Bindi Quotes

My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes - the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.

Emily: YOU CAN'T SPEAK AND TYPE AT THE SAME TIME, BINDY! Bindy: Watch me.

You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.

What does it mean?" Emily said, in a low, panicked voice: "What does it mean if a rainbow comes before rain?

Just because people don't love you the way you want, doesn't mean they don't love you the best they can.

The third eye focuses on God, and the bindi signifies piety, reminding you to keep God at the center of your thoughts.

Since God forgives us for all the stupid, thoughtless, mean things we do and say, we should forgive others. If God never forgave anyone, Heaven would be empty." -Bindi

I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes—the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.

Sejal had not thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.

3:12 pm Secretly, I admit, I find many of my classmates annoying. I've often thought to myself, 'Good grief, these people are five-year-olds. Why must I spend my days among them?' But have I ever said such things aloud? No. I have been nothing but generous to them, and kept these thoughts to myself. And how have they repaid me? Have they been grateful or kind? Ho NO!

Bindi, Robert, and I would do our best to make sure that Steve’s light wasn’t hidden under a bushel. It would continue to sine as we worked together to protect all wildlife and all wild places.

The saddest part of the night is when I peel my bindi off my forehead and let it fly into the wind a symbolic parting with a piece of myself.

Sindoor in our partings, bindis on our forehead and dupattas drawn over our faces we sat demurely in a corner. We stole glances at each other's face and were struck by our own beauty. This made us all the more bashful.

I don’t want to freeze my eggs. I don’t want to visit a sperm bank. I don’t want to be a single parent, if I have any choice in the matter. I want a nuclear family. I want to put down roots, to let my seeds germinate, to watch them bloom and flourish. Not one day, if and when I ever fall in love again, but now. While I still have my youth, damn it.

It’s the third eye. When you see a bindi, it reminds you to see life’s greater purpose, the supreme goal of self-realization. In the temples, it still means that. The third eye focuses on God, and the bindi signifies piety, reminding you to keep God at the center of your thoughts.

I know hiding your prejudice behind your ignorance isn’t enough. Because I have been the mom scrambling to provide my four-year-old with a somewhat intelligent, unproblematic answer when he went through a phase of questioning bindis (and fashioning his own replicas out of modeling clay). Ignoring things I don’t understand can’t be an option given that I am guiding the next generation.

Sejal had not often thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.

Hearing the footsteps of his mortality made Steve all the more focused on family. We had a beautiful daughter. Now we wanted a boy. “One of each would be perfect,” Steve said. Seeing the way he played with Bindi made me eager to have another child. Bindi and Steve played together endlessly. Steve was like a big kid himself and could always be counted on for stacks of fun. I had read about how, through nutrition management, it was possible to sway the odds for having either a boy or a girl. I ducked down to Melbourne to meet with a nutritionist. She gave me all the information for “the boy-baby diet.” I had to cut out dairy, which meant no milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, or cream cheese. In fact, it was best to cut out calcium altogether. Also, I couldn’t have nuts, shellfish, or, alas, chocolate. That was the tough one. Maybe having two girls wouldn’t be bad after all. For his part in our effort to skew our chances toward having a boy, Steve had to keep his nether regions as cool as possible. He was gung ho. “I’m going to wear an onion bag instead of underpants, babe,” he said. “Everything is going to stay real well ventilated.” But it was true that keeping his bits cool was an important part of the process, so he made the sacrifice and did his best.

I knew this was the best therapy for him. Surfing at Boulders was downright dangerous, but Steve reveled in the challenge. He surfed with Wes, his best mate in the world. I sat on a rocky point with my eye glued to the camera so I wouldn’t miss a single wave. While Bindi gathered shells and played on the beach under her nanny’s watchful eye, I admired Steve with his long arms and broad shoulders, powerfully paddling onto wave after wave. Not even the Pacific Ocean with its most powerful sets could slow him down. He caught the most amazing barrels I have ever seen, and carved up the waves with such ferocity that I didn’t want the camera to miss a single moment. On the beach in Samoa, while Bindi helped her dad wax his board, I caught a glimpse of joy in eyes that had been so sad.

Bindi and I had been in Oregon for a few days, visiting family, and we planned to catch up with Steve in Las Vegas. But she and I had an ugly incident at the airport when we arrived. A Vegas lowlife approached us, his hat pulled down, big sunglasses on his face, and displaying some of the worst dentistry I’ve ever seen. He leered at us, obviously drunk or crazy, and tried to kiss me. I backed off rapidly and looked for Steve. I knew I could rely on him to take care of any creep I encountered. Then it dawned on me: The creep was Steve. In order to move around the airport without anyone recognizing him, he put on false teeth and changed his usual clothes. I didn’t recognize my own husband out of his khakis. I burst out laughing. Bindi was wide-eyed. “Look, it’s your daddy.” It took her a while before she was sure.

As I write this, I am still waiting for Steve to walk through the door. His sarong still hangs on the bed. His toothbrush is in the bathroom. Reality is sinking in more and more. Bindi and I have a lot of heart-to-heart talks. These seem to help her, just like when she was younger and lost a special koala named Wilson. Wilson died of renal failure and is buried in our backyard. I felt thankful that over the years, I had set the foundation of faith with Bindi. “As hard as it is to understand, there was a reason for all of this,” I told her. “One day it will be clear.” Robert is like a pitiful puppy, and he still waits patiently for his daddy to come home from heaven. I hadn’t been prepared for how devastated Robert would be. Some nights he sits in the bathtub and cries. “I want my daddy,” he says, over and over. It absolutely tears my heart out.

Ertesi sabah dükkanda tek başına mutsuzca dikilirken son derece sade bir kadın müşteri öfkeyle içeri daldı. Mantar süslemeli bir şapkayı kurdelelerinden tutmuş sal­lıyordu. "Şuna bak!" dedi kadın öfkeyle. "Bana bunun Ja­ne Farrier'in Kont'la karşılaştığında taktığı şapka olduğu­nu söylemiştin. Yalancı seni. Benim başıma hiçbir şey gelmedi!" "Hiç şaşırmadım," dedi Sophie, kendini dizginlemeye fırsat bulamadan. "Seninki gibi bir yüzle o şapkayı taka­cak kadar budalaysan, Kral gelip yalvarsa da farkına var­mazsın -tabii seni görür görmez taş kesilmezse." Müşteri küplere bindi. Şapkayı Sophie'ye doğru fırla­tıp hiddetle dükkandan çıktı. Sophie şapkayı dikkatle çöp kutusuna tıktı. Kural belliydi: Soğukkanlılığını kay­ bedersen, müşteriyi kaybedersin. Bu kuralın doğruluğu­nu az önce ispatlamıştı. Ama bunu ne kadar eğlenceli bulduğunu fark etmek onu biraz endişelendirdi.

Five minutes later, Mom followed it up with this: From: Bernadette Fox To: Manjula Kapoor I need a sign made. 8 feet wide by 5 feet high. Here’s what I want it to read: PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING Galer Street Gnats Will Be Arrested and Hauled Off to Gnat Jail Make the sign itself the loudest, ugliest red, and the lettering the loudest, ugliest yellow. I’d like it placed on the western edge of my property line, at the bottom of the hill, which will be accessible once we’ve abated the despised blackberries. Make sure the sign is facing toward the neighbor’s yard. * TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 From: Manjula Kapoor To: Bernadette Fox I am confirming that the sign you would like fabricated is eight feet wide by five feet high. The gentleman I have contracted remarked it is unusually large and seems out of proportion for a residential area. Warm regards, Manjula * From: Bernadette Fox To: Manjula Kapoor You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.

That night Bindi, Steve, and I all curled up in bed together. “As long as we’re together,” Steve said, “everything will be just fine.” It was spooky, and I didn’t want to think about it, but it did indeed seem that Steve got into trouble more when he was off on his own. Around that time, on a shoot in Africa with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, Steve slipped as he rushed to get a shot of a lizard. He put his hand out to catch himself, and placed it down right in the middle of a euphorbia plant. The bush broke into pieces, and the splinters sank deep into Steve’s hand. Kalahari bushmen use the resin of the euphorbia plant to poison-tip their spears. Steve’s arm swelled and turned black. He became feverish and debated whether to go home or to the hospital. He sought the advice of the bushmen who worked with the poisonous resin regularly. “What do you do if you get nailed by this poison?” The bushmen smiled broadly. “We die,” they said. John filmed every step of the way as the skin of Steve’s arm continued to blacken and he rode out the fever. He worried about the residual effects of gangrene. Ultimately, Steve survived, but he felt the effects for weeks afterward. Once again, Steve and I discussed how uneasy we felt when we were apart. Every time we were together on a trip, we knew we’d be okay. When we were apart, though, we shared a disconcerting feeling that was hard to put into words. It made me feel hollow inside. The Africa trip had taken Steve away from us for three weeks, and Bindi had changed so much while he was away. We agreed that we would never be apart from Bindi and that at least one of us would always be with her. I just felt bad for Steve that I had been the lucky one for the past three weeks. He missed her so much. The next documentary would be different.

Ben içeri düştüğümden beri güneşin etrafında on kere döndü dünya. Ona sorarsanız: "Lâfı bile efilmez, mikroskobik bir zaman." Bana sorarsanız: "On senesi ömrümün." Bir kurşun kalemim vardı ben içeri düştüğüm sene. Bir haftada yaza yaza tükeniverdi. Ona sorarsanız: "Bütün bir hayat." Bana sorarsanız: "Adam sen de, bir iki hafta." Katillikten yatan Osman, ben içeri düştüğümden beri, yedi buçuğu doldurup çıktı, dolaştı dışarlarda bir vakit, sonra kaçakçılıktan tekrar düştü içeri, altı ayı doldurup çıktı tekrar, dün mektup geldi, evlenmiş, bir çocuğu doğacakmış baharda. Şimdi on yaşına bastı, ben içeri düştüğüm sene, ana rahmine düşen çocuklar. Ve o yılın titrek, ince, uzun bacaklı tayları, rahat, geniş sağrılı birer kısrak oldular çoktan. Fakat zeytin fidanları hâlâ fidan, hala çocuktur. Yeni meydanlar açılmış uzaktaki şehrimde ben içeri düştüğümden beri. Ve bizim hane halkı bilmediğim bir sokakta görmediğim bir evde oturuyor. Pamuk gibiydi, bembeyazdı ekmek ben içeri düştüğüm sene. Sonra vesikaya bindi, bizim burda, içerde, birbirini vurdu millet yumruk kadar, simsiyah bir tayın için. Şimdi serbestledi yine, fakat esmer ve tatsız. Ben içeri düştüğüm sene, İKİNCİSİ başlamamıştı henüz. Daşav kampında fırınlar yakılmamış, atom bombası atılmamıştı Hiroşima'ya. Boğazlanan bir çocuğun kanı gibi aktı zaman. Sonra kapandı resmen o fasıl, şimdi ÜÇÜNCÜDEN bahsediyor Amerikan doları. Fakat gün ışıdı her şeye rağmen ben içeri düştüğümden beri. Ve "Karanlığın kenarından ONLAR ağır ellerini kaldırımlara basıp doğruldular" yarı yarıya. Ben içeri düştüğümden beri güneşin etrafında on kere döndü dünya. Ve aynı ihtirasla tekrar ediyorum yine, ben içeri düştüğüm sene ONLAR için yazdığımı: "Onlar ki toprakta karınca suda balık havada kuş kadar çokturlar, korkak, cesur, cahil, hakîm ve çocukturlar, ve kahreden yaratan ki onlardır, şarkılarımda yalnız onların mâceraları vardır." Ve gayrısı, meselâ benim on sene yatmam, lâfü güzaf.

