I am not an animal person. What I mean to say is that though I can admire cats and dogs and other animals from a safe distance, I can never think of petting them. I guess that's the reason why I should read the book 'Man Meets Dog' by Konrad Lorenz.

Oh well, here goes one more book in the list of books to be read on a rainy day!

Moms have an inexhaustible supply of practical information! It so happened that last week I bought the Rangoli colors but for some unfathomable reason didn't buy the dotted paper and book of Rangoli patterns at the same time. I had planned on leaving from office at usual time in the evening and then stopping at the market to purchase both the items.

Alas! Murphy's Law has a habit of applying itself all too often to my life. I got delayed at the office. By the time I reached home, I was bone-tired. No worries, I will buy both tomorrow morning on my way back from the temple - I said to myself.

Cut to Tuesday morning. I roamed the market twice from one end to the other. There were lot of vendors selling Rangoli colors but none, I repeat, none of them had dotted paper and book of Rangoli patterns. I was close to tears. What am I supposed to do?

'You can always make the dotted paper at home' mom said matter-of-factly. "What? How?" I was all ears. 'Oh, just trace the outline of holes on a brown paper and then use an incense stick to burn the holes. We used to do the same when I was a kid. We never had the luxury of purchasing the ready-made paper." BTW, Mom grew up in what we now-a-days call a Tier 2 town in India.

So there I was, struggling with a ruler and sheet of brown paper. Drawing a straight line is not as simple as it looks. But I stuck to the task at hand. The pattern complete, I got the incense stick burning but putting it to paper to burn holes was another matter altogether. It tasted my patience to the max. The stick kept getting extinguished.

"No issues! Just light up a candle and keep it handy to re-ignite the incense stick." mom said without missing a beat. I followed obediently. Many minutes later the dotted paper was ready - with some extra holes where the incense stick. had touched it inadvertently due to my impatience and taste. :-) Here is the result:

 Not so bad, huh?

Well, the next hurdle was of course the Rangoli patterns - or lack of them. Drawing skills are not my claim to fame. So no possibility of any free-hand Rangoli. I turned to the Internet for rescue and managed to download a few patterns.

Here are 2 of the Rangolis I made - the first one was made yesterday and the 2nd one today.

I must confess that though it sounded highly irritating at first, I thoroughly enjoyed making Rangolis this Diwali.

I guess, it is a little late in the day to wish. But hey, it is better to wish late than never. So here goes.....

God has deposited Love, Joy, Prosperity, Peace, Laughter plus all kinds of Blessings in your ATM Account.

Use without any Limit.

The PIN code is Prayer.

Happy Diwali!

This one came in an SMS:

A Millionaire lost everything in fire.
Next day he placed a signboard

"EVERYTHING BURNT but luckily FAITH and CONFIDENCE UNDAMAGED.
Business starts TOMORROW"

This is more of a note to myself than a blog post. I came across reference to this blog - http://www.yesheeandmommy.blogspot.in/ - in a Marathi newspaper. And I want to go through it one day.

In the meantime, if you happen to read it, do let me know.

when I was a kid, one of my most prized possessions was a set of small animals. My mom had told me that one animal used to be given along with a pack of a toothpaste - I forget which brand it was. It was a sort of a collectible. This was a long time before Hamley's and the neatly packed set of assorted animals on its shelves. I remember looking at the small monkey and deer and wondering if there were any zebras or kangaroos in the set at any time.

The reason I remembered that toy animal set after all these years is because I read a reference to a site in one of GEO's articles - http://wild-wonders.com/.

Trees, flowers, birds and animals - they seem to have documented so much. :-)

Virunga National Park

Lately, I have become a huge fan of the GEO magazine. I eagerly await the arrival of its next issue and lament the fact that they don't bring out more than one issue per month. The story of how the park rangers are waging a difficult fight to save the mountain gorillas in Congo's Virunga National Park was both sad and inspiring. I hope and pray that they win this fight - and soon.

I am going to check out the following sites to see how I can help:

http://gorillacd.org/

http://www.virungacrisis.org/

And if you care about the fact that only 880 members of this species are left worldwide, then so should you!