When I talked about vermiculture, particularly about mixing cowdung with soil, sometimes the girls and boys would find it distasteful and would make jokes about it or laugh at the idea and I would think that these are city kids and they don't know anything about cowdung. But still I would continue to explain how a vermipit can be set up in their homes.
On snakes, I would first give general information about poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and how to identify the poisonous ones. Then I would tell them what should be done if someone got a snake bite. I would also discuss the various beliefs that people have about snakes and which of them are myths. Depending on the time left, I would speak about other things too, like crocodiles, turtles or spiders.
At the end of the class, I would show them croc teeth, photos of myself with snakes, crocs, monitors, etc., and then my red-eared turtle that I always carried around with me in my bag. At this point there would be maximum excitement. Everyone would crowd around, some would ask to hold the turtle and they would ask questions about its eating habits etc. I would allow them to touch the shell and nothing more because the turtle is very nasty and bites. In this fashion I took workshops at several other schools including National English School, Sindhi School, St. Mary's School, Bolivian Girls School and Bangalore International School. I usually spoke to the students of Class VII to X. At Bangalore International School however the workshop was for the students of Class III and IV.
A few months later back in Goa I was pleased when the postman handed me a registered letter from NIE, Bangalore which contained a cheque for Rs.1075, my full earnings for giving the lectures. Later when I wrote an article on my one year sabbatical for the Hindustan Times I sent a copy to NIE and they too published it in their newsletter. Newspaper in Education has also invited me to take more workshops whenever I am in Bangalore.
Bangalore was very enjoyable in many other ways as well. One morning I went to a swimming pool with Kalia and got the shock of my life on jumping into the water; it was freezing cold! I resolved never to try swimming in Bangalore in the winter again.
I ate out often especially during the day and tried out various small eating joints (Bangalore has plenty of them), sampling South Indian food, vegetable cutlets, milk shakes and so on. Of course, I constantly had to watch my purse, for my budget did not allow lavish eating. Sometimes I went to a book shop, sometimes I did small errands for Bing and Ujwala, and I recall helping Bing with the cooking on at least two occasions and occasionally helping Ujwala with her garden.
I also used to accompany Bing and Ujwala and their two kids on family outings. Once we went to a lake called Sanki Tank where I enjoyed motorboat rides and then played with Zuri and Zaeer in a small children's park. Another time, we all went to see a dance performance that I didn't understand too much about. Sometimes we all just went out for a drive (I enjoyed these rides best) and then would have ice-cream cones on the way home.
I must tell you how I learnt to eat vegetables. I have generally disliked vegetables as far as I can remember. My mum tells me that she regularly fed me vegetables as a baby and we have always had one or two vegetables on the table at home for any meal. Still I would generally refuse vegetables and preferred to stick to fish curry and rice, our staple food in Goa.
When I was starting on my travels my parents warned me that in several places the food would be only vegetarian, and that did happen to be the case. During the year I learnt how to eat all types of food at different people's houses. But I stuck to veggies I could tolerate like cabbage and potatoes or I would eat the dhal and rice with pickles. I had still not started eating vegetables like ladyfinger and brinjal. Bing found out about this when chatting with me and said that he hated anybody making a fuss about food. So everyday while eating he would put a huge helping of vegetables on my plate. Especially the ones I didn't like, like tomatoes, brinjal and ladyfinger.
I would finish the vegetables first so that I could enjoy the better part of the meal i.e. the meat or fish without having to deal with the veggies. But no sooner had I finished the vegetables, he would say: "Oh lovely, you like this vegetable? Have another helping!" and despite my protests I would get another huge helping of vegetable. In this way I would eat about three times the quantity of vegetables as I took the first time before I finally ended my meal.