Over the course of two years, from June 2004 to June 2006, two separate deaths did nothing to ease my overall anxiety. Steve’s beloved Staffordshire bull terrier Sui died of cancer in June 2004. He had set up his swag and slept beside her all night, talking to her, recalling old times in the bush catching crocodiles, and comforting her. Losing Sui brought up memories of losing Chilli a decade and a half earlier. “I am not getting another dog,” Steve said. “It is just too painful.” Wes, the most loyal friend anyone could have, was there for Steve while Sui passed from this life to the next. Wes shared in Steve’s grief. They had known Sui longer than Steve and I had been together. Two years after Sui’s death, in June 2006, we lost Harriet. At 175, Harriet was the oldest living creature on earth. She had met Charles Darwin and sailed on the Beagle. She was our link to the past at the zoo, and beyond that, our link to the great scientist himself. She was a living museum and an icon of our zoo. The kids and I were headed to Fraser Island, along the southern coast of Queensland, with Joy, Steve’s sister, and her husband, Frank, our zoo manager, when I heard the news. An ultrasound had confirmed that Harriet had suffered a massive heart attack. Steve called me. “I think you’d better come home.” “I should talk to the kids about this,” I said. Bindi was horrified. “How long is Harriet going to live?” she asked. “Maybe hours, maybe days, but not long.” “I don’t want to see Harriet die,” she said resolutely. She wanted to remember her as the healthy, happy tortoise with whom she’d grown up. From the time Bindi was a tiny baby, she would enter Harriet’s enclosure, put her arms around the tortoise’s massive shell, and rest her face against her carapace, which was always warm from the sun. Harriet’s favorite food was hibiscus flowers, and Bindi would collect them by the dozen to feed her dear friend. I was worried about Steve but told him that Bindi couldn’t bear to see Harriet dying. “It’s okay,” he said. “Wes is here with me.” Once again, it fell to Wes to share his best mate’s grief.

Bindi the Jungle Girl aired on July 18, 2007, on ABC (Channel 2) in Australia, and we were so proud. Bindi’s determination to carry on her father’s legacy was a testament to everything Steve believed in. He had perfectly combined his love for his family with his love for conservation and leaving the world a better place. Now this love was perfectly passed down to his kids. The official beginning of Bindi’s career was a fantastic day. All the time and effort, and joy and sorrow of the past year culminated in this wonderful series. Now everyone was invited to see Bindi’s journey, first filming with her dad, and then stepping up and filming with Robert and me. It was also a chance to experience one more time why Steve was so special and unique, to embrace him, to appreciate him, and to celebrate his life. Bindi, Robert, and I would do our best to make sure that Steve’s light wasn’t hidden under a bushel. It would continue to sine as we worked together to protect all wildlife and all wild places. After Bindi’s show launched, it seemed so appropriate that another project we had been working on for many months came to fruition. We found an area of 320,000 acres in Cape York Peninsula, bordered on one side by the Dulcie River and on the other side by the Wenlock River--some of the best crocodile country in the world. It was one of the top spots in Australia, and the most critically important habitat in the state of Queensland. Prime Minister John Howard, along with the Queensland government, dedicated $6.3 million to obtaining this land, in memory of Steve. On July 22, 2007, the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve became official. This piece of land means so much to the Irwin family, and I know what it would have meant to Steve. Ultimately, it meant the protection of his crocodiles, the animals he loved so much. What does the future hold for the Irwin family? Each and every day is filled with incredible triumphs and moments of terrible grief. And in between, life goes on. We are determined to continue to honor and appreciate Steve’s wonderful spirit. It lives on with all of us. Steve lived every day of his life doing what he loved, and he always said he would die defending wildlife. I reckon Bindi, Robert, and I will all do the same. God bless you, Stevo. I love you, mate.

Aydın Boysan (2015): "Bir zamanlar İstanbul’un nufusu 600 bindi. Şişli’den Boğaziçi’ne doğru yola çıktığımızda bir anda ıssız yerlerde bulurduk kendimizi." "Eskiden insanlar birbirine yakındı. Hayat mahallede yaşanırdı. Sevinçlerimizi, hüzünlerimizi, bayramlarımızı, hastalıklarımızı birlikte yaşardık. Mahallede yaşayanlar birbirlerini tanırdı. Tanımayanların da göz aşinalığı vardı, selamlaşırlardı." "Dünyanın pekçok kentini gördüm ama bunların hangisi İstanbul’a benzer sorusunun yanıtı zor. Başka kentleri İstanbul’la kıyaslamak doğru olmaz. 5 kıtada bulundum ama İstanbul dışında bir yerde yaşamayı düşünmedim. Çünkü yaşadığım yerden şikayetçi değilim.

As negotiations seemed to be grinding to a halt, we were all feeling frustrated. Steve looked around at John, Judi, and the others. He could see that everybody had gotten a bit stretched on all our various projects. He decided we needed a break. He didn’t lead us into the bush this time. Instead, Steve said a magic word. “Samoa.” “Sea snakes?” I asked. “Surfing,” he said. He planned a ten-day shoot for a surfing documentary. Steve loved surfing almost as much as he loved wildlife. The pounding his body had taken playing rugby, wrestling crocs, and doing heavy construction at the zoo had left him with problem knees and a bad shoulder. He felt his time tackling some of the biggest surf might be nearing an end. In Samoa, Steve didn’t spend just a few hours out in the waves. He would be out there twelve to fourteen hours a day. I didn’t surf, but I was awestruck at Steve’s ability to stare down the face of a wave that was as high as a building. He had endurance beyond any surfer I had ever seen. Steve had a support boat nearby, so he could swim over, get hydrated, or grab a protein bar. But that was it. He didn’t stop for lunch. He would eat breakfast, surf all day, and then eat a big dinner. I knew this was the best therapy for him. Surfing at Boulders was downright dangerous, but Steve reveled in the challenge. He surfed with Wes, his best mate in the world. I sat on a rocky point with my eye glued to the camera so I wouldn’t miss a single wave. While Bindi gathered shells and played on the beach under her nanny’s watchful eye, I admired Steve with his long arms and broad shoulders, powerfully paddling onto wave after wave. Not even the Pacific Ocean with its most powerful sets could slow him down. He caught the most amazing barrels I have ever seen, and carved up the waves with such ferocity that I didn’t want the camera to miss a single moment. On the beach in Samoa, while Bindi helped her dad wax his board, I caught a glimpse of joy in eyes that had been so sad.

The day before we headed out was an unusually warm day. Shasta had a hard time of it. Bindi wrapped her in wet towels to help her cool off. Every few minutes she would raise her head and bark a bit. The last couple of years, Shasta’s back had been out so bad that I would wheelbarrow her around. She always liked sleeping in the car. I think it made her excited to be going on a trip. That night she seemed so restless that I put her in the car and kissed her good night. I knew she’d be happiest there. In the morning, we were off to our first official day of filming the movie. Steve put the last few things together in the zoo. I went out to get Shasta organized for staying with a friend. She was still asleep. “Good morning, lazybones,” I said. I bent down to give her a kiss on the forehead. Then I realized she wasn’t there. Sometime during the night, Shasta had died. She was seventeen and a half years old, the only dog I ever had. She went through nine months of quarantine to join me in Australia. She had been a loyal friend and an excellent guard dog. Bindi and I said good-bye to Shasta together. We discussed the circle of life and collected a few of Shasta’s favorite things. She would be buried with her favorite blanket. I knew I’d never have another dog. Now Sui was the only dog in the family.

He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation.

It was a Sunday at the end of November, which meant summertime in Australia. My water broke at night, and this time I knew what was coming. I remember thinking, There’s no turning back now. Immediately after my water broke, the contractions started. I had been sleeping in Bindi’s room because I was so awkward and uncomfortable that I kept waking everybody up. Plus, Bindi loved being able to snuggle down in bed with her daddy. I crept into their room quietly. As I stood beside the bed, I leaned in next to Steve’s ear. I could feel his breath. He smelled warm and sweet and familiar. He is going to be a daddy again, I thought, his favorite job in the world. When I whispered “Steve,” he opened his eyes without moving. Bindi slept on at his side. It was about midnight, and I told Steve that we didn’t have to leave for the hospital yet, but it would be soon. Once he was satisfied that I was okay, I headed back to Bindi’s bed to get some rest. Throughout our life together, I never knew what Steve was going to say next. True to form, he came to my bedside, not long after I lay down, and said, “I’m putting my foot down.” “What?” “The baby is going to be named Robert Clarence Irwin if it’s a boy,” he said. Robert after his dad, Bob, and Clarence after my dad. “You don’t need to put your foot down,” I whispered to him. “I think it’s a beautiful name.” When my contractions were four minutes apart, I knew it was time to head to the hospital. It was five o’clock in the morning. Steve got everything organized to take me. Of course, one of the things he grabbed was a camera. He was determined that we would capture everything on film. We called Trevor, our friend and cinematographer who had filmed Bindi’s birth, to meet us at the hospital, and Thelma, Bindi’s nanny, came over to get her off to school. As we drove in the car, Steve filmed me from the driver’s seat. As he shot, the Ute slowly edged toward the side of the road. He looked up, grabbed the wheel, and corrected the steering. Then he went back to filming and the whole thing happened again. After two or three veers, I had had enough. “Stop filming,” I yelled. He quickly put the camera down. I think he realized that this was no time to argue with mama bear.

That trip was epic. Every day was an adventure. Bindi sat down for her formal schooling at a little table under the big trees by the river, with the kookaburras singing and the occasional lizard or snake cruising through camp. She had the best scientists from the University of Queensland around to answer her questions. I could tell Steve didn’t want it to end. We had been in bush camp for five weeks. Bindi, Robert, and I were now scheduled for a trip to Tasmania. Along with us would be their teacher, Emma (the kids called her “Miss Emma”), and Kate, her sister, who also worked at the zoo. It was a trip I had planned for a long time. Emma would celebrate her thirtieth birthday, and Kate would see her first snow. Steve and I would go our separate ways. He would leave Lakefield on Croc One and go directly to rendezvous with Philippe Cousteau for the filming of Ocean’s Deadliest. We tried to figure out how we could all be together for the shoot, but there just wasn’t enough room on the boat. Still, Steve came to me one morning while I was dressing Robert. “Why don’t you stay for two more days?” he said. “We could change your flight out. It would be worth it.” When I first met Steve, I made a deal with myself. Whenever Steve suggested a trip, activity, or project, I would go for it. I found it all too easy to come up with an excuse not to do something. “Oh, gee, Steve, I don’t feel like climbing that mountain, or fording that river,” I could have said. “I’m a bit tired, and it’s a bit cold, or it’s a bit hot and I’m a bit warm.” There always could be some reason. Instead I decided to be game for whatever Steve proposed. Inevitably, I found myself on the best adventures of my life. For some reason, this time I didn’t say yes. I fell silent. I thought about how it would work and the logistics of it all. A thousand concerns flitted through my mind. While I was mulling it over, I realized Steve had already walked off. It was the first time I hadn’t said, “Yeah, great, let’s go for it.” And I didn’t really know why.

