From the time immemorial living beings have been fighting...
fighting for survival. “Survival of the fittest” has been the rule of nature at
large. These fights have been intraspecies as well as interspecies. For people
like us who have been born and brought up in the urban parts of the country,
far away from anything wild apart from ourselves, statements like these hardly
make any sense. But the truth of the
phrase “ survival of the fittest” became very clear to me yesterday after
witnessing a deadly encounter between
two fierce combatants , my mouse(computer mouse) and a mouse.
The first neighbour I met after shifting here was the tenant
of my ancestral wooden house, a small brown mouse with beady black eyes, silky
smooth whiskers and a abnormally large tail with a white tip. From the look on
its face it was very evident that it was as shocked to see us as we were. The
initial encounter resulted in about five seconds of silence from utter shock
followed by a shriek from both sides. In
the days that followed the mouse gave occasional appearances snacking on our garbage,
or scampering down the verandah...
Slowly we came to notice that the small rodent was an incredibly
talented go getter as well, adept at opening bottles, chewing down plastic
containers, carrying away fruits and veggies almost double its size, doing it
all with the cute innocent expression on its whiskery face.
In India mice are believed to be the vahana(pets) of the
Hindu god Ganesha. Thus killing or
harming the little creature would be volunteering to face the wrath of the
deity or at least that’s what my family chose to believe and hence we decided
to pet it( as we had no other option), gave it the name ‘kuttush’(meaning: the
one who nibbles) and gave it enough of garbage to gorge on. Things were going
great, absolutely great till kuttush met the other mouse in the house.
Touchpads on laptops are not the most dependable of
gadgets. Hence we got for ourselves a
new black mouse . As I surfed the web travelling to different countries,
different chat rooms all by petting my brand new mouse I chose to ignore the
sounds of disapproval from the little rodent residing on the false
ceiling(kuttush does often make strange noises from there). The sounds grew
louder and then it stopped. I worked on the computer till about 2 am before going
off to sleep. Little did I know what was in store.
I woke up in the morning, switched on my computer, the
cursor refused to move. After trying all possible buttons to restore movement I
turned towards my brand new mouse. From the top it seemed to be in perfect
condition but a little down the cable had been ripped to shreds at two points.
Shocked my gaze went towards my laptop charger cable. As I came close I was
horrified, two small bite marks on that as well. I angrily looked up at the
false ceiling, all quiet now as morning meant bedtime for the little imp.
Thankfully the laptop wire could be fixed with plastic a
cello tape. But my new black mouse had
to be thrown away at once as it was in a condition beyond repair. As I dumped
wasted device into the vat I wondered what could have been the possible causes
for this action
1.
My mouse
loves to chew on cables: Then why did kuttush chose to chew on the mouse
cable and not the other cables lying all around.
2.
My mouse
loves Apple: Name matters and and anything with such a delightful name is
sure to make even the anorexic hungry.
3.
My mouse
was jealous of my mouse: Gone are
the days when little boys used to keep a turtle or a mouse as a pet to play
with. In this new generation we seem to prefer a computer mouse and an Xbox.
May be kuttush was jealous ... or simply scared that soon the mechanical shall
take over the position of the real. The process has already started ... for
example right now I prefer to blog you the story rather that write it down on a
piece of paper. Whether or not it is
essential, beneficial etc is a different debate all together. But one thing for
sure in this digital age many things will change and certain things shall
become obsolete. This act by my house mouse may be just another signal.
The battle has begun ..... and only the
fittest shall survive.
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