Romancing with Nature

Kingini and Plato have no aesthetic sense. They are killers by instinct, I think. Sadistic too. They catch the prey and play with it until it is rendered lifeless. Once the prey is dead, Kingini and Plato will abandon it and go in search of another victim.

Kingini and Plato are my cats. Mother and son, both together have driven quite a few creatures here to extinction, I think. Lizards and chameleons are their usual victims. The cicadas have fallen silent in the bushes. Once in a while Kingini and Plato discover a small snake too to play with. Highly venomous ones!

What worries me these days is their newfound fondness for butterflies. They have become experts in catching butterflies. They just sit and watch a butterfly for a while and then one jump - the butterrfly will be in their mouth. By the time I rush to save the little creature, it is usually too late. Most of the time I don't see these hunts. I see only the dead remains of the tiny beauties.

Nature is full of such cruelty, I know. One question that has always risen in my mind and which I articulate frequently in my classes is: Did the same God create both the lion and the deer? As William Blake might put it: What immortal hand or eye framed the fearful symmetry of the tiger? Did that same hand mould the meek and mild lamb too?

Let me conclude this little Sunday musing with a few pics of Kingini and Plato in the farm I inherited from my father.

Plato on his hunt. You can see Kingini's tail on the left. Both Kingini and Plato are there in the pic below.

While clicking these snaps, I noticed the beauty of the palm tree which had burst into an efflorescence without my notice. The thick growth of weeds didn't go without my notice. The incessant rains kept me away from the farm for long. It's time to take out the hoe and the billhook.