My doll house was green and white. Large green windows and door with picket fence white walls. There was a pink bed in it and a tiny shelf that was my larder. There I kept everything that the famous five ate while they , spread out on heather, planned breathlessly exciting ways to catch smugglers and the many others who were no match for four kids and a waggy tail dog. If the Famous Five had their sea ,island and castle, I had my own pond and secret shed. Ponds have their adventure stories too!

So I had lemonade and ice, my mothers lemon tarts, cookies of ginger, oats, jam, scones with huge chunks of disappearing butter, plenty of plum jam and as many Enid Blyton books as I could fit into the space between the bed and the window.

In that tiny house, sunlight and candle flame and the endless thrill of possibility, of adventure, of magic lit up my childhood.

..............( to be contd.)

“The first is the worst,
Second is the best,
Third is the one with the treasure chest!”

As the buses enter the school gates, I silently join in the chant with the children as they look out to see how many buses have come before ours. It is un-teacher like to sing along!. Today we are the treasure chest.

Sometimes when we are first, the chant is edited to make the first the best.

Hurried attempts are made to invent something cool when we come in fourth. Buses after that do not even deserve to qualify. They are simply not good enough.

The ride in the bus is perhaps the most exciting part of my school day. Yesterday a first grade student showed me his treasure. Shining crystals hidden in a black stone. He had two small pieces to show his friends in school and many more at home. “Look” he said , “it has a million crystals.”

I looked at a gravel pebble shining in his hands. “Put it in your hand and let the sun shine on it. Look how is glitters.” He said. I had to agree. It did have millions of crystals peeping out of grey-black stone.

I told him I loved them and that he was so lucky to have them. He smiled and spent the next few minutes in silence after which he told me that, after a lot of thinking, he had decided to give me a bit of his treasure. I would have to wait though, he would have to go home and find something that was nice enough to give me.

In my secret life, I also collect pebbles and imagine them to be precious stones. The flower beds in the garden are tropical paradises and I, shrunk a million sizes smaller, am an explorer.

I will take any chance I can to take off my shoes and allow my feet to burn deliciously on the stone footpaths in school. The grass that big boards tell us to keep off, plump themselves up in mossy clusters, daring us to roll on them. I walk till the edge and pretending to be in some deep thought, let a toe touch the edge of the grass.

There is also an attic in my secret life. In that attic there are old wooden chests. One of them is full of old forgotten books. Books that I can draw patterns on with the dust they have collected. They are hardcover and have beautiful illustrations in them. Someone who owned them has written a note for anyone who might read them. The note is in code. It is my job to decipher it and try to figure if I am being guided to a treasure or being told some terrifying secret. Right at the bottom of the box there are comics. All kinds of comics. Hundreds of comics. I will spend long summer afternoons with the sun coating my feet, my back and my hair, next to me will be ice lemonade and chips. A pile of comics will lie next to me. Enough to last me a few hours. The sun and shadows will bind me with invisible threads to the ground and so I had better stock up on supplies till the threads wear thin with the setting sun.

The other chest will be full of all kinds of odds and ends. Mismatched china plates, blue and white, each whispering a story. An old old clock that goes CLANG in an rusty 80 year old voice, raggedy dolls with many dresses to spare, doll tea sets, coins from all over that I will allow to sing merrily in my hands, shells, tiny ones, colourful ones, too wee to hold to the ear and allow the sea in.

I do not know what the other chests hold. The key is lost and I want to allow them to keep their secrets for now. Who knows, I may find emeralds and rubies. Sapphires and opals.

…………………sigh…………….when the school bell brings me back to my dull desk…I must , forcibly pick up the text book and become a dull boring teacher and keep ready a yelling, just in case the work I asked them to do is not done………

……….will ramble on though…later..

JP told me once, "at the end of it, no seems to want the stray dogs, whether it is those of us who love them and want to bring their population down by ABC or those who want them dead." What he said is true and it made me very sad.

I look at the dogs on my road. The world for them is one happy place. They sleep, legs in the air, rolling in the pavement sand, their hearts and minds free of worry. Do they know the battle we are fighting for them? They are licensed, collared and I want to imagine that they are safe. I cannot. Even those with collars are being picked up because for their death, someone gets Rs.50.

