Little Animals

The youngest of three siblings, my two elder brother’s who were into cricket playing and me as their little sister was into playing with dolls and other girly games as they called it, and never interfered with what went on under the bedcover which covered

the dining table and the games that were played under there. These were my sweet childhood memories.

The only ones allowed into my zoo den as my mother referred to it were my

girlfriends and my two cousin sisters who came to visit on weekends. My brothers and their friends were only allowed to visit the zoo by paying the required entrance fee and food was always in short supply so other than the odd biscuit or toffee, which I made them pay for, which would break into us having fights and then they were not allowed into my zoo for days on end. They would get even by hiding some of my animals and then made me

return the entry fee to the zoo to them

and after my crying fits, my mother would retrieve the animals and the money from them, for me.

This was my very own world, where I spent hours together with my little animal family giving them baths and feeding them, and putting them to bed too. They never left my side or sight they were my very own precious collection. Adding to them every month with eagerness and happiness that lives with me still. My happy place

where I could talk and scold or even sing to my animals whenever I liked. I often stored them in a biscuit box and

carried them in a plastic bag, even when I went out to ride my cycle.

We were a middle class family and our groceries would come once a month.

Of which two toothpaste tubes would arrive with all the other essentials,

and it was an unspoken rule that I would get to open the Bianca toothpaste boxes as the miniature plastic animals that came in each were a collection and a prized possession for me. I would fuss over the boxes and shake them repeatedly, trying to find out which animal was inside and often my guess to my delight turned out correct. Some new animals were added over the years and my collection or my family of animals grew bigger.

Over a span of eight years I had collected quite a few, sometimes a few

animals being repeated, but as they came in various colours it was okay with me to collect sometimes more of one kind of animal than the other.

My two cousins who visited on weekends were allowed to play with my animal collection and under the dining table we made a zoo, we made cages for the monkeys with cardboard cutout boxes, deers were kept in front of small bowls of water which held the fishes so they could keep an eye on them,and crocodiles were made to lie on their bellies on paper that was coloured blue, depicting water. The tigers and lions had their own cages which were made from wire that looked strong enough to hold them. Birds too were made to sit on trees that we drew and coloured green on paper. Mountains were formed by folding brown paper,

and the leopards and bears were placed on them, being allowed to roam about as they were way above our reach in our make believe world.One month I received two spiders and made a web for them with

netted cloth. And then another where I received two rats into my family of animals and without batting an eyelid

made a meal of them for my cats as I knew they liked rats more than the milk that I served to them.

The rabbit family as we called them had some hay to sit and nibble on.The elephants were made to stand in a circle so that they could talk to each other,and give each other baths if they so wished as we believed then. The ducks and tortoise were kept on a small patch of grass,which we plucked from the garden. There were different breeds of dogs who I fed with chicken bones, and cats who were given milk on a saucer, and had their separate corners.

A ticket counter where we charged ten paisa for a visit, and a food stall that

served biscuits and toffee’s and coke stood at the entrance of the zoo and we made a cutout with Zoo written on it, on the top of the entrance flap.

Time was never a factor for us, we would go to sleep under the dining table and wake up only when called to eat our meals. But time and life does move on and my cousins migrated to London, we did keep in touch, but got to visit them only after twenty-five years, when we were all married and had families of our own. And what better gift to give them than those little miniature animals. So all the extra ones that I had, was packed into a small box and was carried from India to London.

Their joy to see me and I them, was thrilling but imagine their joy when they opened the gift, the little box and the miniature animals tumbled out! It was a priceless moment to see the happiness on their faces, and more so because their two daughters of seven and eight were thrilled with the small animals too.Never had they seen such tiny creatures.

The three of us grown women now, looked at each other and immediately

got out a bed cover and covered the dining table with it. And set up the

exact same zoo for my nieces and our daughters. Precious moments relived.

With the circle of life we were transported back in time and visited the zoo with three new members of our beautiful family, the circle now complete with my little girl too, who was already a good zoo keeper under her mother's watch.

Written by Carol Mitra.