PET CLUB!

"Pet Club!!! What is that?!"                                                                                                                         "A Pet Library!! A place from where you can bring a pet and keep it for a month. All you need to do is to observe, care and nurture it and after a month's end return it to the Club. Just like the way you return your books in a library, here, while returning you get another pet and continue doing the same for the coming month."                                                                                                                                                       "Wow!!!!" This was my reaction, when Mihirmama said this.                                                                         Tickled with the desire to be with the pets, I started trying hard to convince my parents, in this case Ma. 

"আমার  Barbie চাই  না!!!!" I said.                                                                                                           

 I was only nine then. 

It was on 5th of June 1988, World Environment Day, that one of our city"s most esteemed institutes BITM (Birla Industrial and Technological Museum) launched the First Pet Club of Asia. I along with my family was present at it's inception.                                                         

I believe, I hardly understood what Pet expert Samar Bagchi said in his introductory speech; but I was filled with twinkling dreams to share my space with a whole lots of friends- the Pets. 

But Ma, unlike other situations, went on turning a deaf ear to all the pestering....... "আমি হই  না ! আমি হবো ?!! কি?!!! আমি হবো  তো member??!!!"........                                                             

 It was actually Baba who showed interest and it was for him I stood in the waiting area along with others, longing to take back a pet home! 

Children gathered to take pets home!!!

But Alas!!!!! When my turn came to fetch a pet, I came to know that all the pets have had already been distributed! My desire to be with them, my dream of sharing my space with them, was shattered! But as many believe, 'If you want something badly, the world will conspire for you!!!!' It came to be true this time. How?! I seriously don't know!! May be my earnest desire and dream directed destiny in my favour.  

Just like a film, when a sad me, almost in a slow motion was about to return home, disheartened, my father came rushing, the forms had to be filled! And all of a sudden I became a member of Asia's First Pet Club. That day I happily returned home, with my all time favourite pet- a rabbit. 

Happily returning home with Pets

In the next three to four years, I came back home with good marks in my observation sheet along with immense appreciation for handling pets and caring them so meticulously. I was endowed with certificates, won prizes in competitions based on Nature, Environment and Pets. but I can never forget the day when a little me, came back home with the recognition of being the First Existing Pet Club Member of Asia by the Limca Book Of Records. 

Thank You Destiny to be with me, that time!!!! 

My scrap book tells that my 'adventure' with pets had begun with Pet Club, and truly it was not a petty one!!!!!