Steve and I would go our separate ways. He would leave Lakefield on Croc One and go directly to rendezvous with Philippe Cousteau for the filming of Ocean’s Deadliest. We tried to figure out how we could all be together for the shoot, but there just wasn’t enough room on the boat. Still, Steve came to me one morning while I was dressing Robert. “Why don’t you stay for two more days?” he said. “We could change your flight out. It would be worth it.” When I first met Steve, I made a deal with myself. Whenever Steve suggested a trip, activity, or project, I would go for it. I found it all too easy to come up with an excuse not to do something. “Oh, gee, Steve, I don’t feel like climbing that mountain, or fording that river,” I could have said. “I’m a bit tired, and it’s a bit cold, or it’s a bit hot and I’m a bit warm.” There always could be some reason. Instead I decided to be game for whatever Steve proposed. Inevitably, I found myself on the best adventures of my life. For some reason, this time I didn’t say yes. I fell silent. I thought about how it would work and the logistics of it all. A thousand concerns flitted through my mind. While I was mulling it over, I realized Steve had already walked off. It was the first time I hadn’t said, “Yeah, great, let’s go for it.” And I didn’t really know why. Steve drove us to the airstrip at the ranger station. One of the young rangers there immediately began to bend his ear about a wildlife issue. I took Robert off to pee on a bush before we had to get on the plane. It was just a tiny little prop plane and there would be no restroom until we got to Cairns. When we came back, all the general talk meant that there wasn’t much time left for us to say good-bye. Bindi pressed a note into Steve’s hand and said, “Don’t read this until we’re gone.” I gave Steve a big hug and a kiss. Then I kissed him again. I wanted to warn him to be careful about diving. It was my same old fear and discomfort with all his underwater adventures. A few days earlier, as Steve stepped off a dinghy, his boot had gotten tangled in a rope. “Watch out for that rope,” I said. He shot me a look that said, I’ve just caught forty-nine crocodiles in three weeks, and you’re thinking I’m going to fall over a rope? I laughed sheepishly. It seemed absurd to caution Steve about being careful. Steve was his usual enthusiastic self as we climbed into the plane. We knew we would see each other in less than two weeks. I would head back to the zoo, get some work done, and leave for Tasmania. Steve would do his filming trip. Then we would all be together again. We had arrived at a remarkable place in our relationship. Our trip to Lakefield had been one of the most special months of my entire life. The kids had a great time. We were all in the same place together, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We were all there.

Steve drove us to the airstrip at the ranger station. One of the young rangers there immediately began to bend his ear about a wildlife issue. I took Robert off to pee on a bush before we had to get on the plane. It was just a tiny little prop plane and there would be no restroom until we got to Cairns. When we came back, all the general talk meant that there wasn’t much time left for us to say good-bye. Bindi pressed a note into Steve’s hand and said, “Don’t read this until we’re gone.” I gave Steve a big hug and a kiss. Then I kissed him again. I wanted to warn him to be careful about diving. It was my same old fear and discomfort with all his underwater adventures. A few days earlier, as Steve stepped off a dinghy, his boot had gotten tangled in a rope. “Watch out for that rope,” I said. He shot me a look that said, I’ve just caught forty-nine crocodiles in three weeks, and you’re thinking I’m going to fall over a rope? I laughed sheepishly. It seemed absurd to caution Steve about being careful. Steve was his usual enthusiastic self as we climbed into the plane. We knew we would see each other in less than two weeks. I would head back to the zoo, get some work done, and leave for Tasmania. Steve would do his filming trip. Then we would all be together again. We had arrived at a remarkable place in our relationship. Our trip to Lakefield had been one of the most special months of my entire life. The kids had a great time. We were all in the same place together, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We were all there. The pilot fired up the plane. Robert had a seat belt on and couldn’t see out the window. I couldn’t lift him up without unbuckling him, so he wasn’t able to see his daddy waving good-bye. But Bindi had a clear view of Steve, who had parked his Ute just outside the gable markers and was standing on top of it, legs wide apart, a big smile on his face, waving his hands over his head. I could see Bindi’s note in one of his hands. He had read it and was acknowledging it to Bindi. She waved frantically out the window. As the plane picked up speed, we swept past him and then we were into the sky.

Steve was his usual enthusiastic self as we climbed into the plane. We knew we would see each other in less than two weeks. I would head back to the zoo, get some work done, and leave for Tasmania. Steve would do his filming trip. Then we would all be together again. We had arrived at a remarkable place in our relationship. Our trip to Lakefield had been one of the most special months of my entire life. The kids had a great time. We were all in the same place together, not only physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We were all there. The pilot fired up the plane. Robert had a seat belt on and couldn’t see out the window. I couldn’t lift him up without unbuckling him, so he wasn’t able to see his daddy waving good-bye. But Bindi had a clear view of Steve, who had parked his Ute just outside the gable markers and was standing on top of it, legs wide apart, a big smile on his face, waving his hands over his head. I could see Bindi’s note in one of his hands. He had read it and was acknowledging it to Bindi. She waved frantically out the window. As the plane picked up speed, we swept past him and then we were into the sky.

We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong. Standing there next to this impressive animal, I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that people had wanted him dead. His huge, intimidating teeth made him look primeval, and his osteodermal plates gleamed black in the sun--a dinosaur, living here among us. I felt so emotional, contemplating the fear-based cruelty that prompted humans to hate these animals. For his part, Acco still remembered his capture, even though it had happened nearly a decade before. Whenever Steve went into his enclosure, Acco would stalk him and strike, exploding out of the water with the intent to catch Steve unaware. Despite the conflict in Steve’s soul over whether he had done the right thing, I decided that Acco’s capture had to be. In the zoo, Acco had his own territory to patrol and a beautiful female crocodile, Connie, who loved him dearly. Left in the wild, somebody would have eventually shot him. If the choice is between a bullet and living in the Crocodile Environmental Park, I think his new territory was much more preferable. When I met Steve in 1991, he had just emerged from a solid decade in the bush, either with Bob or on his own, with just his dog Chilli, and later Sui. Those years had been like a test of fire. As a boy all Steve wanted to do was to be like his dad. At twenty-nine he’d become like Bob and then some. He had done so much more than catch crocs. In the western deserts, he and Bob helped researchers from the Queensland Museum understand the intricacies of fierce snake behavior. Steve also embarked on a behavioral study of a rare and little-understood type of arboreal lizard, the canopy goanna, scrambling up into trees in the rain forests of Cape York Peninsula in pursuit of herpetological knowledge. As much as Steve had become a natural for television, over the course of the 1980s he had become a serious naturalist as well. His hands-on experience, gleaned from years in the bush, meshed well with the more abstract knowledge of the academics. No one had ever accomplished what he had, tracking and trapping crocodiles for months at a time on his own. He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation. Later on, that Irwin family tradition would bring Steve untold grief, when outsiders misjudged his effort to educate his children and crucified him for it.

When I met Steve in 1991, he had just emerged from a solid decade in the bush, either with Bob or on his own, with just his dog Chilli, and later Sui. Those years had been like a test of fire. As a boy all Steve wanted to do was to be like his dad. At twenty-nine he’d become like Bob and then some. He had done so much more than catch crocs. In the western deserts, he and Bob helped researchers from the Queensland Museum understand the intricacies of fierce snake behavior. Steve also embarked on a behavioral study of a rare and little-understood type of arboreal lizard, the canopy goanna, scrambling up into trees in the rain forests of Cape York Peninsula in pursuit of herpetological knowledge. As much as Steve had become a natural for television, over the course of the 1980s he had become a serious naturalist as well. His hands-on experience, gleaned from years in the bush, meshed well with the more abstract knowledge of the academics. No one had ever accomplished what he had, tracking and trapping crocodiles for months at a time on his own. He would hand Bindi and Robert his knowledge of nature and the bush, just as Bob and Lyn had handed it down to him. This is what few people understood about Steve--his relationship with his family, and the tradition of passion and commitment and understanding that passed from generation to generation. Later on, that Irwin family tradition would bring Steve untold grief, when outsiders misjudged his effort to educate his children and crucified him for it.

We decided we didn’t really want to know if we were having a boy or a girl. “Why would you want to know?” I said. “The amount of work you go through in labor--at least you have something to work toward, a big surprise, the payoff at the end.” “Oh, I never found labor difficult at all,” Steve said with a grin. “Sometimes it was painful when you would squeeze my hand a bit hard, but other than that…” He never got a chance to finish. I attacked him. He rolled around the floor, laughing. At one point, we were in the kitchen talking when, out of the blue, Steve changed the subject. “If we have another little girl,” Steve asked, “would you go again?” “Absolutely,” I said, without hesitation. “Bindi is the joy of our lives. I’m sure this little baby will be the same. Boy or girl, I’d go again.

At the hospital, an attendant brought down a wheelchair for me. Steve somehow managed, without a forklift, to get me out of the truck and into the wheelchair. The birth progressed a lot faster than it had with Bindi. I wasn’t worried because I had Steve with me, and I knew everything would be fine, as long as we were together. I pushed like an Olympic baby pusher. I should have gotten the gold for my pushing. I think I pushed until I was nearly inside out. The baby came. Steve said, “It’s a boy!” and brought him to me. I remember my son’s tiny pink mouth. He looked like a baby bird with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He immediately began feeding. Steve cried tears of joy. Once we got settled, the proud papa headed for Sunshine Coast Grammar School to tell Bindi the news. “You’ve got a little brother,” he told her. Bindi was elated, in spite of the fact that she had spent every night saying her prayers for a little sister. Steve brought her to the hospital, where she took her little brother in her arms and looked at him lovingly. “How do you know he’s a boy?” she asked. “Bindi,” Thelma said, “they’re not born with clothes on.” “I think I will name him Brian,” Bindi said. “His name is Robert,” Steve told her. “Oh, well,” Bindi said. “I’m going to call him Brian for short.” It was a Sunday, December 1, 2003, and we had all just received the best Christmas present ever. Robert Clarence Irwin. Baby Bob.

Steve loved showing off his new son. When we brought him home, all the zoo staff welcomed the new arrival. We have always had a good relationship with a group of Buddhist monks from Tibet. They had blessed Bindi when she was a newborn. As Robert celebrated his one-month birthday, we decided to hold a fund-raiser for a Buddhist nun’s convent where the well had dried up. A new well would cost forty thousand dollars. We felt that amount might be achievable in a series of fund-raising events. We invited the nuns to stay at Australia Zoo and planned to hold a fund-raiser at our brand-new Crocoseum, doing our part to help raise some money for the new well. The nuns wished to know if we wanted them to bless the animals while they were at the zoo. “Would you please bless Robert?” we asked. Bindi had been blessed along with the crocodiles when she was a month old. Now we would do the same for Robert. The nuns came into the Crocoseum for the ceremony. I brought a sleepy little Robert, adorned with his prayer flag and a scarf. We invited press to help publicize the plight of the nuns. Robert was very peaceful. The nuns sang, chanted, and gave him their special blessing. The ceremony was over, and the croc show was about to begin. Steve wanted to share Robert’s first crocodile show with everyone at the Crocoseum, as he was going to feed Murray the crocodile. Just as we had done with Bindi at this age, we brought Robert out for the show. Steve talked to the visitors about how proud he was of his son. He pointed out the crocodile to Baby Bob. Although Robert had been in with the crocodiles before, and would be again, this was an event where we could share the moment with everybody. When the croc show was over, Steve brought Robert back underneath the Crocoseum and I put him in his stroller. His eyes were big and he was waving his arms. This event would mark the beginning of a lifetime of working with his father as a wildlife warrior. Steve and Bindi were regulars during the croc shows, and now it looked as though Robert would be joining in as well.

When Steve and I brought Bindi home in July of 1998, we felt complete. Now we were a family, and this beautiful baby girl would add a whole new dimension to our adventures. Sui for her part, was less than thrilled with the new addition to the household, a little crying person the size of a loaf of bread. Sui’s initial reaction reminded me of the reception I got from her when I first arrived. “Listen, Sui,” Steve said, talking to her intently as if she were human. “You need to take care of my little Bindi. You need to help me protect her.” From the expression on her face, it looked like she was thinking, All right, I’ll do it as a favor for you, Stevo, but I’m not that wild about it.

