I like to think theres more to a donkey than just floppy ears and liquid eyes. They seem to me, rather bright and intelligent creatures. When they're not smelling the flowers, they're chomping on them. That in my world is having your cake and eating it too.

Brings back fond memories of amma's garden. With its boughs of purple-pink bougainvillae, crawling vines of jasmine, cheery orange-yellow dahlias and proliferating white lilies in a corner blue-tiled pool. One summer, I remember the apple tree was bowed down with fruit. The wind would carry a whiff of saccharine promise all the way up to the open window near the roof.

And all I have now is neatly cemented walkways and black tar roads. How do people learn to live so easily without wet grass?

Donkeys are a joyous lot.