Author: Swati Sani

We lost him

After two days of fanatic care we lost FrostByte. It was too small to survive. It was loosing weight, developed jaundice and his breath grew laboured – the feeds we were giving perhaps did not contain the nutrients and antibodies that are necessary for such a small squirrel baby to survive.

Sunday 9.30 AM it stopped fighting for life.

We buried it in the garden while Aasim was away attending his Tabla lessons, he came back, was sad, but took it well. Since then he is placing a small flower everyday at the place where we buried FrostByte.

Our ninth baby

Today morning another baby squirrel entered our lives – this is the ninth one that has come to us and the smallest we have ever raised. Uh-Uh our first one was the smallest till date but much bigger than this one.

The eyes are not yet open, hair are sparse I am wondering if it will be able to survive at all.

He however does not seem to be in a shock – drank milk lustily has relieved itself after milk feeds. Total three feeds till now. We are giving him (yes it is a him) scalded Buffalo milk with honey at slightly higher than human body temperature -feeding by a syringe and a cut infant feeding tube and observing very strict hygiene when handling him

Peacefully curled up in Tarique’s shirt pocket, he is hating being exposed to light and cold hands.

His shouts out of resentment against light and cold are much loud for his size.

Hope the fellow survives.

Aasim came back from school and named him FrostByte after one of his UT2004 characters – “Frostbyte is strong” he says.

First pictures here and here

Lj meme

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here

Fountainhead -the movie

In one line, its good but not good enough!!

The movie does not do justice to the book. The characters barring Roark and Wynand no where come close to what they have been described – specially the physical appearance of Dominique.

At some places the characters mouth dialogues as if they are just reciting them, without understanding, to anyone who has read the book and understands it, this is very apparent with one exception of Ellsworth Monkton Toohey – he was just as despicable in the movie as he is in the book.

A big disappointment, was not finding any mention the Stoddard Temple and Dominique’s statue carved by Steven Mallory. Also no where to be seen were Mike the construction worker Catherine, Toohey’s niece and Austen Heller the man who first gave work to Roark.

In the book, Gail Wynand lives. He lives on as an emotionally dead being a defeated man who gave in to second handers. In the movie, he is shown to have committed suicide. I wonder what prompted Ms. Rand (the screenplay of the movie is by Ayn Rand herself) who have this change. I surely did not like this diversion from the book. It kind of redeems Wynand. The man saved Banner over his soul. He did the act knowing its full consequences, he did not deserve to be redeemed.

Movie recommended only if you have read the book.

Music Review

Picked up the much hyped Veer Zara audio CD for two reasons, I liked Madan Mohan’s compositions and I like Yash Chopra movies.

My first reaction was that of disappointment – the music does not have that classic feel which I was expecting, the lyrics are good, but I expected more out of Javed Akthar

However, the music grew on me and after listening to the entire CD twice, I want to hear more.

The second CD in the album is truly a collector item.

Recipie for two – a perfect lazy Sunday – and its spoilers

Wake up, stay awake for a while then cuddle and sleep – wake up late
Hot coffee with newspaper -spend an hour reading
Roam around in the garden, take some pictures, talk to birds and squirrels
Have a nice breakfast (fried sausages, eggs and bread)
Aasim Wakes up – has his milk and watches TV
Work around the house a bit/work on computer
Settle down to watch an old Hindi classic
After one CD laze around some more – go for bath
A friend pop’s in
She is in a lousy mood
She makes you feel lousy too
Friend departs
Keep telling yourself – think positive – don’t get upset over others behaviour
Feel better
Start the second CD
Doze off before climax
Wake up
Another friend calls up
you realise you have been taken for a ride over something (trivial for him – it matters to you)
You try to reach him
he is unavailable
go for shopping and dinner outside
return after shopping
have nice and simple home made food
Aasim sleeps early
Watch TV -there is nothing good on it except Mask of Zorro -that too dubbed in Hindi
Read/watch FTV
try to sleep
try to sleep
try to sleep
its past midnight
fall asleep

Only the ones who have raised a Calvin will understand this

I was neck deep in work, aasim comes near me and says something (I could not understand it – his mouth was full)
I asked him again without looking at him -what’s it?
Aasim “oi homp ap pommnn imm mmm mooummt”
I “what?”
Aasim “oi homp ap pommnn imm mmm mooummt”

Then I understood – “I have a pond in my mouth” he was trying to say – with a mouth full of saliva!!!!