We had been looking at some land adjoining the zoo and decided to purchase it in order to expand. There was a small house on the new property, nothing too grand, just a modest home built of brick, with three bedrooms and one bathroom. We liked the seclusion of the place most of all. The builder had tucked it in behind a macadamia orchard, but it was still right next door to the zoo. We could be part of the zoo yet apart from it at the same time. Perfect. “Make this house exactly the way you want it,” Steve told me. “This is going to be our home.” He dedicated himself to getting us moved in. I knew this would be our last stop. We wouldn’t be moving again. We laid new carpet and linoleum and installed reverse-cycle air-conditioning and heat. Ah, the luxury of having a climate-controlled house. I installed stained-glass windows in the bathroom with wildlife-themed panes, featuring a jabiru, a crocodile, and a big goanna. We also used wildlife tiles throughout, of dingoes, whales, and kangaroos. We made the house our own. We worked on the exterior grounds as well. Steve transplanted palm trees from his parents’ place on the Queensland coast and erected fences for privacy. He designed a circular driveway. As he laid the concrete, he put his own footprints and handprints in the wet cement. Then he ran into the house to fetch Bindi and me. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s all do it.” We grabbed Sui, too, and put her paw prints in, and then did Bindi, who was just eight months old. It took a couple of tries, but we got her handprints and her footprints as well, and then my own. We stood back and admired the time capsule we had created. That afternoon the rains came. The Sunshine Coast is usually bright and dry, but when it rains, the heavens open. We worried about all the concrete we had worked on getting pitted and ruined. “Get something,” Steve shouted, scrambling to gather up his tools. I ran into the house. I couldn’t find a plastic drop cloth quickly enough, so I grabbed one of my best sheets off the bed. As I watched the linen turn muddy and gray in the rain, I consoled myself. In the future I won’t care that I ruined the sheet, I thought. I’ll just be thankful that I preserved our footprints and handprints. “It’s our cave,” Steve said of our new home. We never entertained. The zoo was our social place. Living so close by, we could have easily gotten overwhelmed, so we made it a practice never to have people over. It wasn’t unfriendliness, it was simple self-preservation. Our brick residence was for our family: Steve and me, Bindi, Sui, and Shasta.

Almost as soon as we got our baby home, we packed her up to leave. Bindi was six days old when she embarked on her first film shoot (actually, her second, if you count filming her birth). Steve, Bindi, and I headed off for the United States, with a stop first at Australia’s Double Island to film turtles. We drove through the Double Island sand dunes, spending a day filming on the area’s spectacular beaches. Bindi did marvelously. Some of the four-wheel driving was a bit rough, so I would lean over her capsule in the back of the four-wheel drive, helping to hold her head, so that the bouncing of the truck wouldn’t jostle her around too much. Once we arrived on location, she was absolutely content. Fraser, one of the assistants on the shoot, stayed with Bindi while Steve and I filmed. Then we’d walk around behind the camera to hug and kiss her, and I could feed her. She didn’t squeak or squawk. I swear she seemed to keep quiet when John called out “Rolling!

It felt fantastic to be back filming again, and it made me realize how much I missed it. The crew represented our extended family. I never once caught a feeling of annoyance or impatience at the prospect of having a six-day-old baby on set. To the contrary, the atmosphere was one of joy. I can mark precisely Bindi Irwin’s introduction to the wonderful world of wildlife documentary filming: Thursday, July 30, 1998, in the spectacular subtropics of the Queensland coast, where the brilliant white sand meets the turquoise water. This is where the sea turtles navigate the rolling surf each year to come ashore and lay their eggs. Next stop: America, baby on board. Bindi was so tiny she fit on an airplane pillow. Steve watched over her almost obsessively, fussing with her and guarding to see if anything would fall out of the overhead bins whenever they were opened. Such a protective daddy. Our first shoot in California focused on rattlesnakes and spiders. We got a cute photo of baby Bindi with a little hat on and a brown tarantula on her head. In Texas she got to meet toads and Trans-Pecos rat snakes. Steve found two stunning specimens of the nonvenomous snakes in an abandoned house. I watched as two-week-old Bindi reacted to their presence. She gazed up at the snakes and her small, shaky arms reached out toward them. I laughed with delight at her eagerness. Steve looked over at me, as if to say, See? Our own little wildlife warrior!

Steve was in his element during the Florida shoot. He spotted a coral snake at Eglin, and another huge diamondback. It was stinking hot, like most summers in the southeast. Bindi spent a lot of her time sitting in the air-conditioned vehicle, while one of the crew stayed with her. I would move far enough away so that the camera’s microphone couldn’t pick up the sound of the truck running, film like mad, and then run back to be with her. Bindi always enjoyed being close to Steve. He seemed to both excite her and keep her calm at the same time. He showed her everything that entered his world, all the wildlife, the landscapes, and the people. Even at only a few weeks old, Bindi turned her head when Steve walked past her room. I don’t think she could even see him, but she smelled or somehow sensed his presence. Then she fussed until he came and picked her up. The bond between father and daughter continued to grow stronger.

As much as he influenced her, Bindi changed Steve, too. After our Florida trip, Bindi and I went home, while Steve flew off to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. We couldn’t accompany him because of the malaria risk, so we kept the home fires burning instead. At one point, Steve was filming with orangutans when his newfound fatherhood came in handy. A local park ranger who had worked with the national park’s orangutans for twenty-five years accompanied Steve into the rain forest, where they encountered a mother and baby orangutan. The rangers keep a close eye on the orangutans to prevent poaching, and the ranger recognized a lot of the animals by sight. “She reminds me of Bindi,” Steve exclaimed, seeing the infant ape. It was a mischievous, happy baby, clinging to her mother way up in the top branches of a tree. “This will be great to film,” Steve said. “I’ll climb into the tree, and then you can get me and the orangutans in the same shot.” The ranger waved his hands, heading Steve off. “You absolutely can’t do that,” the ranger said. “The mother orangutans are extremely protective. If you make a move anywhere near that tree, she’ll come down and pull your arms off.” Steve paused to listen. “They are very strong,” the ranger said. “She won’t tolerate you in her tree.” “I won’t climb very close to her,” Steve said. “I’ll just go a little way up. Then the camera can shoot up at me and get her in the background.” The ranger looked doubtful. “Okay, Steve,” he said. “But I promise you, she will come down out of that tree and pull your head off.” “Don’t worry, mate,” Steve said confidently, “she’ll be right.” He climbed into the tree. Down came the mother, just as the ranger had predicted. Tugging, pulling, and dragging her baby along behind her, she deftly made her way right over to Steve. He didn’t move. He sat on his tree limb and watched her come toward him. The crew filmed it all, and it became one of the most incredible shots in documentary filmmaking. Mama came close to Steve. She swung onto the same tree limb. Then she edged her way over until she sat right beside him. Everyone on the crew was nervous, except for Steve. Mama put her arm around Steve’s shoulders. I guess the ranger was right, Steve thought, wondering if he would be armless or headless in the very immediate future. While hanging on to her baby, Mama pulled Steve in tight with her other arm, looked him square in the face, and…started making kissy faces at him. The whole crew busted up laughing as Mama puckered up her lips and looked lovingly into Steve’s eyes. “You’ve got a beautiful little baby, sweetheart,” Steve said softly. The baby scrambled up the limb away from them, and without taking her eyes off Steve, the mother reached over, grabbed her baby, and dragged the tot back down. “You’re a good mum,” Steve cooed. “You take good care of that little bib-bib.” “I have never seen anything like that,” the park ranger said later. I had to believe that the encounter was further evidence of the uncanny connection Steve had with the wildlife he loved so much, as well as one proud parent recognizing another.

Bindi, meanwhile, was blossoming. At just six weeks old, she held her head up and reached for objects. She even tried to scoot around a bit. She pushed with her little legs and worked her way across the bed. When Steve came home from Sumatra, it was obvious how much he had missed his little girl. I had to smile when Steve sat down on the couch with Bindi, telling her of his adventures moment by moment, while she stared intently at him, trying desperately to puzzle out his words. “She really did miss you,” I said. “No, she didn’t,” Steve scoffed. Then he added, his face brightening hopefully, “How could you tell?” I knew the truth. Even as a newborn, Bindi behaved differently when Steve was around. When she saw Steve come home after one of his trips, she got excited and happy and would literally quiver with joy. Steve shared everything with her. He took her around the zoo and introduced her to the wildlife. One day he took her into the enclosure with Agro, one of our biggest crocodiles. A school group had come to the zoo, and they assembled in their neatly pressed uniforms around the enclosure. Bindi squealed with delight and looked intently at Agro. That afternoon Steve did the crocodile demonstration with his daughter cradled in his arms. The school-group visitors looked impressed and perhaps a bit jealous. After the croc show, I noticed Bindi was as alert as I had ever seen her. She was so thrilled. Joining her daddy for the croc demo became something she looked forward to. Sometimes Bindi and I would sit in the enclosure to watch Steve with the crocodiles, and she would cry until he picked her up so she could be part of the action. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I thought.

When Steve came home from Sumatra, it was obvious how much he had missed his little girl. I had to smile when Steve sat down on the couch with Bindi, telling her of his adventures moment by moment, while she stared intently at him, trying desperately to puzzle out his words. “She really did miss you,” I said. “No, she didn’t,” Steve scoffed. Then he added, his face brightening hopefully, “How could you tell?

That night Bindi, Steve, and I all curled up in bed together. “As long as we’re together,” Steve said, “everything will be just fine.” It was spooky, and I didn’t want to think about it, but it did indeed seem that Steve got into trouble more when he was off on his own. Around that time, on a shoot in Africa with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, Steve slipped as he rushed to get a shot of a lizard. He put his hand out to catch himself, and placed it down right in the middle of a euphorbia plant. The bush broke into pieces, and the splinters sank deep into Steve’s hand. Kalahari bushmen use the resin of the euphorbia plant to poison-tip their spears. Steve’s arm swelled and turned black. He became feverish and debated whether to go home or to the hospital. He sought the advice of the bushmen who worked with the poisonous resin regularly. “What do you do if you get nailed by this poison?” The bushmen smiled broadly. “We die,” they said.

That night Bindi, Steve, and I all curled up in bed together. “As long as we’re together,” Steve said, “everything will be just fine.” It was spooky, and I didn’t want to think about it, but it did indeed seem that Steve got into trouble more when he was off on his own.

That night Bindi, Steve, and I all curled up in bed together. “As long as we’re together,” Steve said, “everything will be just fine.” It was spooky, and I didn’t want to think about it, but it did indeed seem that Steve got into trouble more when he was off on his own. Around that time, on a shoot in Africa with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, Steve slipped as he rushed to get a shot of a lizard. He put his hand out to catch himself, and placed it down right in the middle of a euphorbia plant. The bush broke into pieces, and the splinters sank deep into Steve’s hand. Kalahari bushmen use the resin of the euphorbia plant to poison-tip their spears. Steve’s arm swelled and turned black. He became feverish and debated whether to go home or to the hospital. He sought the advice of the bushmen who worked with the poisonous resin regularly. “What do you do if you net nailed by this poison?” The bushmen smiled broadly. “We die,” they said. John filmed every step of the way as the skin of Steve’s arm continued to blacken and he rode out the fever. He worried about the residual effects of gangrene. Ultimately, Steve survived, but he felt the effects for weeks afterward. Once again, Steve and I discussed how uneasy we felt when we were apart. Every time we were together on a trip, we knew we’d be okay. When we were apart, though, we shared a disconcerting feeling that was hard to put into words. It made me feel hollow inside. The Africa trip had taken Steve away from us for three weeks, and Bindi had changed so much while he was away. We agreed that we would never be apart from Bindi and that at least one of us would always be with her. I just felt bad for Steve that I had been the lucky one for the past three weeks. He missed her so much. The next documentary would be different.

We were taking a DC-10 all the way across the country, from the east coast to the west. Together we flew into the Red Centre, the interior of the continent and the location of Ayers Rock--one of Australia’s most recognizable icons. “Have a look at it,” Steve said when we arrived. “It’s the heart of Australia.” I could see why. A huge red mountain rose up out of the flat, sandy landscape. The rock appeared out of place in the great expanse of the desert. The Aborigines knew it as Uluru, and they preferred that tourists did not clamber over their sacred site. We respectfully filmed only the areas we were allowed to access with the local Aborigines’ blessing. As we approached the rock, Steve saw a lizard nearby. He turned to the camera to talk about it. I was concentrating on Steve, Steve was concentrating on the lizard, and John was filming. Bindi was with us, and she could barely take two steps on her own at this point, so I knew I could afford to watch Steve. But after John called out, “Got it,” and we turned back to Bindi, we were amazed at what we saw. Bindi was leaning against the base of Ayer’s Rock. She had placed both her palms against the smooth stone, gently put her cheek up to the rock, and stood there, mesmerized. “She’s listening,” Steve whispered. It was an eerie moment. The whole crew stopped and stared. Then Bindi suddenly seemed to come out of her trance. She plopped down and started stuffing the red sand of Uluru into her mouth like it was delicious.

