Animal Love

The last month or so, for me, has been ‘Animal Love’ time. By that, I mean I have been moved by a lot of animal stories on television and books. I have always been a lover of dogs (of course with two pet dogs that is no big secret!), but lately, after watching a lot of stories on different animals like leopards, monkeys, koala bears, grizzly bears, etc., I have been really moved by these creatures that are so like us but not quite the same in many ways.

I was especially moved by the story of Chimps (Chimpanzees) titled ‘Chimps: a whisper away from us’, on Animal Planet. This was a story of a lady called Sally Boysen (the lady in the picture with the chimp) who has dedicated her life to researching chimps, similar to Jane Goodall, a renowned primatologist who was in Chennai recently for the screening of wildlife pictures at a famous multiplex. Sally Boysen, an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Comparative Cognition Project at the Ohio State University, in this program I mentioned, walked viewers through her efforts at making chimps read and write using English letters and words. The one-hour program, to say the least, was very absorbing and absolutely mind-blowing. It was so good that I also watched a re-run of the story the next day.

I learnt from this program that the DNA of chimps are just 1% different from that of human beings. Isn’t that mind-boggling????!!!! It made me feel really humble. The chimps were being taught to read alphabets by pointing to them on a computer screen, then slowly they were taught to identify words and relate them to objects (like a key, cat, etc.). The chimps were so good at it. They really were learning it like children do. They even learnt to use words to say what they wanted. Like, if they wanted a banana or chocolate kept in a locked box, they first chose the word key from the computer screen and when given the key, they took it and gave it to the person waiting next to the box. This is when they were in a cage; when they were out, they actually managed to find the right key and open the lock to the box!! Then, if there was more than one thing in the box, the person doing this teaching session prods the chimps to select one of the items from the screen. When the chimp chooses one of the items, it is given to him/her. Amazing, isn’t it?? Sally Boysen, in this story let the cameras into her daily routine. She was raising two chimps, Emma and Harper like her own children at home. And they were behaving no less than real kids. Climbing onto things, pulling things down, running around and playing in water. It was really a pleasure to watch this on screen. I could go on and on about the whole show, but I am sure I cannot relate the story well enough to make all of you see the magic I saw on screen.


The other animal story I read this past week happened to be the biography of one John Grogan who had a pet Labrador named Marley. The biography is named ‘Marley and Me’ and it was an account of the life of Marley with its owners. It was such a sweet story. For one, the book made me smile all the way because Marley was exactly the same as Pumpkin, my pet Labrador. Another reason was that the story reiterated what I have known for a long time now, by virtue of having two wonderful pets at home. The fact that these creatures are very intelligent and shower us with unconditional love is something that is not easily ignored and something that can move one to tears.

So goes my ‘Animal Love’ month!!!

I was so obsessed with these stories that I have almost started to explore the possibility of becoming a primatologist or an animal psychologist like Sally Boysen. I am not sure if that is just the emotions of the past month pushing me over or a real calling. Whatever it is, as long it lasts, it is more animal stories for me!

P.S. Picture courtesy :- http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/boysendisc.htm; http://marleyandme.com/book.html

Information Technology rocks!!!

One more post that has been long pending. Looks like I have become one lazy person:)

I have to admit before I start pouring in the praises, that I am not a computer geek or for that matter a big technology aficionado. However, I am one of those people who leverage technology to help make my life easier and less stressful. I also believe that technology would be a strong force in the overall progress of mankind. But, I never ever believed that technology could rock my life the way it did couple of months ago.

Let me quickly narrate the story which triggered me to understand how much technology is doing and could do to our lives.

In college, I had three close friends with whom I hung out all the time. We were the most envied in college for the amount of fun we had inside and outside of college. And then suddenly, our three years in college came to and end and we went our ways to experience life, promising to keep in touch. And like many of us, we all got caught up with work and higher studies and the likes. However, two of us(my best friend Jaya and myself) kept in touch while we lost touch with the other two - Prasee and Raji. Jaya and I have been there for each other through thick and thin, through career and marriage, but have often wondered about Prasee and Raji. We have missed them in more than one occassion and have always been eager to know where and how they were.

In late November or early December of last year, both Jaya and I decided to check out 'Orkut', the website from Google that fosters socializing. We were not particularly interested, but logged in after a common friend of ours suggested it and we found no harm in trying something new. Infact, I just logged into orkut and added Jaya and Gopi (our common friend) and then forgot about it. I guess it was about 15 or 20 days after this that I got a scrap book entry from someone whose name I did not recognize, but who had mentioned the name and other details of my college accurately. I immediately wrote an entry in this person's scrap book confirming my identity and asking her who she was. I also wrote to Jaya to tell her about this and she called back to say that she had also got the same entry in her scrap book and very soon we were on the phone trying to figure out who this person was. We raked our brains for an hour over phone reminscing our days in college and wondering who this person was. Then came another scrapbook entry after a couple of days giving us some clues and asking us to guess. Sadly, Jaya and I were clueless and took it to be someone playing a prank with us. So we decided to let it cool. So, when I got a mail the next day announcing a new scrap book entry from this 'mystery woman', I took my time (about a couple of days) to read it. And when I read it, lo behold!!!!! I was overcome with tears and my whole body was shivering from the excitement of finding out that this 'mystery woman' was none other than my close friend "Prasee"! I was more than excited, I was shouting with joy. Prasee had given me her contact numbers and I decided to call her immediately. I called and then we had a emotional reunion and I just could not believe what was happening to me. Now that was not the end of the story because what I found out next did not sound just coincidental but sounded more like miracle (ok ok, I am being too dramatic, but hey c'mon you can't blame my emotions in such joyous circumstances)! I found out that Prasee lives in Mumbai and I was scheduled to fly to Mumbai on work in a week's time and was looking for a friend's house where I could stay because I was not very happy about staying in a hotel. Now, you sure can't call that coincidental, can you?

I was still a little disoriented with excitement and was behaving a little crazy because I called Jaya in the US to tell her about what happened and I was shouting so badly while I was on speaker and two dishwasher repairmen were listening in. They must have thought I was one crazy woman and given Jaya odd looks because she was very quiet(and probably embarassed) and just said she will call back in a while. Call she did, and I gave her Prasee's number and she inturn did another emotional reunion with our long lost friend(oh yeah, I am right; we had seen her last in 2001)!

Yes, yes, I am coming to that! I did meet up with Prasee in Mumbai and stayed in her house and met her family(her hubby and kid) and had a nice time catching up. I also wondered a lot about how technology had done something unimaginable, may be 8-10 years ago. I discussed it with so many of friends and my husband and was quite overjoyed to know that this was quite a pleasant happening and that it does not happen to many people. Personally for me, it was an overwhelming moment of joy and awakening. Joy ofcourse, of finding my friend and awakening to the fact that technology could be really one great tool in our hands for so many wonderful and unimaginable discoveries.

P.S. All three of us are trying our luck now to find the whereabouts of our other friend Raji through Orkut:)

Picture courtesy: http://mohammad.akkasee.com/archives/2004_12.php