::::::::: Its My LifE :::::::::

Yesterday I had an unusual experience-I met an OWL, feel in love with it and then had to let it go.

I have saved many creatures of the wild before-once I picked a puppy who fell in the drain and nursed it for several days, same happened with a kitten also, have saved a couple of bird fledglings but they never made it, once while trekking I found a non-poisonous injured snake which I picked up and later in the day gave away to the zoo authorities, then there have been numerous ants, butterflies, cows, stray dogs, snails, earthworms, etc.-I don’t know whether I am interfering with the food chain, but that’s what I do.

While talking on the phone to my mother, I suddenly saw something fall from the tree in front of our hostel.
At first I did not pay any attention to it, but then out of nowhere hundreds of crows appeared-its then that after paying closer attention I realized that it was an OWL!!

The first thing that came to my mind was calling rkr-since he is also involved in animal protection activities, but guys of my insti., being the nocturnal creatures they are-he was in deep sleep so it was useless.
Then I saw two other guys sj and sr going from there-I shouted “save it”, but the reply I got was-“its an owl”-I wanted to shout back,”yeah I know, now do something about it”-but all they did was turned a deaf ear towards me, called out to the owl as if it were a dog and walked away.

I was furious at the stupidity of everyone, so I just ran downstairs in my night suit and picked it up before the crows could kill it-it was so big, so furry, so soft, so frightened, so beautiful, and above all so sleepy….it could not even open its eyes.
Despite searching for an appropriate place to hide it, I found none, so took it to the girl’s gym which is adjacent to my room.

By that time other girls of my wing had also come together.Abhilasha and I tried to create a nest out of newspaper (though I am not sure if owls live in nests or not) and put O (that’s what I named it) on it, O instantly fell to sleep.

As girls started coming in, so did their stupid question, are people simply stupid or do they pretend to be so, I find it difficult to understand. Here are some comments they made:
*Owls are bad omen
*Owl! Owl!, I have never seen one in my life
*Oh its shit is yellow in colour, the white shit doing owls are good omen
*Its colour is changing, does it have a disease
*Why is it sleeping now
*Let us give it to the zoo; we can make some money out of it…….

“Oh god, just save me from these ullus”, was the only prayer I made.

Anyways Abhi and I just stuck to our posts in the gym, studying, chatting softly not to disturb O, but majority of the time we just kept staring at O, I really can’t explain the feeling of sitting close to an owl-it’s just so different.

At around 5pm it started moving around the gym, still sleepy though as it could not walk straight and had its eyes still half-closed. I offered it water and some cake but O was in no mood for any of it. At 6:30pm we decided it was time to let O fly away.

I carried O to a small clearing near the college, put it down on the grass and walked away. Then something unbelievable happened, it walked back to where I was standing-this happened twice-was it frightened or did it get too attached to me (because I did), I really don’t know.
But it had to go for its own good-finally I left O on the grass, patted its head, said some encouraging words and then it finally flew away-with its wings open we realized how big O really was……….nearly 2mts.from one end to the other.

GORGEOUS-yeah that’s what it really was.

Late that night I stood in the corridor waiting patiently to get one glimpse of O-probably next time.