We were taking a DC-10 all the way across the country, from the east coast to the west. Together we flew into the Red Centre, the interior of the continent and the location of Ayers Rock--one of Australia’s most recognizable icons. “Have a look at it,” Steve said when we arrived. “It’s the heart of Australia.” I could see why. A huge red mountain rose up out of the flat, sandy landscape. The rock appeared out of place in the great expanse of the desert. The Aborigines knew it as Uluru, and they preferred that tourists did not clamber over their sacred site. We respectfully filmed only the areas we were allowed to access with the local Aborigines’ blessing. As we approached the rock, Steve saw a lizard nearby. He turned to the camera to talk about it. I was concentrating on Steve, Steve was concentrating on the lizard, and John was filming. Bindi was with us, and she could barely take two steps on her own at this point, so I knew I could afford to watch Steve. But after John called out, “Got it,” and we turned back to Bindi, we were amazed at what we saw. Bindi was leaning against the base of Ayer’s Rock. She had placed both her palms against the smooth stone, gently put her cheek up to the rock, and stood there, mesmerized. “She’s listening,” Steve whispered. It was an eerie moment. The whole crew stopped and stared. Then Bindi suddenly seemed to come out of her trance. She plopped down and started stuffing the red sand of Uluru into her mouth like it was delicious. We also filmed a thorny devil busily licking up ants from the sandy soil. The one-of-a-kind lizard is covered with big, lumpy, bumpy scales and spikes. “When it rains,” Steve told the camera, “the water droplets run along its body and end up channeling over its face, so that if there is any rain at all, the thorny devil can get a drink without having to look for water!” It’s a pity she won’t remember any of it, I thought, watching Bindi crouch down to examine the thorny devil’s tongue as it madly ate ants. But we had the photos and the footage. What a lucky little girl, I thought. We’ll have all these special experiences recorded for her to take out and enjoy anytime she wants to remember.

I was sound asleep at the Oregon beach cabin one night when there was a knock at the door. A woman who said she was from the Red Cross stood on the front porch. I was foggy-headed. At first, I could not get through my brain what she was saying. “I don’t mean to alarm you,” she said. “But you need to call home immediately.” Terror struck me. My mind raced. Where was Steve? Bindi lay asleep in the bedroom. I asked the woman from the Red Cross to stay on the porch while I went across the street to the pay phone. The international calling procedure seemed immensely complicated that morning, and terribly slow. I tried to keep my fingers steady as I dialed. The sun had not yet risen. I was in my robe. It was February of 2000, and I remember thinking, It’s always the coldest just before the sun comes up. I heard Steve’s voice on the other end of the phone and experienced an immediate flood of relief. He’s alive. But something was terribly wrong. Steve was incoherent. I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Not long before, we had lost our favorite crocodile to old age, and I thought that something had happened to one of our animals. But the tone of Steve’s voice was different. He was sobbing, but finally managed to choke out the words. His mother had been killed in a car accident. I felt the blood drain from my face. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He tried to explain, but he couldn’t really talk. The next thing I knew, the line went dead. It took a few frantic calls to find out what had happened. In the process of moving to their new home on our property, Lyn had left Rosedale to make one last trip with a few remaining family possessions. She was driving with the family malamute, Aylic, in the passenger seat beside her, and Sharon, their bird-eating spider, in a glass terrarium tank in the back of the truck. Lyn left the Rosedale house early, about three o’clock in the morning. As she approached Ironbark Station, her Ute left the road traveling sixty miles an hour. The truck hit a tree and she died instantly. Aylic was killed as well, and the tank holding the bird-eating spider was smashed to pieces. Early in the morning, at the precise moment when the crash happened, Steve was working on the backhoe at the zoo. He suddenly felt as if he had been hit by something that knocked him over, and he fell violently off the machine, hitting the ground so hard that his sunglasses came off. He told me later that he knew something terrible had happened. Steve got in his Ute and started driving. He had no idea what had happened, but he knew where he had to go. It was still early. With uncanny precision, he drove toward where the accident occurred. His mobile phone rang. It was Frank. When his brother-in-law told him what had happened and where, Steve realized he was already headed there.

On Bindi’s first birthday in July 1999, we began a tradition of our own. We threw open the doors of the zoo with free admission to all children. We offered free birthday cake and invited cockatoos, camels, snakes, and lizards to party with us. It poured rain all day, but it didn’t matter. Steve placed a giant birthday cake in front of his daughter. It could have served one hundred people, and we’d ordered up several of them for the celebration. Bindi had never had sugar before, or any kind of dessert or lolly. She carefully took a frosting flower off the top and tasted it. Puzzlement and then joy transformed her face. She dove in headfirst. Cheers and laughter erupted from the crowd of three hundred, all of whom had shown up to celebrate. Steve’s mother, Lyn, looked on that day with a proud smile. I thought back to what it must have been like when Lyn first started the zoo. It was just a small wildlife park, with admission only forty cents for adults and twenty cents for kids. Now it was an expanding enterprise, part of an ambitious conservation effort and a complement to our wildlife documentaries. But her son’s favorite job was still the humble one of being Dad. I could read on Lyn’s face how important it was to her that Steve had started a family. And Bindi had a great day wearing a small pink sweater that her gran had made for her.

I immediately packed up Bindi and went to catch the next plane home. The family was in free fall. Steve was in shock, and Bob was even worse off. Lyn had always acted as the matriarch, the one who kept everything together. She was such a strong figure, a leader. Her death didn’t seem real. I sat on that plane and looked down at Bindi. Life is changed forever now, I thought. As we arrived home, I didn’t know what to expect. I had never dealt with grief like this before. Lyn was only in her fifties, and it seemed cruel to have her life cut short, as she was on the brink of a dream she had held in her heart forever. These were going to be her golden years. She and Bob could embark on the life they had worked so hard to achieve. They would be together, near their family, where they could take care of the land and enjoy the wildlife they loved. I couldn’t imagine what Steve, his dad, and his sisters were going through. My heart was broken. Bindi’s gran was gone just when they had most looked forward to spending time together. The aftermath of Lyn’s death was every bit as awful as I could have imagined. Steve was absolutely inconsolable, and Bob was very obviously unable to cope. Joy and Mandy were trying to keep things together, but they were distraught and heartbroken. Everyone at the zoo was somber. I felt I needed to do something, yet I felt helpless, sad, and lost. Steve’s younger sister Mandy performed the mournful task of sifting through the smashed items from the truck. One of the objects Lyn had packed was Bob’s teapot. There was nothing Bob enjoyed more than a cup of tea. As Mandy went to wash out the teapot, she noticed movement. Inside was Sharon, the bird-eating spider, the sole survivor of the accident. Although her tank had been smashed to bits, she had managed to crawl into the teapot to hide. After the funeral, time appeared to slow down and then stop entirely. Steve talked about moving out to Ironback Station. He couldn’t seem to order his thoughts. He no longer saw a reason for going on with all the projects on which we had worked so hard. Bindi was upset but didn’t have the understanding to know why. She was too young to get her head around what had happened. She simply cried when she saw her daddy crying. It would be a long time before life returned to anything like normalcy. Lyn’s death was something that Steve would never truly overcome. His connection with his mum, like that of so many mothers and sons, was unusually close. Lyn Irwin was a pioneer in wildlife rehabilitation work. She had given her son a great legacy, and eventually that gift would win out over death. But in the wake of her accident, all we could see was loss. Steve headed out into the bush alone, with just Sui and his swag. He reverted to his youth, to his solitary formative years. But grief trailed him. My heart broke for my husband. I was not sure he would ever find his way back.

I knew Steve was starting to cope when he proposed one of his most ambitious documentaries with John. They would journey literally to the end of the earth, to Antarctica, and document conditions for wildlife there. Steve knew that Antarctica functioned as a canary in a coal mine--an early-warning mechanism for environmental problems with the earth as a whole. It was summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and that’s the only practical time to go to Antarctica, but the continent was still no place for small children. I felt torn about being separated at such a tumultuous time, but the doco Icebreaker had been planned for a long time. Steve went south with John Stainton and a camera crew. I went to Florida and Disney World with the rest of my family: Robert and Bindi. As he had with the fauna of the Galapagos Islands, Steve discovered that the Antarctic wildlife had little fear of humans. There were no hunting parties out terrorizing the wildlife, so they didn’t perceive people as a threat. The penguins were among the friendliest. In fact, he found if he mimicked their actions, they would often repeat them in response. Steve slid on his belly down the slopes of ice, and the penguins did the same.

The infamous Roaring Forties winds crash through on the western side of the island state. I looked down from our small plane and saw some of the waves that Steve loved. About two hundred miles off Tasmania’s western shore is Shipstern’s Bluff, with some of the biggest and best surf in the world. This is “big-wave” surfing, where the surfers have to be towed in, and it is not unusual to have sixty-foot faces on the waves. Probably only around 5 percent of the surfers in the world would dare to even approach Shipstern’s Bluff. As our plane made its approach, I saw sets of ragged, white-topped waves heading toward shore. I myself was not much of a water person, but I really enjoyed photographing or filming Steve in action. We’ll have to come back, I thought. Steve and Bindi could surf here together now.

The next day was Sunday. In Australia we celebrate Father’s Day in September, so it was natural for us to try and get in touch with Steve. I knew he was filming somewhere off the Queensland coast. On board Croc One, along with Steve and Philippe Cousteau, was a toxicologist named Jamie Seymour. They planned to study several species of dangerous sea creatures, with the double goal of understanding their place in the environment and teaching people how to frequent Australia’s waters more safely. We tried to get through to Steve on the phone, but of course he was out filming. I spoke via satellite phone to another Kate, Kate Coulter, a longtime zoo employee, with her husband, Brian. We all took turns talking to her. “Steve captured a huge sea snake,” Kate said. “He said it was the biggest he had ever seen. He said, ‘Thick as my arm, no, thick as my leg.’” Kate knew Steve well, and she conveyed his enthusiasm perfectly. She told us she would pass along our messages. “Tell Daddy how much I love him and miss him,” Bindi said, and Kate told her she would. Robert wanted immediately to go see the big sea snake his father had caught. He didn’t quite grasp that the Cape was thousands of miles away.

When we got close to the airport, the reality of the public reaction to Steve’s death began to sink in. Members of the media were everywhere. We drove straight through the gates to pull up right next to the charter plane. The last thing I felt like doing at that moment was to talk to anyone about what had happened. I just wanted to get to Steve. As I walked toward the plane, I turned back to thank the police who had helped us. The tears in their eyes shocked me out of my own personal cocoon of grief. This wasn’t just a job for them. They genuinely felt for us, and suffered Steve’s loss. So many other people loved him too, I thought. All during the endless, three-hour plane ride to Maroochydore, I kept flashing back to our fourteen years of adventures together. My mind kept focusing on another plane ride, so similar to this one, when Bindi and I had to fly from the United States back to Australia after Steve’s mum had died. Part of me wished we could have flown forever, never landing, never facing what we were about to. I concentrated on Bindi and Robert, getting them fed and making sure they were comfortable. But the thought of that last sad flight stayed there in the back of my mind. The plane landed at Maroochydore in the dark. We taxied in between hangars, out of public view. I think it was raining, but perhaps it wasn’t, maybe I was just sad. As I came down the steps of the plane, Frank, Joy, and Wes stood there. We all hugged one another. Wes sobbed. We managed to help one another to the hangar, where we all piled into two vehicles for the half-hour drive back to the zoo. I turned on the DVD in the backseat for the kids. I desperately needed a moment without having to explain what was going on. I wanted to talk to Wes, Joy, and Frank. At some point during the ride, Wes reached back and closed the DVD player. The light from the player was giving the press the opportunity to film and photograph us in the car. This was a time to be private and on our own. How clever of Wes to consider that, I thought, right in the middle of everything. “Wes,” I said, “what are we going to do now?

