My First Love
Apr 30 2007 | Views 2055 |
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Tags: Velvet Beetle Nature Innocence Interests Warmth Affection
Tags: Velvet Beetle Nature Innocence Interests Warmth Affection
My first love was someone called 'Beerba Boti'. I do not know the botanical term for this bug, beetle, insect or whatever it is. If anyone knows please enlighten me. Had it been a little later in life, this someone would perhaps have had a more human name. But then I was only a child and children have very peculiar love interests. Children also have a number of first love in their lives but fortunately (or unfortunately!?!) they do not have any last love. Therefore technically, Beerba Boti could be termed as one of my ‘in between’ loves.
This was how I met Mr.B. One day, just after a heavy shower, when the grass was green and the skies were blue and I was on the lawn in my White House, having a rendezvous with the red roses, I noticed a small blob of blood right next to my feet. At first I thought a jealous thorn had intervened. But a spiky intrusion cannot be painless. So I looked down and examined the blood red globule. It looked like a miniscule unspotted beetle. It also felt smooth and velvety. I gently picked it up and put it in the center of my palm. Immediately I was smitten with this tiny love bug. And thus began my scarlet affair.
I had to search for a home for my little velvety Thumbelina. One of my aunties helped me find it. It was a small matchbox. She emptied out the matchsticks and filled it with grass. Then we carefully laid it on the mock verdant bed. We kept the box closed so it wouldn’t escape into a heartless Gulliver’s world. We also made tiny perforations on the lid so that it could comfortably practice its strenuous exercises of inhaling and exhaling. Every two hours I would take out my smooth scarlet pearl from its wooden oyster, gently lay it on the table and lovingly gaze at it.
I marveled at its texture. I was awed by its colour. I was fascinated with its size. But I was quite disappointed with its behaviour. While my tiny heart had been totally captured, the signs from my mini friend were hardly favourable. Its tiny ruby form never ever stirred. There was not an iota of enthusiasm. There were simply no signs of stimulation. My love affair was only one sided
.
I complained to Mummy. With a shrug of her petite shoulders, she said that was what had to be expected. I had unwittingly plucked out a velvet button from the lush green coat of the earth and placed it where it did not belong. For it to fasten its soft self onto our steely surroundings would take time. To gain my trust would probably take a lifetime.
. I complained to Mummy. With a shrug of her petite shoulders, she said that was what had to be expected. I had unwittingly plucked out a velvet button from the lush green coat of the earth and placed it where it did not belong. For it to fasten its soft self onto our steely surroundings would take time. To gain my trust would probably take a lifetime.
But I was determined. I went to another of my aunties who hailed from
Hyderabad
and who also seemed to be quite well versed with all the creatures big and small. I began pestering her for something, anything that would help in a reciprocal bonding with the tiny creature. She taught me a small little ditty. She said it was meant especially for the little one and that all the children in the world sang this for all the Beerba Botis in the world. She was sure this song would succeed in bringing it out of its shell.
‘Beerba Boti choti khol (Open out your plait, dear BB)
Chhote mote baataan bol (Make small talk with me)
Tera maamu laddoo laaya (Your Uncle has brought you a laddoo)
Laal darwaaza khol de (Come, unlock your scarlet door.)’
But before trying out this ludicrous exercise, I pointed out to her that I was not its ‘Uncle’. She said it did not matter. I also told her I did not have any laddoos with me. She said that was inconsequential too. If I wanted Mr.B to respond, this was the only way. Feeling a little guilty for initiating my friendship with a half lie (the half truth was I wanted it desperately to unfold its plait and unlock its doors for me), I agreed. Many a lover has been known to lie, I reasoned out
.
.
Many a lover has also been hailed as a fool. I went down on my knees and placing Mr.B on the balcony of my desk, I started to serenade. Patiently I continued to croon, chanting it over and over again until my throat was sore and until all I could see was a big red dot before my eyes. My patience paid off. Slowly, but surely, the still red form began to stir. From under its velvety spongy surface, one by one, the miniscule legs gently unfolded themselves- gradually, as if it had all the time in the world. Hearkening to my excited voice, which had doubled in speed by now, Mr.B finally began its leisurely crawl. With spindly legs in gentle motion, it started to creep towards me. I watched it in fascination, intrigued by its tender progress. I put out my hand on the edge of the table so it could continue its journey over me. When Mr.B first came in contact with the alien touch, it again recoiled. But with my tender persuasion and repeated renditions of the charismatic song, it again unfurled itself and continued its ruby red trail on the handpath.
After the initial overture was taken care of, there were many such moving moments between us. Plenty of tender touching too! Until one day…….when I found the empty matchbox lying half open on my desk. My brother Faiyaz, who stood there with a devilish grin on his evil face casually informed me that he had forgotten to close the box. When I insisted that it couldn’t have gone very far, he said that probably Mummy had mistaken it for a cherry and used it on the cake.
Then I knew. Recently I had had a fight with him and I knew. When I burst into tears, the cherrynapper appeared a bit shaken. He went to fetch the cherry but when amateurs attempt such abductions the plan usually gets foiled. It was nowhere to be found. I even saw the little rascal outside on all fours, desperately scanning the green grass for another one. But there had been no rains of late. The weather was dry and withered- as dry and withered as the feelings in my little heart. And till the following year there were no more of those cherubic cherries that came crawling to my songs. Of course by the time the cycle of three hundred and sixty five days was complete I had found another amusement to busy my seven year old self with.
That was Beerba Boti, one of my first crushes as a child. Why is it, I often wonder, that we find no such cuddly little red friends anymore? Have they gone extinct from Nature’s hamper? Or is it that they lie, well concealed within the bosom of the earth and we have neither the time nor the inclination to find them? Or have the present generation of kids, with their Idiot and Intellectual boxes evolved to a Super Intelligent race? Have these Superkids neither time nor the tendency to bask in the warmth of a natural world? Have they discovered their first, their last and their only love amidst the synthetic inner surroundings?
Even if this were true, I for one can never agree with this weird logic. How can one equate the cold, calculating and compact buttons of keyboards and remotes with those simple warm and velvety ones called Beerba Botis? 
Nargis Natarajan
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