One with Nature

I always tell people that one of the greatest advantages of living in a bucolic sleepy town like Kharagpur is that you learn to be one with nature. Sample of the reasons why:

• I have this great lizard friend of mine, who shares my room. Even though I had always wanted a single room for myself (and thankfully got one), I really don't mind my lizard room mate around. We have shared good and bad times together and tried to help each other in times of difficulty - I keep my room dirty just so that my lizard friend can get lots of mosquitoes to eat, and my lizard friend binges on them (she is pretty corporeal) so that they don't suck my own blood - now that is what is called a symbiotic relationship! [I haven't exactly tried to check her gender around but it feels good to be sharing a room with a female ;-)]
• I have been very generous to a lot of ants and have let them make a nest in my keyboard. Needless to say that my keyboard proved to be a very fertile mating ground for them, and there are umpteen numbers of ants always trying to crawl out of my keyboard. Of course, there is some amount of selfish interest involved because it helps me closely observe the intricacies of Ant Colony Optimization. Strangely, my own lassitude in buying a new keyboard is more a manifestation of my concern for the poor ant families than anything else [read: empty wallets] :-D
  
• I was talking to this very senior researchers from one of the top CS Research labs in the country, and happened to ask him how his trip had been. He said that it had been great except for these two frogs who had been sitting in a corner of the room of his associate only to pounce on him in the dead of the night. Poor guy could not sleep all night! I could only wish he had stayed in Kharagpur for some more time. He probably wished it away when another guy casually remarked that this frog friend of his had shared his room all of his first year, and they lived happily, each occupying their share of the room and not bothering the other.
  
• I still remember when I had to descend the stairs in my first year (for lack of water in my first floor bathroom) for my ablutions. I remember sitting on the toilet seat (there not being any newspaper to enjoy) once in a while only to find a frog staring at me! And we would just keep staring at each other, until I finished and went away and he waited for his next guest!
  
• The researcher asked me about bigger animals we can find here and the conversation happened to come to snakes. Now, Kharagpur has lots of snakes and once in a while you can see them ambling around in their typical serpentine fashion. We explained to him that here in Kharagpur, snakes have the right of way, just as pedestrians do in America. When you see a snake crossing the road in front of you, you just wait till it goes away. Fair enough!
• Not to speak of the umpteen number of dogs who have made out hostels their kennels. In their mating season, one can often see them howling around trying to find a mate, and then you see this huge litter of small little puppies, who will serve another generation of students as their faithful pet dogs.
• Then again, in the mess, we can often feel our very own kittens juggling around under our feet.
  
• The numerous number of bovines who graze our lawns (is that the right word?) and bless our pavements with their ... erm... well... blessings!
• The love-owls flying around the campus at night (you really can't call them birds, aren't they supposed to sleep at night?) strictly in pairs.
  
• And who can forget our very own IITians, the wierdest species of men (and a handful fo women) present in the world!
  

If you can think of any more, let me know, I will add to the list.

UPDATE:
On popular demand, I am adding a few more which I had overlooked:

• In case of most Kgpians, only the bottom six-and-a-half feet of their room is theirs - the upper half is arachnid territory. Most of us probably do not even look at at their ceilings, or even if they do, they don't get a very clear view of it, hidden as it is behind a nebula of spider-web. Well, we find our own use of it - it helps our very own house lizard to keep our room clear of all mosquitoes. [All-Out and Goodnight manufacturers would probably call for censorship of this post.]
• Then we have our very own special breed of insects - little green bastards, or LGBs as we call them. They come every year when they are least wanted, cover all lights with their menace for a few weeks, and finally go away with Diwali. Apart from illumination, the one reason we celebrate Diwali in this part of the country is that we are finally saved from the torture caused by the LGBs; it is not very common to find a couple of them making a beeling for your mouth, year, nose, or even your food.
• Before I forget, we have these wonderful friends of ours from the insect family, which makes us really reflective when we see Men In Black - bugs. I will not talk about them, but rather direct you to a very well written piece about their utility, courtesy Sunny.