UNCLE RAT

It seems that my adventures with this little friends are not over, specially after the AIESEC International office that used to host also a couple of them.

The most extreme one for sure have been the horrible, undesirable visits of Uncle Rat. 'Uncle Rat' is the name (actually is not even funny) that we use to refer to some rats that have dared to enter our house. They have been two so far, in more and less one month. Ok, I can imagine you must be thinking right now: "WTF do you live?" I live in a very clean and normal place, so nothing to do with that ... but it's simply a fact that there is a good number street rats in India, you can see them every now and then specially when you come close to unattended garbage. So, if by any chance you tend to leave windows (if you leave in a 1st of second floor) or doors open for a longer period of time, it's likely the some uncle rats might be atracted to enter your home, specially if good food is to be found inside there.

The cool thing to realize about this is:

THE RAT HERE IS A GOD. SO, even if of course specially girls are afraid of them, you see how specially HINDU people do not really want to kill or harm them, it is just enough to take them out of the house... bit difficult to do without killing them right? Yesterday, when some guys from the neighborhood were helping us to catch one uncle rat (a big one!) and they beasically had the chance to kill the rat, they said that since it was TUESDAY, they could not kill it. In Bombay tuesdays is the day of Ganpati or Ganesha and In Hindu mythology, a rat is the vehicle of Ganesha.

There is also a famous temple in north India, the Karni Mata Temple, where rats are held to be destined for reincarnation as Sadhus, Hindu holy men. The attending priests feed milk and grain, of which the pilgrims also partake, to the animals. Eating food that has been touched by the animals is considered a blessing from god.

Ganesh riding on his mouse.

To finalize, I just want to clarify that when I write about our "rat episodes" I always reffer as "WE", I am literally and technically USELESS in the process to catch it, I simple freak out. That is why in moments of rat hunting, I can dedicate myself to take pictures of the ones that are really solving the problem, as you can see:

Looking for Uncle Rat in the kitchen ...