Today only I understood the phrase ‘batman’ in its entirety. Though my village home used to accommodate hundreds of bats, I was never aware of the phrase. In the cities citing ‘a bat’ is very rare. By evening, today a single bat entered my home and I thought of driving it away. But to my surprise it entered into one of the living rooms and started flying like a supersonic jet. I tried my level best to send the uninvited guest out of my home. But to no avail. I used flat pillows and thick bed sheets and books to bat with the bat. The winged creature made me play for more than half an hour. At last I threw a blanket at the bat and to my happiness the bird was trapped. I held it tight for a pose of photograph and let it fly in the wilderness immediately after.
But I have to recollect my village experience I had with my guests’ ilk in the yesteryears. Ours was a home made of lake grass and without windows. Darkness would be omnipresent and hence these blind creatures chose my house as their home. We had yet another home with a roof of burnt tiles for our stay. The ‘bat house’ was used only for storage purposes (of grains and mostly paddy) and hence visited by us less and haunted by these birds more. They made little noise and occupied the unreachable space and were not known for spread of any diseases. Really they are harmless but for they were known for their droppings of identical sizes all over the house. The entire floor, the attic, the lids of earthen pots …every item would be filled with the bats’ black, tiny droppings. At lease once in a week we have to clean the house and it would be a tough task. Other than this harmless harm, nothing they did us to our dislike. Like mad men in anger, they would be flying out and in - umpteen times. I have to tell you that this was long before our JK Rowling’s arrival.
Once we wanted to get rid of these bats and hence my father asked my farm hand to spray the pesticides that we spray on our farm lands. It was a mechanized one and the friend who was pointing the hose at the roof accidentally lowered it and the very heavy poisonous spray entered my father’s nose. He became sick and could recuperate only after a week. Meanwhile the bats became stronger and none of them perished. The bat story came to an end only when we demolished the house.
At this juncture I have to tell you all that the house’s ground area were occupied by the cunning rats. These lovers of grains made my home their habitat for decades. As usual the efforts to kill them or catch them would be tough. However I was considered lucky by my family and was given the task of mixing the poison with any attractive food and place them at vantage points. Invariably my hands lived up to their expectations and at times they would be lying dead in scores the next morning.
Once a kind rat pressed her teeth on me and I have to be taken to a hospital nearby and I had my first injection of my life. I don’t know the reason why these two creatures –the rat and the bat – rhyme with each other. May be they are so close in their facial appearances but for the thin fragile wings of the bat. The bats will be hanging always upside down. I don’t know who gave them such punishment for its life. (Life sentence!)
"Bats represent about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megabats, or flying foxes, and the highly specialized and echolocating microbats.[5]About 70% of bats are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species, such as the fish-eating bat, feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being hematophagous.
Bats are present throughout most of the world, performing vital ecological roles of pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds. Many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are important, as they consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. "
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