Cats, Beach Adventures and Stuff.

The worst thing about having a dog (other than shutting it up because of the cats on the street) would be taking it to the vet. As most of you may already know, I have a dog, and unfortunately, I decided to take it to the vet just before typing this post. The veterinary clinic is way worse than the hospital, and the patients keep barking UN-understandable orders. And that can really make you forget how to apologise for not posting on your blog for 3 months.

Anyway, that wasn't much of an apology, but moving on:
1) Leg is better.
2) Exams are done.
3) I am now in the 8th grade.

Exams can be very frustrating. You work so hard, write so much, and next thing you know, people expect you to work harder. I think the only exams that we should be having are the 10th grade exams, and maybe entrance-exams. With exams done, you think I should be enjoying. Yeah, with one month of 8th grade before summer vacation and teachers springing surprise tests on students, consider enjoyment dead. Why do people expect us to work so hard, only to get washed over by nervousness for a week, and then start working harder? Some thing that doesn't make sense.

Another thing I want to write about: cats. I have mentioned that our dog barks it's head off when it sees the cats on the street. Things that I have not mentioned: they are kittens, and their history. One day we saw 3 new-born in kittens in my friend/neighbour's house. Then, their illogical house keeper tried to pick them up the wrong way. You can guess what happened next. House keeper got scratched, kittens were picked up the right way, and kicked (not literally) onto the street. Obviously, they were spotted a day later, under some tree in front of our house, and tamed properly. But not THE END.

They started following my neighbour into his house! NOT GOOD. So my neighbour decided to give them off to the people living opposite to his house. The cats didn't live in the house, but on the street in front

of their house. A few days later, the manager of our colony "took care" of the kittens when no one was watching. Rumours spread. The kittens had been given to the blue cross, they had been put in the park, they had been put in a famous park a few kilometres from our house. I don't know where they went, but I know that they found their way back. The angry manager asked us to do something, and our neighbours moved them into a small garden in our colony (yes, it's a big colony). But the little, excited kittens wandered onto the road. And very very very sadly, I can now agree with the saying "Curiosity kills a cat."


In our holidays after the exams, we went to Mumbai. Our uncle was having a function as he had bought a new flat. We reached a few days before the function and stayed in our uncle's old house. Actually, it was really boring, because our cousin sister had tuitions from six in the morning, till two in the afternoon. She kept on saying that she sat right beside the A/C and had tasty snacks. You think that I would want to go to the tuition too, even though I don't really eat much. But no. Nobody would want to go to the tuition after they saw the amount of homework that was given.

Juhu Beach, Mumbai.

My cousin sister had so much homework that she couldn't come to the beach with us the other day. We went to the beach in an auto. I wanted to swim, but in a hurry, I had forgotten my swimming shorts. It didn't make a difference to me. I swam for half an hour, I think. After that I just waited for my clothes to dry, and had some snacks. There were also many people trying to earn quick money, using trained monkeys for their performances. There was even an artistic woman who was making a huge sand sculpture on the beach. The sculpture was of the Indian monkey God, Hanuman (who was sculpted flat on the sand and was facing the sky). I did not take my camera to the beach, and sadly, couldn't get any pictures. It had gotten pretty late by that time and we had to go home (or our cousin's home), but then, after all we did, it took more time to reach home. We were going to come back in an auto. We told him that we had to go to Santacruz. Unfortunately, we forgot to mention if it was Santacruz East, or Santacruz West. He was just about to take us to the wrong Santacruz, when we got of and took the Sky Walk to someplace close to the house. And I was having a really bad time, because it was getting dark and cold, and my shorts wasn't completely dry. We got off the Sky Walk, and went to the bus station. We took a bus, which my aunt thought would take us home. Just as the bus moved, and we were about to buy the ticket, we realised it was not going to our place. So along with some other people (who were used to this kind of stuff, I think), we got of the bus when it stopped in traffic. I got off at the last second, and actually had to jump of a moving bus.
Shockingly, as we weaved through moving traffic, towards the footpath, we found an auto to drop us home . The driver thought there were only three passengers (my aunt, my mother and my sister) and started moving along with the traffic when the 3 of them were inside and I was still on the road. Just then, I had to do some quick thinking: be lost in some big, noisy city or go home to have a bath. If my shorts weren't so wet, I guess I would have decided to get lost and find my way back home. But my shorts was still wet, and I was freezing. So, naturally, I decided to jump into the moving auto.
Point to note: Jumping in and out of moving vehicles may not be dangerous as it seems but I would still advise against small kids and old people doing it.
Anyway, we got home to see our cousin doing her homework. Our beach adventure was finally done.

Another interesting thing that happned was related to a bird. A baby bird got it's leg stuck in our window. After making sure it could not fly, I picked it up and took it to the balcony, where it wouldn't be chased by my dog. But just as it entered the balcony, it jumped onto a branch. It is still living there, and still can't fly. The bird was in my hand only for five minutes, and I was busy saving it, so I didn't really have a chance to get a picture when the bird was in my hand.

There are two mango trees in our house - one of them has six bats living on them, and that may be the reason why we don't have any mangoes this year - and the bird jumped onto the one with the bats. But I don't really think the bird cares about the bats. Now that I think of it, if I didn't publish this post, then it would have contained much more information and would have been much longer.

Note: Come to think of it, with all the dogs, cats and birds, feels like i'm living in a zoo.