Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 20.11.22
Cat
lovers! Please take note.
I am not a pet lover, particularly
cats. Many people think otherwise, because I have written a novel with cat as
the protagonist. I have read a lot about cat and watch them at many of my
friends’ houses. They are the most unfaithful of all pets. Unlike the dog, they
don’t have any loyalty. They use their cuteness quotient to gain entry into your
house, and one’s they are in, they behave as if they own it.
I know, I can go on ranting and raving
against the cats for ages, and it will make no impact on the cat lovers like my
friend Tapas, who had five cats, named Sorshe, Posto, Phoron, Mouri and Methi
(these are the ingredients that make ‘panch
phodon’ or ‘pancha phutana’ without
which no Bengali or Odia dish can be cooked). They all succumbed to feline
panleukopenia (FP) virus commonly known as feline distemper within a week, one
after another.
FP is highly contagious and deadly.
Pre-winter is the time when this virus breaks out and kills millions of cats
and kittens. However, it might affect your feline friends anytime in the year.
Many of the cat lovers do not know there
are excellent vaccines available to protect them from this nuisance. Just two
small shots between two to four months of their age can give them a robust
immune system to protect them from FPV.
However, time is the essence. Tapas was
late in reacting. Deworming is the first step as per vet's suggestion before
vaccination with a cooling period of 5 days in between. His cats had their
deworming pills last week and were waiting for the vaccine, but he was late in
starting the process which had resulted in losing all of them.
Ten days hence, Tapas is still
grieving. This is what he requests all pet lovers, especially cat-parents to
do. Have a close look at your feline mates' health and bring them quickly to
the vets if you observe anything unusual and of course if they have not been vaccinated
yet, do it in consultation with the doctor as fast as you can.
Population
The world population,
the newspaper headline screamed, just crossed 8 billion. And if everything goes
as has been going for the past decades- by 2023, India will surpass China as
the most populous country of the world.
Population experts estimated
that the population of the world reached one billion for the first time in
1804. It took 123 years to add another billion. In 1927 the world had 2 billion
population. The next billion was was added in just 33 years. In 1960 the world
had three billion population. By 1999, the world billion reached six billion;
it reached 8 billion in 2022. It is expected that the world population will
grow to 10 billion by 2050s, unless steps are taken to contain it.
It is often said that in
India, anything you say is true, and its opposite is also true. In case of
population in India the TFR (total fertility rate) is coming down steadily. In
fact in many states it has breached the replacement level. Therefore, the
population in coming years will come down. However, the absolute number will
continue to be big because of the past momentum and scale for quite some time.
Pundits often talk
about demographic dividend. India with its median age of 29 is one of the
youngest countries of the world and in a position to harvest rich dividend. But
the catch is - a large section of our work-force are not skilled enough and
women participation in job market is far too less. Number does not
automatically give you advantage, skilled persons do.
Ruskin
Bond
Ruskin Bond is one of most read and
loved contemporary fiction writers of India. He has a unique tongue-in-cheek
good natured humour, often at the cost of himself.
Here is a sample with a caveat. I
got it in a social media forward. So, no guarantee on its veracity. However,
the way it has been written, only Bond could have written it. Read on.
In my effort to keep up with the times I travel
occasionally by plane, and the other day I thought I’d do some shopping at one
of our major airports. To my dismay, the proffered credit card could not be
used, as the systems “connectivity” was down. I’m not sure what “connectivity”
means (except in the human sense) but apparently it implies some sort of
electronic failure. And I hope it isn’t a foretaste of things to come. If there
is neither cash nor “connectivity”, what do we do for a bar of chocolate or just
a magazine with which to pass the time? You just sit patiently in the airport
twiddling your thumbs and gazing at your fellow travellers.
Or being gazed at.
I was sitting there meditating, or rather contemplating,
when an attractive young woman came up to me and said, “Excuse me, but are you
Bejan Daruwala?”
Now I’ve been mistaken for various people in my life, but
Bejan Daruwala was a new one.
Naturally I was flattered.
“Regretfully, no,” I answered. “But I can tell your
fortune if you like. Just show me your hand and I’ll trace your life line, your
head line, and your heart line.”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “It’s all right. I just
thought you looked like him.”
“I won’t charge anything,” I added, as an afterthought;
she was probably short of cash. But she had hurried away. I don’t think she
trusted palmists.
An hour passed, and someone else approached me. A large
lady with a small boy.
“It’s so nice to see you here,” she says. “My little boy
studies one of your books in class. Will you give him your autograph?”
“Certainly ma’am.” I beam at the bright little boy. “And
what’s the name of the book you are studying?”
“Tom Sawyer,” he says.
Dutifully, I sign Mark Twain on a slip of paper. Mother
and son go away quite happy.
One of these days someone is going to mistake me for
Ruskin Bond.
Tailpiece: Money Laundering
According to RBI’s
new guidelines:
People who forget
money in their pants & shirts and send them to their laundry will be
immediately arrested on charges of Money Laundering...!!
(Couresy: Social Media)
++
The
columnist a journalist turned media academician lives at Dhenkanal, a central
Odisha town. He also writes fiction and translates poetry.
mrinalchatterjeeiimc@gmail.com
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