Pet Caterpillar

When I say ‘Pet’, what comes to your mind? A dog? Maybe a cat? Perhaps a fish? But did ‘caterpillar’ come to your mind? Probably not. My brother Mihir always wanted a pet dog. For doing anything useful, he would say, “If I do this, will you get me a puppy?” This continued for about 2 years or so. Then, on the day of Dussehra, marigold flowers were brought to make garlands for vehicles. On Dussehra, people worship vehicles and put garlands around them. That day, at least 6 caterpillars came out of the flowers. Caterpillars are known to be great devourers of marigold. Mihir was overjoyed and put all of them into a plastic box. He made all of them his pets. He gave them petals of marigold to eat. I felt kind of happy seeing them crawling. I also remembered the time when my cousin sisters ran for their lives on seeing one. In the box, I saw one green caterpillar was bigger and hairier than the rest. I named it Hairy. Four were small and orange, they seemed like infants. One was green and black, and was a bit long. It was the most active among them. Within an hour, I saw Hairy rushing towards an infant. I was horrified to see what happened next. Hairy chewed into the infant and completely devoured it. A yellow liquid came out of his mouth. Yikes. I had thought of caterpillars to be leaf eating herbivores. Hairy proved me wrong. Then, within minutes, Hairy half-ate another one. Poor caterpillars. I alerted Mihir, who quickly transferred each of them into separate containers. He kept watching them throughout the day. He also wrote his initials, M.T. on Hairy’s back, with a sketch pen. Next day, he became fed up of so many caterpillars, except the green-black one. I don’t know what became of the rest, but Mihir kept the green-black one into the plastic box. He named it ‘Catty’. He gave it a Jamun leaf to eat. Catty had an exceptional speed of eating. The leaf was about 3 cm long and 2 cm broad. The leaf was gone in 12 hours. One hungry caterpillar. I cleaned his box every now and then. Mihir had stopped asking for a dog and Catty always seemed hungry. Mihir started giving it different types of leaves, including a money plant leaf. One day Catty would turn into a moth, or perhaps into a beautiful butterfly. Caterpillars do make nice pets. Next time you think you want a pet, get yourself a pet caterpillar.

-         Manas Trivedi

Catty on a money plant leaf with a half eaten jamun leaf