Mysteriously furtive, cautiously knavish, and wantonly violent……an odd combination of characteristics for ones so docile and cuddly looking. These, the resident mongooses that scurry about in my neighborhood provide me endless hours of entertainment. Their antics and beady eyed stares, their gamboling and tumbling in the sun – then as if on cue, their dash into the nearest shrub or bush, vanishing from sight as if their appearance was ethereal and unreal.

This morning, I stand by my window to spot three playful fellows scampering all along the length the garden wall, one behind another, in tandem, like an animated chain, a furry interlude of red noses and bushy tails. Chug, chug, heaving, panting, puffing, pulsating with life and joy, skipping along the track like a toy train. A proud mum with two in-tow juveniles. In a minute or less the sight is gone, etched in the memory banks along with so many more ‘mongoose episodes’ that are filed-in, like serials in the mind’s eye.

A dulcet lilting song permeates the morning air: back he is, the Magpie Robin, in full cry standing like a serenading beau on the well-post, head thrown to heavens and crooning away his love paean. The air is filled with ring tones of nature. He can sing, this black and white fellow, cocking his tail up and down as he strains his throat pouring out his heart, hoping a passing female would stop by, crane a ear and tarry, and if sufficiently impressed stay on to flirt or go further. I have watched this very bird ever since it was a fluffy ball, a fledgling as its mother took him hopping along my wall, onto the cherry tree. His little red mouth breathless with excitement as the fidgety mum stuffed a succulent earthworm down its hungry throat.

Today, he is alone. His brothers and sisters have died on their route to adulthood, killed by mongooses and cats before they honed the fine art of survival. He belts out notes hoping his lady love would help him further his line that someday, another like him would flit by gardens and TV antennas celebrating the joy of life through song.

The days gone by has been a bit depressing for me. Something’s amiss. I appear to have lost zest. It is week since I even tried blogging, that’s a huge break for me. I cannot pin down any reason, there appear to be none really. But a general feeling of listlessness of seeing nothing cheerful in coming days, or weeks or years. It is seven years nearly, since I’ve lived with myself. Sans company, sans companionship, sans conversation. I am becoming strangely comfortable with this isolation. That frightens. I look around my sparsely furnished room. My floor bed is still occupied – two dogs are sound asleep, wrapped inside my blanket.

My gaze pauses over my bookshelf…and two framed photographs. One in color, of my dead sister. So full of life her smile is. So much twinkle in here yes too. Beside it is another, a Black & White one, of another lady of who, the less I write, the better the control I have over my mental faculties.

A baby cry pierces the quiet. It is Maitreyi, my housekeeper maid's baby. At six months, she looks bonny and blessed, like a ball of kneaded flour ready for frying into a bonda. I pick up the bundle of joy and hold it against my window grill: a dimpled smile spreads across her face….Life goes on. It must. The old must give space to the young. The baton must be relayed. Much like the mongoose and the magpie, man too has to move on and away.

The baby’s gurgling sounds imply assent and acceptance of the inevitability of tomorrow: Mongoose, magpie or Maitreyi……..the cycle of life must spin, on and on, kaala-chakra, the Buddhist’s know it as: the wheel of time.