Tuesday 14 April 2015

Bandicoots in my garden !!!


14 April

"We have no right to ask when difficulty comes, "Why did this happen to me?" unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way."

Aaaah haaah...! Just when my garden was beginning to show excited signs of life... Here come the bandicoots !!!

The soil from two large pots with well grown, now fruiting brinjal plants all dug out and the plants almost out of the pots, three capsicum plants uprooted, out of which two are dead and quite a bit of the methi destroyed... And very strangely this has happened in the afternoon. For bandicoots usually strike at night when they come out of their burrows to forage for food.

Well, I stepped into this house and began gardening in this compound knowing the fact that there are bandicoots. For, when we used to come to check out the house and walked around the compound, we did see huge bandicoot holes along the compound wall in the backyard. The best thing we though of was to block the holes and we did it with loads of broken bricks and stones. And till yesterday, I was happy in the fact that we had not sighted or seen the destructive trail of a bandicoot. We did have a green keelback (snake) visiting my garden, but not a bandicoot, until this afternoon... Well, we have lived on a farm and seen wild boars uprooting crops and stray cattle eating away beds and beds of vegetables and accidental fires burning down tens of mango trees. So, I think bandicoots in comparison aren't going to put me down.

I have replanted and secured the brinjal plants, planted two more capsicum seedlings in place of the old ones and will harvest the rest of the methi as baby-greens very soon. I'm not asking any questions and I'm not doing anything right now. It was monkeys there and monkeys here too... and now bandicoots ! But, in comparison I have enjoyed more than my share of goodness and joy and produce from my LGP. So who am I to complain in the scheme of nature. I have to take it as it comes...

15 April

A bigger Bandicoot attack on one side and a beautiful red red tomato harvest on the other...!!
Irony, this surely is thy name !

Irony aside, my situation reminded me of these beautiful lines of a song from this even more beautiful movie- Piya ka ghar.
Yeh jeevan hain, is jeevan ka,
Yahin hain, yahin hain, rangroop.
Thode gham hain, thodi khushiyan,
Yahin hain, yahin hain, chaon dhoop...

I've posted only a few pictures. The damage is much more... Let's see how long the spirit lasts and what I am able to do about this new issue...


























































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