When Bindi, Robert, and I got home on the evening of Steve’s death, we encountered a strange scene that we ourselves had created. The plan had been that Steve would get back from his Ocean’s Deadlist film shoot before we got back from Tasmania. So we’d left the house with a funny surprise for him. We got large plush toys and arranged them in a grouping to look like the family. We sat one that represented me on the sofa, a teddy bear about her size for Bindi, and a plush orangutan for Robert. We dressed the smaller toys in the kids’ clothes, and the big doll in my clothes. I went to the zoo photographer and got close-up photographs of our faces that we taped onto the heads of the dolls. We posed them as if we were having dinner, and I wrote a note for Steve. “Surprise,” the note said. “We didn’t go to Tasmania! We are here waiting for you and we love you and miss you so much! We will see you soon. Love, Terri, Bindi, and Robert.” The surprise was meant for Steve when he returned and we weren’t there. Instead the dolls silently waited for us, our plush-toy doubles, ghostly reminders of a happier life.

When Bindi, Robert, and I got home on the evening of Steve’s death, we encountered a strange scene that we ourselves had created. The plan had been that Steve would get back from his Ocean’s Deadlist film shoot before we got back from Tasmania. So we’d left the house with a funny surprise for him. We got large plush toys and arranged them in a grouping to look like the family. We sat one that represented me on the sofa, a teddy bear about her size for Bindi, and a plush orangutan for Robert. We dressed the smaller toys in the kids’ clothes, and the big doll in my clothes. I went to the zoo photographer and got close-up photographs of our faces that we taped onto the heads of the dolls. We posed them as if we were having dinner, and I wrote a note for Steve. “Surprise,” the note said. “We didn’t go to Tasmania! We are here waiting for you and we love you and miss you so much! We will see you soon. Love, Terri, Bindi, and Robert.” The surprise was meant for Steve when he returned and we weren’t there. Instead the dolls silently waited for us, our plush-toy doubles, ghostly reminders of a happier life. Wes, Joy, and Frank came into the house with me and the kids. We never entertained, we never had anyone over, and now suddenly our living room seemed full. Unaccustomed to company, Robert greeted each one at the door. “Take your shoes off before you come in,” he said seriously. I looked over at him. He was clearly bewildered but trying so hard to be a little man. We had to make arrangements to bring Steve home. I tried to keep things as private as possible. One of Steve’s former classmates at school ran the funeral home in Caloundra that would be handling the arrangements. He had known the Irwin family for years, and I recall thinking how hard this was going to be for him as well. Bindi approached me. “I want to say good-bye to Daddy,” she said. “You are welcome to, honey,” I said. “But you need to remember when Daddy said good-bye to his mother, that last image of her haunted him while he was awake and asleep for the rest of his life.” I suggested that perhaps Bindi would like to remember her daddy as she last saw him, standing on top of the truck next to that outback airstrip, waving good-bye with both arms and holding the note that she had given him. Bindi agreed, and I knew it was the right decision, a small step in the right direction. I knew the one thing that I had wanted to do all along was to get to Steve. I felt an urgency to continue on from the zoo and travel up to the Cape to be with him. But I knew what Steve would have said. His concern would have been getting the kids settled and in bed, not getting all tangled up in the media turmoil. Our guests decided on their own to get going and let us get on with our night. I gave the kids a bath and fixed them something to eat. I got Robert settled in bed and stayed with him until he fell asleep. Bindi looked worried. Usually I curled up with Robert in the evening, while Steve curled up with Bindi. “Don’t worry,” I said to her. “Robert’s already asleep. You can sleep in my bed with me.” Little Bindi soon dropped off to sleep, but I lay awake. It felt as though I had died and was starting over with a new life. I mentally reviewed my years as a child growing up in Oregon, as an adult running my own business, then meeting Steve, becoming his wife and the mother of our children. Now, at age forty-two, I was starting again.

I watched Bindi as she stared intently at her daddy with dark, piercing eyes. He gazed back at her and smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks, with such great love for his new daughter. The world had a brand-new wildlife warrior.

I knew the one thing I wanted to do more than anything was to get to Steve. I needed to bring my kids home as fast as possible. I didn’t understand what had been going on in the rest of the world. Steve’s accident had occurred at eleven o’clock in the morning. The official time of death was made at twelve noon, the exact time that Bindi had looked at her watch and said, for no apparent reason, “It’s twelve o’clock.” Now I had to go out to the car and tell Bindi and Robert what had happened to their daddy. How do you tell an eight-year-old child that her father has died? A two-year-old boy? The person they loved most in the world was gone, the person they looked up to, relied on, and emulated, who played with them in the bubble bath and told them stories about when he was a naughty little boy, who took them for motorbike rides and got them ice cream, went on croc-catching adventures and showed them the world’s wildlife. I had to tell them that they had lost this most important person, on this most beautiful day. Emma came in and I told her what had happened. Suddenly I felt very sick. I didn’t know if I could stand up, and I asked to use the restroom. Then I realized this was the exact time for me to be strong. For years I had counted on Steve’s strength. At six feet tall and two hundred pounds, he was a force to be reckoned with. But he always told me there were different kinds of strength. Steve said he could count on me to be strong when times were hard. I thought about that, and I suddenly understood there must be a reason that I was here and he was gone. I needed to help his kids, to be there for our children. All I wanted to do was run, and run, and run. But I had to stay. With Emma at my side, I went outside and climbed into the car. Bindi had opened up the raspberries again. I put them away and sat her down. She knew instantly by my face that something was wrong. “Did something happen to one of the animals at the zoo?” she asked. “Something happened to Daddy,” I said. “He was diving, and he had an accident.” I told her everything that I knew about what had happened. She cried. We all cried. Robert still slept.

Steve had tried to reach us after our Father’s Day phone call. There was no way I could have realized that, because I didn’t have any mobile phone reception at the cottage. He was back on Croc One and trying to get hold of us via satellite phone. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t be in range again until the next day. We enjoyed our dinner, built a huge fire, and snuggled down for the night. We didn’t hurry ourselves the next day. We meandered west, stopping at a raspberry farm and at the Honey Factory in Chudleigh. They featured a beehive behind glass, and we loved watching as the bees worked on their honeycomb. They never stopped to say, “I wonder what the meaning of life is.” They just kept building. The Honey Factory also featured a plethora of bee-themed products: bee gum boots, bee back massagers, bee umbrellas, and a bee trolley for the kids to ride on. Bindi sampled every single flavor of honey that they had. She bought a wristwatch with a bee on it. Robert picked out a backpack. “Robert,” I said, “that backpack is great. It has bees on it.” “It has one bee on it,” he said, correcting me. “Oh, okay, one bee,” I said, amused at my son’s seriousness. We spent the last hour of the morning at the Honey Factory. As we walked out the door, Bindi looked at her newly purchased watch and said, “It’s twelve o’clock.” We all stopped for a moment and considered that it was twelve o’clock. Then we got into the car and left.

We drove into the Cradle Mountain resort still munching on raspberries. Emma and Kate waited with the kids in the car. “I’ll just be a minute,” I said. “I’ll check in and we’ll head to our rooms.” The currawongs were calling, and a padymelon, a small version of a roo, hopped off a wall just at the edge of the car park as I went in. “Where’s all the snow?” I asked the woman behind the desk. “It snowed this morning,” she said. “Well, good,” I said. “There’s hope.” Then she passed me a note. She said, “Frank called from the zoo.” “I’m not surprised,” I said. “I haven’t called the zoo all day, and Frank is always trying to track me down.” “Why don’t you come take the call in the office?” she said. I thought that was a little odd, since when I had been there before I’d always used the pay phone near the pub at the resort. But I entered the office and sat down in a big, comfortable chair. I could see the car park out the window. Emma and Kate were still out at the car. Robert had fallen asleep, and Kate sat inside with him. Bindi smiled and laughed with Emma. “How you going, Frank?” I said into the phone. He said, “Hi, Terri. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while.” His voice had a heavy, serious tone. “Well, I’ve just got here,” I said. “Sorry about that, but I’m here now. What’s up?” “I’m sorry to say that Steve had a bit of an accident while he was diving,” Frank said. “I’m afraid he got hit in the chest by a stingray’s barb.” I’m sure there wasn’t much of a pause, but I felt time stop. I knew what Frank was going to say next. I just kept repeating the same thing over and over in my head. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. Then Frank said the three words I did not want him to say, “And he died.” I took a deep breath and looked out the window. There was Bindi, so happy to have finally arrived at one of her favorite places. We were going to have fun. She had brought her teacher and Kate. She was so excited. And the world stopped. I took another breath. “Thank you very much for calling, Frank,” I said. I didn’t know what I was saying. I was overwhelmed, already on autopilot. “You need to cancel the rest of our trip, you need to contact my family in Oregon, and you need to get us home.” So it began.

You haven’t been to India in twenty years. We’ve read lifetimes’ worth of stories about the spiritual sojourns to your motherland, but it’s still rare to read the perspective of a Muslim, Dalit, non-Indian South Asian, who experiences this motherland as an outsider. Even getting my ten-year visa to go is a trip. I need documentation of my parents’ origins—photocopies of their decades-defunct Bangladeshi passports from before they became US citizens. I made sure that I looked as “Indian” as possible, so I wore a bindi, a kurta top, making sure nothing screamed too Muslim. I rode the train far out to Richmond Hill, Queens, to a mom-and-pop Punjabi-owned spot.

Samuel sepete eğilip parmağını ikizlerden birinin minik avcuna koydu, parmaklar kapanıp parmağını kavradı. "Bir adamın en son vazgeçeceği kötü alışkanlık herhalde öğüt vermektir." "Ben öğüt istemiyorum." "Kimse öğüt istemez. Öğüdü veren armağan eder. Rol yap Adam." "Ne rolü?" "Yaşıyormuşsun rolü yap, sahnede olduğunu farzet. Bir süre sonra, uzun bir süre sonra doğru olacaktır." "Niye yapayım ki?" diye sordu Adam. Samuel ikizlere bakıyordu. "Sen ne yaparsan yap, istersen hiçbir şey yapma, gene de bir şeyler aktaracaksın. Kendini nadasa bıraksan bile zararlı otlar, dikenli çalılar yetişecek. Bir şeyler yetişecek." Adam cevap vermeyince Samuel ayağa kalktı. "Tekrar geleceğim," dedi. "Tekrar tekrar geleceğim. Rol yap Adam." Ahırın arkasında Lee Doxology'yi tutarken Samuel bindi. "Kitapçı dükkanına güle güle de Lee," dedi. "Neyse," dedi Çinli, "zaten o kadar istemiyordum galiba.

Ladkiyon ko lgta ki humein unka sharir chahiye Hn chahiye tumhara sharir Un aankhon mein kajal , Maathe pe choti si bindi, Kaanoo mein bali, Pairoon mein payal, Baloon mein gajraa, Hathon mein chudi aur menhdi Apne naam ki apne haathon se sawarna se sawarna kon nahi chahega, Kon nahi chahega tum jaise hoor ko sawarna jiske didaar ko khud a bhi taras jae Lekin.. Hr baat ka jawab thodi hota hai, Hr kisi se pyar thodi hota hai , Mohabbat kr baithe hai aapse Tumse he khubsurti wrna chaand thodi hota ...

When he finds the kafila, he wonders if he wandered in a circle and ended up joining the same one that bore him to Pakistan. The faces here resemble the faces there. The clothes are the same, the bundles and mules and families the same. Gashes often run the same angle. The relationship of attacker to victim flash before him, plain as statuary: this gash glanced across the shoulder of someone running away; this one struck the forearm of someone who saw the blade descending and tried to block it. Everything is familiar. It's only after he gets close that he can see the residual flecks of bindis on the Hindu women, or the steel kangans and hard topknots on the devout Sikhs. Externals, indistinct in the twilight, unseen by nightfall---yet precisely at nightfall, the marks by which they are targeted.

