Monday 27 May 2019

Inimitable Keshu



When he came into our lives he was a tiny little bunch of fur, small enough to fit in our palm. He was very delicate with his prominent head dwarfing other body parts.

My wife found him abandoned outside and decided to provide him with a home. We took out a long-abandoned perforated plastic box with a lid from the loft and stuffed it with some old clothes to set up his new abode.

He was motionless and weak, and we were clueless as to what should we feed him. Mostly he lay curled with his head buried between his body and the curled-up tail.

My zoology-deficient mind was caught in a three-way dilemma - whether a squirrel is a reptile, mammal, or rodent. I sought refuge in the universal Mr. Know All - Google search, which enlightened me that our new visitor is an Indian palm squirrel or three-striped palm squirrel. It is of class Mammalia and order Rodentia.

Knowing about its mammalian link, we decided to feed it water and milk. But that was easier said than done.

We had to rummage through our medicine box to look for a filler that probably came along with tonics my daughter took in her childhood.

But making him drink milk was like taking the proverbial horse to water. Whenever it complied to take milk or water, half of it used to spill out through the sides of his mouth. Later we switched over to a syringe, minus the needle, and it proved more effective. But feeding him continued to remain a challenge.

In the back of our minds, there was this worry about whether this little fella would survive this delicate stage without his mother's love and care. Will our faith and a daily dose of a few drops of Nandini milk help him see through?

However, a week later he started showing signs of activity. He began moving around within the box. Soon the confines of the box became restrictive and we began letting him gambol around in the bed.

He soon began climbing onto our hands and shoulders and found it very cozy to hide in the tresses of my wife and daughter. Quite often only the tail will be visible. Hence we named him 'Keshu', taken from the Sanskrit word Kesh, which means hair.

Keshu soon began taking solid food and oats became his initial favourite, which later got replaced with cooked rice. Perched on his hind legs he would use his forelimbs to hold the morsel as he fervently nibbled. He later developed a taste for wood and began nibbling away at my daughter's pencils and the edges of wooden furniture.

He also soon discovered his way to the window sill and it became his favourite haunt. We kept the window permanently shut to prevent him from going out. Climbing up the window grills became his favourite pastime and when he was exhausted he would languidly relax on the window sill. It was indeed a sight to behold - with all his four legs stretched apart to make the most of the sunshine. His idea of sunbathing.

Needless to say, the window sill required much more frequent cleaning due to his droppings and leftover food.

The much famed three stripes became more distinct on Keshu's back and he became very swift in his movement with lightning reflexes. He turned out to be an artful dodger and I soon found it almost impossible to catch him. My wife and daughter, however, had a better success rate in this respect. It became a challenge to put him to bed at night inside the box.

Whenever he is not seen on the window sill or the bed, we used to feel concerned and immediately launch a search for this little fella. The usual suspect locations used to be under the pillow or blanket. Sometimes he won't be there either, thereby raising our worries and apprehensions. Then out of nowhere, we would find a moving protuberance under the bedsheet, pillow cover, or blankets. It would move randomly then at the end of the sheet his head would pop out.

Keshu was quite a natural in the Houdini Act. He would always improvise new ways to make himself disappear from our clear sight. We always had this fear that we might end up accidentally sitting on him while he is busy with one of his vanishing tricks. Hence were quite mindful while sitting on the bed or reclining on the pillow.

Gradually Keshu began exploring other rooms. He would climb up the sofa in the drawing room and recline on top of the headrest. Sometimes he would snuggle and bury himself between the cushions, sending us on a panic-stricken hunt.

While browsing my laptop on my study table, all of a sudden I would experience a pinch of his claws on my shoulder. He would undertake a Spiderman-type leap from the bed onto my shoulder and then descend to the study table through my hand that is wielding the mouse.

We used to take him out onto the balcony under strict supervision as we feared he might fall off or get attacked by predators such as crows or even bigger squirrels. On the balcony, he loved climbing onto the flower pots and savouring the flowers. The flowers from the nearby Tabebuia Rosea tree that used to fall on our balcony were an added attraction.

He once gave us real fright after he fell off the balcony. Some frantic runs downstairs and timely alerts to our apartment watchmen saved the day.

Soon we realised it was almost three months since Keshu came to our house. He had grown up in size, though still not large enough to be a full-grown squirrel, and the tail was still not that bushy.

It had also become much more mature. When he used to feel sleepy at night he would descend from the window pane, or wherever he was, and get into his sleeping box on his own, bury himself up with clothes, and call it a day. We would later put on the lid, which he will knock open from inside the next day to come out.

Then we decided to let him enter the final frontier - climbing trees. The Tabebuia Rosea nearby had branches abutting our balcony railings. We even used a tiny rope to tie up one of the branches with our balcony railings so that he could easily move from tree to balcony.

When we first released him, Keshu gingerly moved on the branch and after going a few feet returned to the balcony. Gradually he began gaining confidence and the duration of his outings became longer. He started venturing into extreme ends of branches and even started jumping from one branch to another.

However, whenever Keshu was out we used to anxiously keep a watch from our balcony to see whether he was out of harm's way. He was savouring every moment of his outdoor sojourn - nibbling at barks, flowers, and some mysterious objects he found on trees which he used to fondly hold on his forelimbs and nibble. But whenever he felt hungry or tired, he used to climb back to the balcony through the 'ropeway'.

For a couple of days, it went smoothly. Then one day a pair of squirrels, both full-grown ones, who were in an adjoining tree, sighted Keshu and approached him. He grew scared and beat a hasty retreat. After giving them a chase he managed to land on our balcony. Keshu looked very tense and refused to go back to the tree and preferred to stay on the window sill for the rest of the day.

However the next day he seemed to have forgotten the unsavoury episode and left for a tree outing and it was more or less incident free for a couple of days.

Then he came across a lone squirrel, which later proved to be his nemesis. This squirrel used to hang around the terrace room of a building opposite to ours and used to lord over the Tabebuia tree. He perceived Keshu as a threat, an intruder into his territory.

Whenever he happened to see Keshu on the tree he would launch a chase. And Keshu would valiantly run towards the balcony by performing some daredevil jumps from one branch to another (making us miss a few beats) and romp home.

This went on for a few days and one day while I was at the office I got a call from home. "Keshu has run away," said my wife. I was struck with dumb despair and could not comprehend. Then she explained that when Keshu went on a tree outing, he failed to notice his rival lying in wait amid the thick cover of leaves. He sprang a sudden ambush and it disoriented Keshu, who lost his balance and fell on the road below.

Though my daughter rushed downstairs to catch him, it was too late. He had crossed the road and got into a vacant but densely wooded plot that was walled and had an imposing gate that was locked. Keshu got in from the gap below the gate and climbed onto one of the trees there. It was nearly dark and we also did not know who owned the plot.

The next day we managed to contact the plot owner, who stayed in the house located in the next plot. The house owner, an elderly woman with US-settled children, was cooperative and opened the gates of the empty plot for us. However, we could not spot Keshu though there were many squirrels, of various sizes, chirping on a mango tree that was loaded with fruits. Probably sensing our disappointment the house owner offered us a few mangoes.

Though quite often while discussing Keshu's future we had always accepted that one day we would have to let him go - after all, he is a creature of trees. But the fact that it happened so abruptly was something we found very difficult to come to terms with. All three of us were struck with a pang of despair as we cleaned up the window sill and put back the plastic box, Keshu's abode for a few months, onto the loft.

Postscript: We did not remove the rope used to tie up the branch with our balcony railings, hoping that Keshu may someday find his way to our house.