Champ

sound : Devo - Whip It



i've had a lot of pets.... i've had chickens in my room for a while... ive had fish, pigeons, turtles, lovebirds, tortoises and even squirrels... now let me tell you about my two squirrels...



i remember my first squirrel... i must have been around 6 or 7 years old... i found it in my g'dad's plantation in kerala... i guess it fell off a tree or something because it was on the floor and really weak (unconscious actually).... i ran back home and took my towel and went back to pick up the squirrel....



as i was running back the servant boy who worked at the house (this guy was my best buddy during the vacations... i never knew anybody in kerala...) came along with me... his name was karrapayan which, in tamil, literally translates as "black boy"... i wonder how his parents could even think of naming their kid "black boy"... anyway... when we reached the spot... the squirrel was awake now.... but it couldnt run because it had a hurt leg.... now karrapayan scoops it up in my towel and we took the squirrel back home... i remember mama being all excited and stuff... she tied a tiny little bandage around its (the squirrel's) wounded leg and we kept it in a cage just outside the bedroom...



a few weeks later i went to madras to see my moms folk's and when i came back the squirrel wasn't there anymore... nobody would tell me where it was... all i was told was that the squirrel was let free because its wounded leg had healed up... i remember thinking that the cat that used to bum around the house had eaten up MY squirrel... so everytime i saw the cat i would try to kick the filthy feline... actually im not an animal hater... its just that i dont like these stupid "bum-cats"... they just stroll into your house (in kerala all houses are open 24/7) plop!... they live there till they get bored of the place and leave... my g'ma used to feed them too... so most of the time the bum-cat wouldnt leave for a year or two...



i got my second squirrel after i finished the seventh grade... it was the summer vacations and i was in kerala.... on the first day at home my g'ma sends the tapper (the guy who taps the rubber milk from the rubber tree) up a jack-fruit tree to get a ripe jack-fruit for us to eat... he climbs up the huge tree and starts chopping at the huge fruit.... when he climbs back down he hand my mother a tiny little nest made of twigs... he said that he didnt see it and he had dislodged it while he was cutting down the jack-fruit.... plus... now that the nest has the smell of a human, he said that if there are any babies in it, the mother wont feed it anymore and the baby squirrel would die...



so my mom opens up the little nest carefully and inside is this tiny little hairless thing... it must have been an 1 or 2 inches long max.. small, naked, blind and shivering.... my g'dad used to be a diabetic to mama took one of his syringes and removed the needle... she poured a little milk into it and she fed the little thing... drop my drop... he was one hungry little squirrel... my brother was bouncing around the place screaming "it's name is champ! it's name is champ!" so that was its name.... champ....



i had champ with me only for about 3 months (the length of my summer holidays)... but he incredible thing is the amount it had grown in those three months... i used to carry him around with me wherever i went... it used to stay in my pocket and if i got it out it would sit in the palm of my hnd and i used to cuddle it and stuff... corny, i know... but true... i took it to madras and back, to madras again and back again and one more time... mostly we travelled by train and whenever people saw me feeding champ they would all come crowding around me to watch a squirrel drim milk from a spoon (he was getting so big so fast that the syringe wasnt enough)... i remember this one time this huge gang of college girls were flocking around me and playing with champ (why the heck was i 12??)... and they were all like "so cute", "so sweet" and stuff.... during my cross-malluland circuit i had met one of my great-uncles... we call him kunjumonchayan....



now km-chayan was an animal fanatic... he used to live in kenya and i remember he showed me pictures of deer that he kept as pets... he's even had a lion cub for a while... he and his wife have never had kids so they surround themselves with pets... they've got 2 dogs, a siames cat, a huge fish tank full of exotic fishes, lots of lovebirds and a parrot... the parrot was km-chayans favorite... he still calls it everymorning during breakfast and when it sits beside him, he talks to it... i mean he really has a conversation with it... the parrot will reply to greetings and even greet ou back... now thats a smart bird...



when we went to km-chayan's house he was really excited when he saw champ... he offered to buy him from me for 500 rupees... i remember, being twelve, 500 bucks was HUGE... but i said no... i made a deal with him... i told him that he could keep champ when i had to return to school... i remember, i had about 2 weeks left when i made the deal... i went home and i returned to km-chayan's house to hand champ over to him.... imagine my surprise when i saw a beautiful cage for champ... a really big cage.... he had had the cage mad just for champ.... i handed champ over to him and went to school a happy kid....



a few months later i got a letter from km-chayan saying that champ had run away.... one morning he opened the cage to refilll its water and cuddle with champ for a little while when - scoot!... it ran... it ran and it never came back...



peacerespectempathy