going bats

Last night a little bat flew into our house. And started flying around in eccentric orbits around the potentially lethal whirling dervish blades of the ceiling fans.
It looked really small even with wings fully outstretched and flapping.
Not scary at all.
Except that its seemingly suicidal sonar meant we could have had bat blood sprayed all over us. A rather unedifying prospect.
So we switched off the fans.
And after a few more minutes of potential kamikaze, our little bat flew to the floor and flopped down, instead of as expected, hanging upside down from the ghastly chandelier.
Perhaps bats have a finely developed aesthetic sense too…

All of us huge humans bent over to take a look at the little bat, which wasn’t more than two inches long, and well, looked like a mouse. The German word for bats seemed to be the perfect description of our harmless looking ear wagging specimen – fleidermaus – flying mouse. Now mice, with all their disease carrying propensities, are considered cute. Not so bats, who essentially get rid of bugs and pesky mosquitoes. Bats get associated with Dracula, with vampires and with Batman. The cutest bats ever got was the 60s Batman TV serial, and that is just, well, insulting! And if the English drips with devilish associations, the Hindi word itself for our flying fellow mammals is dripping with malice and disrepute – Chamgadar.

We went to bed with our eccentric two inch guest still flopped out on the floor. What with visiting stray dogs, the occasional wasps nest, and now bats, it’s quite the menagerie we live in…

And for those who’ve been wondering where I’ve disappeared to… Been busy, and also guest blogging on Chapati Mystery as Bulleyah; once a week. Have to still figure out the balance between the two blogs. In the meanwhile, if you don’t find me here, you will find me at CM, once a week.