Janaki Lenin > Quotes

“If you live on a farm, there is definite peer pressure to grow something.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Fly agaric mushrooms are the pretty, red-capped, candy-like toadstools that innocently illustrate many children’s books. Despite their alarming don’t-eat-me colours, reindeer do eat them and get as high as kites. Since most of the toxins are filtered by the animals’ kidneys, drinking their urine is apparently safer than eating the mushrooms. And that is what high-seeking herders in Northern Europe and Asia do.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“On a recent visit to Yercaud, we met a couple who had an orchard. I asked, ‘What do you do to make trees flower?’ He went through the usual – watering and fertilizing. And then his demeanour became more serious and he suggested that when all else fails, I ought to beat and scold the tree. A jack tree in his garden wasn’t flowering for many years. One night, when his neighbours couldn’t see him, he whacked the tree with an old broom while berating it for not flowering. ‘You have to do it seriously, angrily. You cannot laugh,’ he cautioned. ‘And it worked,’ he summed up triumphantly.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“The plants, that several of you believe will keep snakes away, just do not exist. There is no other way of discouraging the creatures from taking up residence than keeping the farm, garden or yard mowed and clear of piles of firewood, rubble and junk. Needless to say, there are likely to be occasional wandering snakes, so there is no substitute for being alert.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“I also learned that there was always plenty of time later to wallow in one’s comfort zone, but this moment, when an option presents itself, may never come again . . . so grab it.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Firearms and snakes, like guns and booze, usually don’t go well together. While out in the woods, an Iranian hunter came upon a snake, and the report wasn’t clear if he was trying to catch or kill it. He used the butt of his rifle to pin the snake’s head. As most snake people will tell you, when you do that the tail feels around seeking a purchase. In this case, it accidentally found the trigger, and shot the hunter fatally in the head.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“If we can collectively recall our evolutionary history, acknowledge our dependence on the ecosystem functions sustained by biodiversity and behave as if we believe in it, then Earth . . . and we . . . will survive.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“When a range of deadly pathogens, including HIV and West Nile virus, were introduced, antibodies in alligator blood destroyed them. Being a close relative, gharial probably had a similarly tough constitution.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“It was a responsibility-free relationship; the pet frog didn’t expect me to walk, feed, or train him.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“In the ninth century, Ethiopian shepherds noticed their flocks acting unusually frisky after eating wild red berries in the highlands. Those plants were domesticated and coffee is now cultivated in 80 countries. Today, it is said to be the most traded commodity after crude oil. Every year, 400 billion cups of the beverage are drunk by people seeking a caffeine fix. Others prefer caffeinated tea or soft drinks for the same reason – to attain a heightened state of alertness. Ironically, the cup we drink to refresh ourselves when our energies flag is an alkaloid produced by plants to put to sleep insects that have designs on their seeds. In other words, we are addicted to an insecticide that evolved to paralyze and kill.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Every now and then, reptiles reveal a miraculous facility that takes my breath away. One such talent that some species possess is to reproduce without a male partner, which scientists call ‘parthenogenesis’ (Greek for ‘virgin birth’). Females of the little house geckos found in our homes can give birth without males.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Plants, like other living beings, don’t want to be eaten. Even if they can’t run away from their predators, they are far from helpless. Some acacias draft ants to fight their battles. They secrete sweet-tasting sap to encourage the insects to take up residence in their branches. Should a herbivore attack the tree, the bite-happy creatures mount a formidable defence and chase the animal away.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Almost overnight I switched strategy to positive reinforcement – reward good behaviour and ignore the bad. If a not-yet-house-trained puppy does his job in the garden, he gets cuddled and praised. But if he has an accident inside the house, I just clean up. No anger, no shouting, no whacking. To my astonishment, the dogs learnt very quickly.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Like all naïve wildlife conservationists, we were namby-pamby, soft-hearted primates destined to lose the war against our ‘lesser’ cousins.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“Others such as the butterfly lizard in Vietnam and the New Mexico whiptail lizard in the US have gone one step further and completely eliminated males from their populations. No males have ever been found.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“For decades, Haast has been immunizing himself to elapid (like cobras, kraits and coral snakes) venom by regularly injecting a very dilute cocktail of venoms. The process is called mithridatization after King Mithridates VI of ancient Turkey who was apparently the first to try it.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals

“what compels us humans to gobble and destroy our way through Earth’s resources until there is no tomorrow?’ The answer is that we have forgotten how we became human beings, how we evolved with and depended upon other species.”
― Janaki Lenin, My Husband & Other Animals