An Entomologist Recalls 

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My mom, a kindergarten teacher, was good at those things, DIYs. When I heard "DYFI" for the first time, I thought it was an organization of hobbyists like my mom.

She could practically make anything out of anything. I wondered whether she bought anything from shops. From light-weight play-bricks, which she made out of  empty cereal cartons by packing them with crumpled newspaper, to all those multi coloured twirling things that hung from the walls and behaved like they had elves in them - all were evidence of her creativity and dexterity. She was good at origami too and the kids in the neighbourhood came flocking to learn it from her.

She sang pretty well. I can't think of the word sleep without recalling her lullabies which she would sing at any time of the day.  Thanks to her, I used to win prizes at poetry recitations even at the district level competitions when I was in high school.

Of all the things she made for me, including the huge blue whale she made from a very large sheet of blue paper, and  a well-cushioned chair (made from a broken radio stand) in which I sat and finished almost all the books in the primary school library, I liked a board game the best.

This board game was based on the life cycle of butterflies. The board was made from old cartons split, flattened and stuck together, then coveted fully with white chart paper; the die was a small lump of beeswax, chiselled to perfection, the dots marked with colourful glass pieces from her discarded earrings.

Apart from giving me many happy evenings with  my mom, dad and elder brother, the board game instilled in me a deep interest in entomology. Through chats during the game, I learned a lot about the magical and symbiotic relationship between flowers and insects, how the flowers reward some insects with honey for carrying their pollen to other flowers, how moths and butterflies leave their eggs on leaves and how the plants play the role of surrogate mothers. Wonderful! The orphaned caterpillars find all they need. Sheltered by the plants, fed on their leaves, wrapped tight in chrysalises they themselves wove! And one day, they too fly away looking for honey, probably looking for their mother too.

Most of this scientific information came from my  dad. My mom also enriched my mind with  mythical stories and melodious poems about butterflies. I envied those winged beauties as they shuttled between lives and worlds, crossing frontiers we never confront.

I particularly remember one evening when, after finishing the board game, my dad went to his study and the rest of us went out to the garden to water the plants. From somewhere a butterfly fluttered in and started going around my mom. All of us were excited and stood still to watch it. It finally perched below her neck, closer to her left breast, still flapping its wings slowly, deliberately. It was tickling her with its legs and feelers. It made her smile, but she managed to stand still till it flew up and away.

My mom is not with us now. She died three years back. Two years back, after he retired, my dad changed part of our garden into a small butterfly park. So far it has not been frequented much by butterflies, only one or two stray ones. Around August, we see one or two groups of them fluttering around in the garden, not exactly in the corner set aside for them. My brother told me that a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope of butterflies. He and I are now too grown up to believe in myths and generally we don't.