Defining a Dhoti

Ever wondered how you would define a dhoti to a person who has never heard of the term before? I tried to look up the definition on the internet and surprisingly, found more results than I had expected. The shortest definition I found was "a long loincloth worn by Hindu men". Wikipedia has defined it quite aptly, as "the traditional garment of men's wear in India, which is a rectangular piece of unstitched cloth, usually around 7 yards long, wrapped around the waist and the legs, and knotted at the waist."

You may wonder how I ended up writing a blog on defining a dhoti. I was reading this book named Shantaram. The author, a convict from Australia who escaped from prison and fled to India, has described his experiences while he lived in the slums of Mumbai; and amongst other things, made local friends, learnt Hindi and Marathi, joined the mafia, and fell in love. The book comprises nearly a thousand pages in small print and I have hardly completed a quarter of it. However, so far I have found it very captivating. He has expressed the communication gap between himself and his guide, and the culture shock he faced in an absolutely entertaining manner.

Of the many entertaining events he talks about, one describes his visit to a typical Indian village, so isolated that it receives no electric power and the water supply lasts just for an hour a day. In his attempt to describe the local farmer, he talks about the dhoti. Following are the words directly from the book. 'The dhoti is technically described as a loincloth, but the term robs the garment of its serene and graceful elegance. It can be gathered up to become work shorts for labour in the fields, or loosened to become pantaloon style trousers with the ankles free. The dhoti itself is always moving and it follows the human contour in every act from running to sitting still......' In the next couple of lines he has a few words of praise for the dhoti. But overall, I found this definition quite creative and amusing, and that led me to writing this.

One Lucky Rat!!

         This is an incident, that took place or rather is taking place in my home. My land lady or house mother as they refer to here, is a kind hearted, retired lady, in her fifties. I guess I would like to stress the term kind hearted, specially when applied to animals. She is extremely fond of animals and owns a cat. Now that I have set the background, let us proceed to the story.

        One afternoon, the cat was playing in the garden and found a small wild rat. The lady got annoyed with the cat for harassing the little creature and decided to rescue it. On picking it up, she discovered that it was a baby who had not even opened its eyes. Apparently, rat babies open their eyes after the age of 2 weeks. She left the rat in the open, to watch if any of its family members come looking for it. When this did not happen for the next few hours, she decided to adopt the rat.

        Now this was not an easy task. She called up a number of pet shops and animal rights organizations to find out about bringing up rats. For the first two weeks, she had to feed it every two hours, even through the night. Other important 'rat facts' that I learn't were, infant rats can’t regulate their own temperature, and can’t go to the bathroom by themselves. They’re stimulated to go only when rubbed around certain parts of their body. So, her routine now comprised of feeding it some special pet milk with a small dropper, rubbing and cleaning its body with tissues and cotton buds, re-heating the heating pad which was keeping it warm, maintaining a chart of the amount of food intake and waste discharge during each such session, and re-setting the alarm to ring after the next two hours!!

         Now, that is remarkable when you do it every 2 hours, for half a month!(comes to (24/2)*15 =210 times!) I agree that it is possible only because she is at home full time, but still!! Her life, and unfortunately all conversations in our home now revolved around the little rat and its developments. Not being an animal lover myself, I did not really find that entertaining. However, I must agree that I have learnt quite a few interesting facts about these little creatures, and discovered what a host of information the internet has in store for rat lovers.

        This evening, while I was waiting in queue at the checkout of a supermarket, I was wondering what 'rat news' to expect when I get home. It was then that I suddenly noticed, that the lady in front of me was holding a box of rat killing poison! Wow! One mans' meat can certainly be another mans' poison! At this point, I also remembered that, this was the same kind of rat, for killing which the Indian government had announced monetary rewards, a few years back. Now that is certainly one lucky rat to have reached the right house!