Okay, her name is NOT Jane, it’s Loretta.
And it’s not a chimp up there, it’s an orang utan.
But this is as close one can get to a tree swingin’ Jane in this day and age.
Loret was a budding law student when I first met her. She had failed to get through her final year multiple times and seemed to loathe law to the point that perhaps lawyer jokes were no longer funny. I’m guessing she must have felt like a failure.
She quit law school. I’m guessing some may have perceived her a quitter.
She joined the NST and pursued a career in writing – one of her passions. What a fall from grace that must have seemed!!
But no! These apparently bad decisions concealed a greater destiny that was soon to unravel itself…
You see, Loret was the type who would, in the middle of heavy rain, stop her car on the main road of Bangsar if she spotted a scared kitten in need. She would ferry heaps of these strays (sorry for the animal activists out there if ’strays’ is not politically correct or in any way offensive) back home and nurse them back to health. Problem was, she didn’t have a relocation program of her own and her parents’ home soon became a miniature zoo.
The NST must have noticed her peculiar disposition towards animals (late for work for strange reasons like this, strands of non-human fibres caught in her scarves, stories about her new friend the orang utan who had a crush on her) that they gave her a little column of her own. Many a homeless dog was repatriated thanks to her.
Soon, her passion for animals far outgrew her desk job and she just HAD to get her hands dirty.
I visited her once in her new home. It was a corner lot with massive overgrowth that prevented most sunlight from reaching the grown. Loret’s damp urban rainforest (located in Mayang Jaya, PJ) sheltered multiple fishtanks, pools with tortoises, wild strays that only obeyed her, and even an abandoned baby owl which was dumped on her and which she nursed and trained to hunt mice in her own bedroom!!
She recounted tales of relocating crocs in zoo negara in the dead of night, with only the beams of a single car to illuminate the complicated and dangerous operation!
Loret is crazy in the best possible way.
Perhaps Loret should be imprisoned for her exploits.
Or perhaps Loret deserves an all-natural, fully biodegradable, tropial wreath for beating her own trail, albeit muddy, through life.
And Oh! … IF ONLY I was allowed to tell you about her husband, THE true Tarzan…
That is absolutely a great story and very interesting too. Thank you so much for sending it to us. Here is good luck for both Jane and Tarzan. Loved the pictures too.