now. Betty has her name in the collar with my house address. I talk to Betty about all the flowers that I have planted and the lawn moving job that I do once every 2 weeks. I hope we can give each other good company when we do these jobs because some of them are pretty boring and having a friend around will make them seem less so. We have wandered around for a while and are resting to observe the sun going down. I’m having my favorite cup of tea while Betty is enjoying her biscuits.

We come inside and I put on some music. Betty is slowly starting to move around and she is staring at the loudspeakers. Maybe she has a good or a sad memory about them or could be something related to a dream. I start to make dinner for the both of us. While things are in the making, I show her some of my old pictures. She sits very close to me and is observing me flip the pages. This time when I lift the sheet, I give it a pause and ask Betty to do it if she wants to. She flips it on her own and I hug her dearly.