When Animals Attack - It happened to me

It was before dawn. I opened the back door of my house. I stepped onto the concrete backyard and looked on at the plants there. I moved towards the backyard water sump. There was a small cabinet that housed the water pump. I walked towards the back wall and the electric pump cabinet was to the right of me. There were a few odds and ends on top of the cabinet. I noticed a white cloth through the corner of my eyes. I walked along, not giving anything any attention.

It moved. With speed.

I abruptly turned to see my attacker. But it was already on me.

Those moments will be etched in my memory till I draw my last breath.

Then it moved past me. Dashed over the fence and made its escape, possibly fearing that I would have returned the attack.

Something was wrong ... it hadnt attacked me. And then realization and stupidity dawned on me. It hadnt been a close encounter with an attacking animal, it had been a brush on the leg with a white cat.

My dreams of reporting my encounter on TV with viewers all over the world, awed at my survival instincts, went up in white smoke. White - a color i'll always hate.

I cursed myself for an hour. And then one more hour ... I would have done it for a whole day .. but I had an exam coming up. So with the all the cursing pushed into the subconscious, I moved to the bathroom for a certain missed call, that i had to attend.

I had my second encounter.But this time, a role reversal had taken place. I opened the bathroom by clutching the door knob and turning it ninety degrees for the door to open.

Something slithered under my hand.

I lifted my hand from the knob to find that i had fully squeezed a lizard that was coolly sitting on the doorknob. In revulsion - I darted back and so did it. I guess it scurried away into the murky depths of the bathroom, thinking it wasnt a cool idea anymore to sit on a doorknob and expecting something fun or appetising to happen - what was the point of sitting on a doorknob - was it trying to do a MI-2 stunt by dangling from the edge of a cliff-like doorknob or was it waiting for the door to spout out some knock-knock jokes ?

A question that will not be answered for eternity. Two encounters - And i was the predator the second time.

I now hate the color white and my right hand. The first i could easily ignore, but how does one ignore a hand - it's really really been tough typing this entire blog up with my left hand.

[Television narrator deep threatening voice] : What do you do when animals attack ?

[Eerie pipe organ ending music]

[A description of close encounters with other species]
- Abhishek Ranganathan

{I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.- Winston Churchill}