Kaplumbağaların kralıydı o. Kral, kibirli yüzgeçlerini zaferle salladığı an -"Yukarıda her zaman bir başkasına yer var"-başka bir şey sırtına bindi ve kısa günü son buldu. Kayarak, yayılarak, yuvarlanarak kanlı yığından aşağı indi ve masanın altına sırtüstü düşerek çılgınca debelenmeye koyuldu. "Sevgili dostlar ve kibar yürekler," -soğuğun sürünerek gelişini hissederek çırpındı- "öylece durup eski dostunuzun ölümünü mü seyredeceksiniz? Kendim için hiçbir şey istemedim ben; ne para, ne rahat, ne güç, ne emniyet. Bunlar için çabaladım, çünkü bunlar beni çok istedi. (Tabii işime geldiğinde, arada paylaştım da hepsini.) Sahiden beni ölüme mi bırakacaksınız?" "Tamam iyi yedim. Ama o, sırf çilekeş fedakârlık günlerimde gücümü korumak içindi. Çünkü ben, önüme çıkmadıkça hiçbir kardeş yaratığa zarar vermedim. Kazancım yoksa adaletsiz avantajlara hiç sarılmadım. Sahiden bu tatlı kaplumbağayı ölüme terk edebilecek misiniz?" "Adanmış bir baba, sadık bir yurttaş, inançlı bir işçi, kibar bir işveren, ilgili bir komşuydum; düzenli gittim kiliseye. Kalbimin tüm saflığıyla Tanrı ve insanın kanunlarına saygı gösterdim. Safım ve kodes korkusuyla doluyum. Sahiden öylece durup böylesi aziz bir kaplumbağanın ölümünü izleyebilir misiniz?" "Az önce, kardeşlerimin boğazlarına basıp geçerken biraz gergin göründüğümü söylersiniz şimdi. İtiraf ediyorum -ama o az önceydi- ve artık değiştim ben. Böylesi açık fikirli bir kaplumbağanın ölümüne dayanabilir misiniz? "Kaldırın beni, bir el verin kibar yürekler, kaldırın da bir zamanlar hükmettiğim şu zirveye bir daha bakabileyim." Ve ardından ağır ağır indi karanlık. Yüzgeçleri katılaştı. Mücadelesi ebediyen bitti. Kaplumbağaların en bilgesi ölmüştü.

We didn’t know what to do. It was as though we were being hunted. Steve went off to the back block of the zoo to try to get his head around everything that had been happening. He built a fire and gazed into it. I didn’t have to think about it. I knew beyond certainty that the most important part of Steve’s life was his family. His children meant everything to him. All of a sudden, my wonderful, sharing, protective husband was being condemned. His crime was sharing wildlife experiences with Robert, exactly as he had done for the last five and a half years with Bindi. The media circus escalated. Helicopters hovered over the zoo, trying to snag any glimpse of the crazy Irwin family. Steve erected shade cloth around our yard for privacy. We soon realized we couldn’t go anywhere. There would be no visits to the zoo, no answering the phone, no doing croc shows. The criticism and the spin continued. I stood by Steve’s side and watched his heart break. I couldn’t believe the mean-spirited, petty, awful people in the world. Editors manipulated film footage, trying to make the croc look bigger or closer to Robert than it actually was. What possible end could that serve? I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, an adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being. It was about to get worse. We stepped off a very dark cliff indeed.

Professor Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland mounted a crocodile research partnership with Steve. The idea was to fasten transmitters and data loggers on crocs to record their activity in their natural environment. But in order to place the transmitters, you had to catch the crocs first, and that’s where Steve’s expertise came in. Steve never felt more content than when he was with his family in the bush. “There’s nothing more valuable than human life, and this research will help protect both crocs and people,” he told us. The bush was where Steve felt most at home. It was where he was at his best. On that one trip, he caught thirty-three crocs in fourteen days. He wanted to do more. “I’d really like to have the capability of doing research on the ocean as well as in the rivers,” he told me. “I could do so much more for crocodiles and sharks if I had a purpose-built research vessel.” I could see where he was heading. I was not a big fan of boats. “I’m going to contact a company in Western Australia, in Perth,” he said. “I’m going to work on a custom-built research vessel.” As the wheels turned in his mind, he became more and more excited. “The sky’s the limit, mate,” he said. “We could help tiger sharks and learn why crocs go out to sea. There is no reason why we couldn’t help whales, too.” “Tell me how we can help whales,” I said, expecting to hear about a research project that he and Craig had in mind. “It will be great,” he said. “We’ll build a boat with an icebreaking hull. We’ll weld a can opener to the front, and join Sea Shepherd in Antarctica to stop those whaling boats in their tracks.” When we got back from our first trip to Cape York Peninsula with Craig Franklin, Steve immediately began drawing up plans for his boat. He wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. As he envisioned it, the boat would be somewhere between a hard-core scientific research vessel and a luxury cruiser. He designed three berths, a plasma screen television for the kids, and air-conditioned comfort below deck. He placed a big marlin board off the back, for Jet Skis, shark cages, or hauling out huge crocs. One feature that he was really adamant about was a helicopter pad. He designed the craft so that the helicopter could land on the top. Steve’s design plans went back and forth to Perth for months. “I want this boat’s primary function to be crocodile research and rescue work,” Steve said. “So I’m going to name her Croc One.” “Why don’t we call it For Sale instead?” I suggested. I’m not sure Steve saw the humor in that. Croc One was his baby. But for some reason, I felt tremendous trepidation about this boat. I attributed my feelings of concern to Bindi and Robert. Anytime you have kids on a boat, the rules change--no playing hide-and-seek, no walking on deck without a life jacket on. It made me uncomfortable to think about being two hundred miles out at sea with two young kids. We had had so many wild adventures together as a family that, ultimately, I had to trust Steve. But my support for Croc One was always, deep down, halfhearted at best. I couldn’t shake my feeling of foreboding about it.

I knew the one thing I wanted to do more than anything was to get to Steve. I needed to bring my kids home as fast as possible. I didn’t understand what had been going on in the rest of the world. Steve’s accident had occurred at eleven o’clock in the morning. The official time of death was made at twelve noon, the exact time that Bindi had looked at her watch and said, for no apparent reason, “It’s twelve o’clock.” Now I had to go out to the car and tell Bindi and Robert what had happened to their daddy. How do you tell an eight-year-old child that her father has died? A two-year-old boy? The person they loved most in the world was gone, the person they looked up to, relied on, and emulated, who played with them in the bubble bath and told them stories about when he was a naughty little boy, who took them for motorbike rides and got them ice cream, went on croc-catching adventures and showed them the world’s wildlife. I had to tell them that they had lost this most important person, on this most beautiful day.

Because of the constant media surveillance, I could not venture out to see the countless tributes that mourners laid down in front of the zoo. But all the items were collected and stored safely, and we now display a lovely memorial selection. The public response to Steve’s death would have overwhelmed him most of all--the kind thoughts, prayers, sympathy, and tears. I wasn’t facing this grief on my own. So many people from around the world were trying to come to terms with it as well. The process seemed particularly difficult for children who had not had the opportunity to experience the circle of life as Bindi had. I felt it was important to get a message out to them. When your hero dies, everything he stood for does not end. Everything he stood for must continue.

Because of the constant media surveillance, I could not venture out to see the countless tributes that mourners laid down in front of the zoo. But all the items were collected and stored safely, and we now display a lovely memorial selection. The public response to Steve’s death would have overwhelmed him most of all--the kind thoughts, prayers, sympathy, and tears. I wasn’t facing this grief on my own. So many people from around the world were trying to come to terms with it as well. The process seemed particularly difficult for children who had not had the opportunity to experience the circle of life as Bindi had. I felt it was important to get a message out to them. When your hero dies, everything he stood for does not end. Everything he stood for must continue. There was never a doubt in my mind that I’d keep working toward stopping the destruction of our environment and wildlife that was spiraling out of control. There were so many triumphs that Steve had already worked so hard for. I sat down with Wes. “First, we’re going to work on everything Steve wanted to achieve,” I said. “Then we’ll move on to everything that we were collectively working toward. And finally, I want to continue with my own goals, in terms of our conservation work.” We strategized about the expansion of the zoo. I didn’t want to just maintain the zoo as it was, I wanted to follow Steve’s plans for the future. I felt that I was still having this wonderful, cheeky, competitive relationship with Steve. Wes and I took the stacks of plans, blueprints, and manila folders from Steve’s desk. I assembled them and laid them out on a conference table. “This was Steve’s plan for Australia Zoo over the next ten years,” I said. “I want to do it in five.” We would secure more land. I remember the first two acres we ever bought to enlarge the zoo, how Steve and I sat with our arms around each other, looking at the property next door and dreaming. Now we were negotiating for an additional five hundred acres of forestry land. This tract would join the existing zoo property with the five hundred acres of our conservation property, bringing our total to fifteen hundred acres at Australia Zoo. This winter we christened Steve’s Whale One, a whale-watching excursion boat that will realize another of his long-held dreams. He always wanted to expand the experience of the zoo to include whales. Steve’s Whale One is a way for people to see firsthand some of the most amazing creatures on earth. The humpbacks in Australian waters approach whale-watching boats with curiosity and openness. It is a delightful experience, and one that I am confident will work to help inspire people and end the inhumane practice of whaling.

Bindi the Jungle Girl aired on July 18, 2007, on ABC (Channel 2) in Australia, and we were so proud. Bindi’s determination to carry on her father’s legacy was a testament to everything Steve believed in. He had perfectly combined his love for his family with his love for conservation and leaving the world a better place. Now this love was perfectly passed down to his kids. The official beginning of Bindi’s career was a fantastic day. All the time and effort, and joy and sorrow of the past year culminated in this wonderful series. Now everyone was invited to see Bindi’s journey, first filming with her dad, and then stepping up and filming with Robert and me. It was also a chance to experience one more time why Steve was so special and unique, to embrace him, to appreciate him, and to celebrate his life.

After Bindi’s show launched, it seemed so appropriate that another project we had been working on for many months came to fruition. We found an area of 320,000 acres in Cape York Peninsula, bordered on one side by the Dulcie River and on the other side by the Wenlock River--some of the best crocodile country in the world. It was one of the top spots in Australia, and the most critically important habitat in the state of Queensland. Prime Minister John Howard, along with the Queensland government, dedicated $6.3 million to obtaining this land, in memory of Steve. On July 22, 2007, the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve became official. This piece of land means so much to the Irwin family, and I know what it would have meant to Steve. Ultimately, it meant the protection of his crocodiles, the animals he loved so much.

What does the future hold for the Irwin family? Each and every day is filled with incredible triumphs and moments of terrible grief. And in between, life goes on. We are determined to continue to honor and appreciate Steve’s wonderful spirit. It lives on with all of us. Steve lived every day of his life doing what he loved, and he always said he would die defending wildlife. I reckon Bindi, Robert, and I will all do the same. God bless you, Stevo. I love you, mate.

