Fortnight of a Life

There is something about falls that makes me so lazy and I end up doing things that I am not supposed to do- like not doing something. I don’t know how much sense the last statement made but that’s the way usually I am when laziness creeps up on me in this wonderful weather. Ironically, the past two weeks have been absolutely hectic cramming up on so much of course content in so less time. But the moment that I get back in the safe environs of my home I always seem to forget all the work behind although technically I should still be working on them!! It’s that time of the year when the winter is at a knocking distance and I am really eager and anxious to get the feel of snow once again. But there was something else that kept me pretty excited in the last 14 days besides my courses and other works.

It had all started at the very first day of the Fall semester. I was a bit late for the day and was rushing to get my hands on the keys to the lab in the office. I just caught the glimpse of a large blue transparent box lying behind the secretary’s chair which on first thought looked like an oversized lunch box to me. On my usual days I would have rushed out with just the thought on the back of my head to ask her about it later in the day. But as I said before, falls bring a certain amount of laziness in me and I often take my own time to complete the things that I am already delayed for. So I turned back and asked her about what it was.

“It’s my new pet” she replied.

I was a bit perplexed, I couldn’t see anything that closely resembled a pet and I was pretty sure that she had not understood that I was asking about the little blue box. But before I could ask her the follow up question she added on to her previous reply.

“A caterpillar” she said in a matter of fact tone as if it was something as normal as a dog or cat that people have!!

I peered in closer to the window and found the little multicolored tiny creature perched atop a brown stick. Satisfied and happy it lay there eating some leaves being fed to it, a lifestyle that I really envied.

“So what happens next?” I asked her.

“It’s going to form a cocoon soon and then spring out into a butterfly in the next 10-12 days” she replied

I took out my phone and snapped a quick photo of the little one and promised her to come and check on it every day. I quickly ran off to my work that was already delayed.

So began my daily ritual of checking on the progress of the little one. We tried to assign it a name but the inability to determine its gender posed a big hurdle and finally we gave up on it, letting the little one enjoy its 4 minutes of fame in anonymity!! It didn’t take long for it to form into a cocoon and that turned out to be something unexpected. I don’t know why but I always had this mental picture of a cocoon to be silky but this one was a small little green pod that was even smaller than the caterpillar in its size. After few days of inactivity I asked my secretary again regarding the timeline.

“Ten more days and we should have the butterfly out” she replied excited. I also made a quick note of the date in my calendar and set an alarm for that.

Ten days later I was right on time to witness the impending metamorphosis but unfortunately the caterpillar was taking its own sweet time to come out the comfortable pouch that it lay in. I came back the next day and it still lay there. The next day we had our very first ever Lab meeting for the semester and as usual I was late for it. I came running in to find my peer looking for me

“The secretary has been looking for you since the morning” she warned me.

As I ran in to the meeting, I made a quick stop at her desk. And there it lay when I had least expected it, the wonderful butterfly now out in its full bloom. With little white dots bordering the majestic yellowish brown wings, it simply looked magnificent. I was fidgeting to get out all the while in the two hour meeting. When I came out to witness the true beauty I realized it was also the time for the worst part- to finally let it out in its natural habitat. I hadn’t expected to feel so profoundly but the moment we let it out in the open the emotions that we were going through was indescribable. For us it had been just 14 days but we had witnessed a major part of the little ones life already and that feeling was overwhelming.

It opened out its wings in the open and moved around very weakly. It finally managed to get a stronghold on one of the branches in a small growth of small shrubs. I moved in the big mess to get a final close up in its new home. The students moving around found it amusing to see a man in formals get into the big outgrowth and some stopped to know the story and have a look too. Just five minutes in the open and then our little butterfly took a flight with its new found strength and went and sat atop the tallest tree in the campus and far from our probing eyes. The flight and its ease made the crowd watching break out into claps.

Finally both of us had to return back into the normal monotony of our lives and as we walked back talking, we agreed upon one thing- this had been one of the most wonderful 14 days of our lives!!