When I caught the ants

When I was small, probably 5 or 6 years old, there were so many nasty things that I used to do.

I and my siblings were a menace in the big house that we had in Kashmir.  It was summer time and I set out to play in the lawn in front of our house. But, instead of going to the lawn I went to my uncle's garage, to check if his scooter was there, and to fake a ride on it (like kids of that age would do), and make noises like vrooom vrooom vroooom vrooom. As I was about to enter the garage I saw a colony of ants at the gate of the garage. I thought to myself it would be a great idea to capture these ants. I ran inside to get a bottle of Chelpark ink pot, with water filled in it.

I started hand picking the ants, and dropping them in that ink pot. The ants started to float on the water, and I didn’t know that they were actually dying. I was elated that I had captured them in my magic bottle. I continued doing this and soon my younger brother joined me too. We continued this till my elder cousin saw us and came near. He asked 'what are you doing’?

To which I valiantly replied that we are capturing the ants and safely storing them in my ink pot. He was taken aback. I asked him, “Why are the ants not moving in the ink pot”? He replied ‘the Ants are dying, in the ink pot filled with water’. I froze for a moment and felt bad that I was not capturing the Ants, I was actually killing them. My cousin took away the ink pot, probably to throw away in a corner of the huge lawn facing our house.