A Small Slithering Surprise

There I was - attending a boring meeting in the middle of the day. Four of us hounding the round table keying in with fury on our thinkpads, writing another purposeless document.

Suddenly, there was a movement. Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. It looked like a hairpin near of the chair's wheels. Then I saw again, it was moving. God! the hairpin was moving! I asked Amit to pick up the "hair-pin" on the carpet. He reached out, jumping back on the slight touch of the thing. It was not a hair-pin. It slithered and swayed, tried to burrow its nose (or whatever it was) into the carpet - probably trying to go down under, being the under ground dweller that it was.


There it was - small, tiny little slitherer. Slim, blind and dying. It was stamped on. May be someone had stepped on it, may be the one of the chairs had rolled over it. I don't know how, but it was at the end of its journey.

I carefully picked up the little guy on a a sheet of paper. Looked at it closely, very closely.

It was small. It was dark. It was slimy. It was not a worm for sure - it had scales. Looked like a juvenile worm snake or something to me. It was probably a Caecilian. I could not figure out where the head was. It either had none or had its head lopped off clean.

I took it outside, prodded it with my little finger. It twitched. So did I. I put it down in the grass hoping it will kick back to life. And then, it moved, it tried to burrow into the ground. Really? or was I seeing things. I was happy that the little guy will survive.

I rushed back into the meeting room and got back to work. But I was pre-occupied with the thought of the tiny guy's survival. I excused myself and went to the spot I had left the little fella.

It was still there.

And it wasn't moving. Damn! I poked it again a little, it didnt move. It lay there like it had never moved. The "hair-pin" was now crooked and stiff like its name-sake. I didn't have the heart to leave that guy out there, I moved it around but then decided that the ground is the best place for a ground-dweller to rest. I left it on a naked patch of soil and bid it good bye.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, I hoped it was playing a trick on me and would slither again and burrow deep down into the ground. I hoped it will spring back to action and grow up to be a big boy. I hoped it would live. I hope...


Update: It was probably a thread snake. More info : scolecophidians

Transformers

No! not this one.

This is what am talking about. Transformers - the movie. If you were like me - fed on a diet of American and Japanese animation shows as a kid, you'll love this. It has my childhood hero Optimus Prime so the movie could not have gone wrong.

As this is the first movie in the series, it is a bit descriptive at times, so that folks not familiar with the original series can catch up. But even that story telling part - how Megatron destroyed Cybertron and fled to Earth to crash is enjoyable too. Even those who don't give a rat's ass to the original series will enjoy the amazing CGI - the most detailed thing ever attempted.

I must admit, I felt like a 10 year old boy in a toy shop. I sat transfixed in front of the screen. It was like watching Transformers for the first time - over awed with with it all. The transforming into cars and trucks and planes and helicopters. The Autobots and Decepticons outdoing each other with transformations. The matrix, the cube, bumblebee ... Everything came rushing back to me.

Can't wait for the sequels. Can't wait for the Autobots kicking some Decepticons' ass.

Meri gaadi

2007 Royal Enfield Thunderbird

Rattles like a mixer-grinder, feeds on fuel like a Hummer and sounds like a flour mill. Handles like an angel and fits like a throne. Smoothest ride in town.