One evening Steve and I didn’t feel like cooking, and we had ordered a pizza. I noticed that I was a bit leaky, but when you are enormously pregnant, all kinds of weird things happen with your body. I didn’t pay any particular attention. The next day I called the hospital. “You should come right in,” the nurse told me over the phone. Steve was fairly nearby, on the Gold Coast south of Brisbane, filming bull sharks. I won’t bother him, I thought. I’ll just go in for a quick checkup. “If everything checks out okay,” I told them at the hospital, “I’ll just head back.” The nurse looked to see if I was serious. She laughed. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “You’re having a baby.” I called Steve. He came up from the Gold Coast as quickly as he could, after losing his car keys, not remembering where he parked, and forgetting which way home was in his excitement. When he arrived at the hospital, I saw that he had brought the whole camera crew with him. John was just as flustered as anyone but suggested we film the event. “It’s okay with me,” Steve said. I was in no mood to argue. I didn’t care if a spaceship landed on the hospital. Each contraction took every bit of my attention. When they finally wheeled me into the delivery room at about eight o’clock that night, I was so tired I didn’t know how I could go on. Steve proved to be a great coach. He encouraged me as though it were a footy game. “You can do it, babe,” he yelled. “Come on, push!” At 9:46 p.m., a little head appeared. Steve was beside himself with excitement. I was in a fog, but I clearly remember the joy on his face. He helped turn and lift the baby out. I heard both Steve and doctor announce simultaneously, “It’s a girl.” Six pounds and two ounces of little baby girl. She was early but she was fine. All pink and perfect. Steve cut the umbilical cord and cradled her, gazing down at his newborn daughter. “Look, she’s our little Bindi.” She was named after a crocodile at the zoo, and it also fit that the word “bindi” was Aboriginal for “young girl.” Here was our own young girl, our little Bindi. I smiled up at Steve. “Bindi Sue,” I said, after his beloved dog, Sui. Steve gently handed her to me. We both looked down at her in utter amazement. He suddenly scooped her up in the towels and blankets and bolted off. “I’ve got a baby girl!” he yelled, as he headed down the hall. The doctor and midwives were still attending to me. After a while, one of the midwives said nervously, “So, is he coming back?” I just laughed. I knew what Steve was doing. He was showing off his beautiful baby girl to the whole maternity ward, even though each and every new parent had their own bundle of joy. Steve was such a proud parent. He came back and laid Bindi beside me. I said, “I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been here.” “Yes, you could have.” “No, I really needed you here.” Once again, I had that overwhelming feeling that as long as we were together, everything would be safe and wonderful. I watched Bindi as she stared intently at her daddy with dark, piercing eyes. He gazed back at her and smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks, with such great love for his new daughter. The world had a brand-new wildlife warrior.

This would be the first croc research trip where both Bindi and Robert were old enough to participate. Robert was two and a half, and walking and talking like a serious little man. Bindi, of course, had been involved in croc research trips before. But now she had new motivation. We were in the middle of filming her own nature show, Bindi the Jungle Girl. This was important for Steve. “There’d be nothing that would make me happier than having Bindi just take over filming and I could take it easy and run the zoo, do my conservation work, and let Bindi have the limelight,” Steve would say. It might have seemed like an unusual thing to say about a kid who just turned eight, but Bindi was no ordinary kid. She had a calling. I would sense it when I was around her, just as I sensed it when I first met Steve. Although Bindi was a regular kid most of the time--playing and being goofy, with me making her eat her vegetables, brush her teeth, and go to school on time--there were many moments when I’d see someone who’d been here before. Bindi would participate in the filming in such a way that she always made sure a certain conservation message came through, or she’d want to do a take again to make sure her words got the message across properly. I continued to marvel at the wise being in this little person’s body. I kept catching glimpses, like snapshots through the window of a moving train, of this person who knew she was working toward making the world a better place. Watching her evolve was truly special.

We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go. At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?” Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body. “Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help. “Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured. “Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card. I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto. Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here. As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my children, Bindi and Robert, for patiently supporting me while I spent many evenings and weekends writing this book (or as Robert used to say, “Mum is doing her schoolwork.”). Thanks also to those who helped entertain, feed, bathe, and wrangle my kids while I wrote (it does take a village!): Barry and Shelley Lyon, Emma Schell, Jeanette Covacevich, John and Bonnie Marineau, Brian and Sherri Marineau, April Harvie, Brian and Kate Coulter, Thelma Engle. A special thank-you to my dear friend John Edward. If it wasn’t for you, this book would never have been written. Thanks to my precious friends and family, who were my sounding boards: Wes Mannion, Frank and Joy Muscillo, John Stainton, Judi Bailey, Craig Franklin, Bob Irwin. A huge thank-you to Kate Schell, who helped me assemble my first draft--there were 250,000 words of stories that made us laugh and cry. You took the journey with me. I would also like to thank Gil Reavill, for taking nine hundred pages and helping me choose which stories to keep for the final draft. Natasha Stoynoff, you were ready to help as a collaborator. I hope we actually get to work together one day.And to Ursula Cary, thank you for flying all the way to Australia to help me catch crocs for research and make those final edits. I’d like to extend a big thank-you to all the interesting people who helped to shape our lives and are included in the pages of this book. And finally, a huge thank-you to my husband, Steve. You are now the angel leaning over my shoulder, whispering in my ear that I can do anything--you always believed in me.

We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go. At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?” Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body. “Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help. “Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured. “Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card. I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto. Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here.

As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.

At 9:46 p.m., a little head appeared. Steve was beside himself with excitement. I was in a fog, but I clearly remember the joy on his face. He helped turn and lift the baby out. I heard both Steve and doctor announce simultaneously, “It’s a girl.” Six pounds and two ounces of little baby girl. She was early but she was fine. All pink and perfect. Steve cut the umbilical cord and cradled her, gazing down at his newborn daughter. “Look, she’s our little Bindi.” She was named after a crocodile at the zoo, and it also fit that the word “bindi” was Aboriginal for “young girl.” Here was our own young girl, our little Bindi. I smiled up at Steve. “Bindi Sue,” I said, after his beloved dog, Sui. Steve gently handed her to me. We both looked down at her in utter amazement. He suddenly scooped her up in the towels and blankets and bolted off. “I’ve got a baby girl!” he yelled, as he headed down the hall. The doctor and midwives were still attending to me. After a while, one of the midwives said nervously, “So, is he coming back?” I just laughed. I knew what Steve was doing. He was showing off his beautiful baby girl to the whole maternity ward, even though each and every new parent had their own bundle of joy. Steve was such a proud parent.

In recognition of his standing and commitment to conservation and research, the University of Queensland was about to appoint him as an adjust professor, an honor bestowed on only a few who have made a significant contribution to their field. Steve didn’t know this had happened. The letter from the university arrived at Australia Zoo while we were in the field studying crocs during August 2006. He never got back to the pile of mail that included that letter. I know he would have proudly accepted the recognition of his achievement, but I also suspect that he would have remained humble and given credit to those around him, especially Terri, his mum and dad, Wes, John Stainton, and the incredible team at Australia Zoo. A year later, in 2007, we are back here in northern Australia, continuing the research in his name. There is a big gap in all our lives, but I feel he is here, all around us. One sure sign is that the sixteen-foot crocodile we named “Steve” keeps turning up in our traps. My life has been enriched by my friendship with Steve. I now sit around the fire with Terri, his family, and mates from Australia Zoo chatting about crocodiles and continuing the legacy Steve has left behind. Terri and Bob Irwin are now leading the croc-catching team from Australia Zoo, and Bindi is helping to affix the tracking devices to crocs, and so the tradition continues. I miss him. We all do. But I can sit at the campfire and look into the coals and hear his voice, always intense, always passionate, telling us stories and goading us on to achieve more. The enthusiasm and determination Steve shared with us is alive and well. He has touched so many lives. His memory will never fade, and this book will be one of the ways we can remind ourselves of our brush with the indomitable spirit of a loving husband, father, and son; a committed wildlife ambassador and conservationist; and a great mate. Professor Craig E. Franklin, School of Integrative Biology University of Queensland Lakefield National Park August 2007

Bindy Mackenzie talks like a horse.

Namuslu adam kalmamış bu dünyada iki gözüm.Müslümandır,namazında,orucundadır,hakkımızı yemez diyorduk ama,biz onun hatırını saydıkça o,bizim tepemize bindi.Eh,artık çocuk değiliz,yemiyoruz bu numaraları,değil mi ya?

wore glittering bindis and Pushkar passports – threads around their wrists. Touts and fake priests often pounce on tourists new to the holy town, offering flowers and blessings in exchange for a few thousand rupees. In return, a sacred thread is tied around the wrist, representing a vaccination against further hassle. Pious passport-wearers preserved the thread for months after they had arrived home in Fulham, and wore it until it smelt, rotted and fell off in the shower. This was definitely the right way to the tourist bureau.

You see,' Gwyn said slowly...'With an Indian boy maybe you can, you know, explore all that stuff. Go kamasutronic, so to speak.' I nodded, but I was feeling battle fatigue and was now thinking the tip of another thought: Or maybe an Indian boy would get that most of us don't know that stuff. That it was a lot of hype. It was the bindi blondes who were all over this scene, not the holelessly nosed Indian girls.

The sun was a red bindi dot on the forehead of the sky as they started their walk.

Zafer ve öncesi tamamiyle unutulmuştu. Bir yaz gününün küçük bir hatırasnı nakledeyim. Köprüden vapura binmiş, Büyükada’ya gidiyorduk. Kâzım Şinasi, galiba Necmettin Sadak, rahmetli Cavit Bey ve ben güvertede beraber oturmuştuk. Moda iskelesinde vapura İttihat ve Terakki Merkez-i Umumî azasından rahmetli Dr. Nâzım bindi. Cavit alaycı ve tenkitçi idi. Anadolu’yu da, Ankara’yı da, Mustafa Kemal’i de pek hafife alıyordu. Milletvekilliği taslamamak için tartışma aramıyordum. Fakat Doktor Nâzım tam bir intikamcı ve kinci dili kullanıyordu. Hristiyan azınlıklarla Türkler arasında fark yapıldığından şikâyet edecek kadar kendini unutmuştu. Politika tartışmalarını hiç sevmiyen Kâzım Şinasi bile, eski Merkez-i Umumî günlerini hatırlıyarak, bir aralık: - Aman doktorcuğum, hiç olmazsa sen bunları söyleme... dedi. Doktor Nâzım: - Bizim zamanımız başka idi, şimdiki zaman başka... diye cevap verdi, sonra da: - Trabzon İttihat ve Terakki şubesinin evrakı neşrolunsun. Kuvay-ı Milliye’yi kim yapmıştır, öğrenirsiniz, diyordu. Cavit: - Evet Mustafa Kemal bir devlet adamı olamaz, siyaset bilmez, hükûmet işleri bilmez, fakat askerliğine de bir şey diyemezsiniz ya! diyecek olmuştu. Doktor Nâzım: - Askerlik mi? Ali İhsan Paşa ordunun başına geçsin. Plânları hazırlasın. Tam kumanda vereceği zaman sen gel, onu at, koşulu arabaya bin ve İzmir’e git... dedi. Hatta kendi aralarında birbirine zıt birçok cereyanlar, Mustafa Kemal’i yıkmakta birleşmişlerdi. Hiç kimsenin de bir programı yoktu. Mustafa Kemal yıkılıp da ne olacaktı?

She’s not talking to me,” I said. “She says Bindi says I am bad for her. She says she is tired of me, and of everything about me.” Vanessa

Though only twenty-four, I’d already resigned myself to never finding love. It was inconceivable that I could be loved when I could barely tolerate myself. That someone could take the things I vehemently tried to disguise—the hated, broken, ugly fragments of a child that had been so alone and lost—and see something they found beautiful.

Bindi waved goodbye, then tucked Nan’s journal beneath her arm, feeling the hard, cardboard cover press into her side. Reeda had given her Nan’s journals when she returned from her trip to Italy. Bindi had been putting off reading them but had taken one with her to the first chemotherapy treatment the day before and begun to make her way through it. It was as fascinating as her sisters had said it was

Whenever a Catholic priest arrived from abroad, the sisters went into missionary overdrive, converting the neighborhood poor to Christianity with offers of clothes, food, books, and money. Our Maari was one of the many who lined up outside the church, tempted by the pristine white garments that the sisters handed out and the envelopes of cash that she needed so badly. But she always reverted back to Hinduism after a few days, preferring her dime-sized bindi and colorful saris to the Spartan clothes of newly converted Christians. Apparently, her Christianity commanded a higher price than the sisters could afford.

I like cups of tea and reading books and poetry and old people things.

Well, it's like, uh holding on to a hurt- uh, hugging a hurt, one teacher calls it. Well, it, uh, like, just creates more hurt" -Bindi