It was around 9 in the morning. I was enjoying a cup of tea on my terrace. Just out of sheer curiosity I peeked over my terrace onto the street only to find a tiny baby squirrel lying on the main door of my house. I quickly rushed down to pick it up as it could have easily become the surprise breakfast to a stray dog or a cat. I softly cupped it in my hands and brought it to the cosy ambiance of my home. I cleaned it dry with a soft cloth as it had fallen into the drain from its nest, which perched on the electric pole that stands in front of my house. I could only wonder how much this tiny creature must have struggled to come out of that filthy drain. Despite its feeble size, the baby appeared to be a true fighter. It looked extremely stressed and could not muster up enough energy to jump out of my hands. And after a few minutes, it quietly surrendered itself as somewhere deep inside it knew it was in safe hands.
I always wanted to have a squirrel as a pet, however, it is not easy to have one as they are extremely shy creatures. Being a photographer by profession, I am never away from my camera. And as luck would have it, I now had a wonderful opportunity of capturing some heartwarming pictures of this beautiful baby squirrel, whom I was happily visualising as my prospective squirrel friend.
I went to the medical store and bought a dropper so that I could feed the baby some milk. At such times, YouTube comes handy, as I quickly watched some videos on how to feed a baby squirrel and learnt some easypeasy tricks. I fed it some milk through the dropper which it thoroughly relished. Meanwhile, I shared some of its pictures with my friends, introducing it as my newfound love of my life. They suggested some really quirky names for the baby from Gillu and Hogard to Munna Mushtaq and Brij Pal Gotiya. While some wanted to adopt it, a few wished if it could accompany them on a trip. In no matter of time, it had certainly become quite popular amongst my friends. J
To make it feel more at home, I created a tiny home out of a shoe box, in which I had laid out some cotton and had tenderly placed the baby on it. I made sure to check its condition every now and then while feeding it milk at regular intervals. I was glad that it was responding well and that it now felt comfortable and safe in my company. After a few hours, I noticed it had started playing inside the box while constantly chattering and gathering all its energy back. I took it out of the shoe box and it fearlessly started jumping on my arms and shoulders as if inspecting me and extending a hand of friendship towards me. We clicked some amazing selfies together and I must say it posed like a seasoned model. :D
It had barely come down from my shoulders when I noticed a squirrel approaching towards me. I quickly understood that it was the mother of this cute little baby. I could clearly feel that she was afraid of me but that didn’t stop her from coming close to me. She looked at me intently and then softly touched my hand as if graciously thanking me for saving her baby’s life. I felt a lump in my throat and an indescribable feeling of love and respect for that tiny creature. She checked her baby and kissed her zillion times. It was truly an incredible sight! After showering oodles of love on her baby, the squirrel turned towards me and touched me again and then quietly picked her baby in her mouth and disappeared. Tears trickled down my cheeks experiencing such an amazing moment of unconditional love between a mother and a child. I am so pleased with myself that I could manage to capture this incredible moment in my camera, which would forever hold a special place in my heart. I feel blessed to have been able to save the life of that tiny creature who with its mother reminded me of some really important virtues of lives that we all know of but often forget to practice, sometimes unknowingly and sometimes, perhaps deliberately.


Here is the link to my photography pages, where you can check a few images that I had clicked of the mother and the baby:  https://www.facebook.com/ShutterbugKe...
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