Bat

Morning prayers were over and the teams were about to head out for the home-visits on a wet wind-swept day.

James looked excitedly and gestured us to take a look out the window of the JSK centre and into the tree which had been planted by the late Sachin.

What should we see but a bat!

A fruit bat by the look of it - a goodly 30 cms long or so - hanging upside down and shivering with cold.

Though wet and wretched from what being out in the almost incessant torrents of the last 24 hour hours - the bat still retained the amazing beauty and strange wonder to see a furry flying thing.

What struck me most was his fox-like face. But then, just next to it is the claw that is so bird-like - and the folded leathery wing which seems so alien to us ground-bound creatures.