Can you put a price on chocolate eyes full of life?

Three legged Jack, who runs faster than his able bodied gang of browns, hangs his pink dotted with purple tongue out in the noonday sun. A watchman gives him water. Some years ago, another watchman had almost scolded me for not providing him with an artificial leg. He had heard that Jack had lost his leg after an auto drove over it. It was something he constantly worried about. How will Jack manage, he asked me angrily.
His three legs melt everyone’s hearts and he takes full advantage of the extra treats and cuddles he gets because of it. For now, he is safe. But who knows, with the way the media is feeding this raging fire against dogs.

Is loss of a human life justification enough to carry out this massacre? Is it enough to condone it? Dogs injected with cyanide and thrown in landfills by a bulldozer? Dogs hung with their necks between trees and left to die? Dogs beaten on the ground like clothes against a stone till they die? How different is this from the many torture camps we read about. Saddam Hussain’s men would pull out the nails of the POW’s and use many such horrific torture methods. We shudder at the very thought. Yet, somehow torture of animals is shrugged off by most people and those who fight against it are dismissed as eccentric and interfering.

Any torture, any cruelty any willful act of harm is wrong. Animal or human. We are cognitively more developed than animals, true but animals share the same emotions as we do. They as capable of love, fear, anger joy, sorrow as we are. What gives us the right then to inflict suffering on them? They were not made for our enjoyment and use as some religious texts choose to put it. We share the planet with them and all we seem to be doing is behaving like a very psychopathic school bully with them.

People should think. Those dogs catchers and killers who have so easily and seemingly pleasurably killed dogs in the last one month in Bangalore, will not think twice, given the chance to do the same to a human being. This is because the manner and method they are using show classic text book psychopathy. Here they have the license to kill by a corrupt and bloodthirsty BBMP, steady practice on these animals will perfect their skills to eventually replicate the crime on other easy targets. Children perhaps?

She must be in heaven now,
With an angel duly assigned,
Eyes closed and purring,
Basking in eternal sunshine.

I hope the angel makes very sure,
That she gets her fish and rice,
She ain’t the kind of cat,
Who will go chasing mice.

In winter ,she likes cuddling up,
Sinking in tummies soft and deep,
So they had better puff those clouds,
And give her a snug, cozy sleep.

She doesn’t mind other cats,
But she is very refined,
So hope those scallywags up there,
Don’t trouble her philosophical mind,

She has the sweetest mew,
The loveliest you will hear,
No winged harpist halo and all,
Can come anywhere near.

She doesn’t like it when you feel sad,
Remember that, all you up above,
All of heaven put together,
Cannot equal her love.

Look after her all of you,
Make sure she is fine.
Or there will be no anger worse
To deal with, than mine.

When her eyes grow distant,
And her thoughts are far away,
Tell her that I wish too,
She would come back and stay.

The attitude of the anti stray dog group in Bangalore is simply this-Anti Life.
Their paranoia is equaled by their lack of rational thought . Their methods to spread false propaganda against stray dogs would have been brushed off as a jealous cheap school child trick, had it not such alarming consequences.

Most of the reports they give are fabricated. The rag and tag group spend most of their spare time thinking about what to invent next to spread hysteria in the city about stray dogs. The rest of their time is spent in thinking how they can make the best of the situation- dog leather trade by the old Diana de Vile, who exports leather. So unless she has dead dogs, she will not have her handbags.

As for the toothless old veterinarian, he fled when he thought black magic was being done on him…..very brave for someone who is responsible for the killing of all the dogs in Brunei , a culling that he wears as a badge of honour. A veterinary Dr. Death.

As for the Popinjays , they are far too pathetic to get word space on this blog. Mrs. Popinjay claims that garbage is no issue, it cannot kill anyone. Mr. Popinjay is phobic towards all animals and would ideally like all of them dead.

Phew! Never in my life have I spewed such venom. Sometimes I think that this miserable group is to be pitied. The only ray of happiness in their life is when they can take another. Being the cowards they are, they take that of an animal.

The tragic death of a five year old girl because of being attacked by a pack of stray dogs once again brings up the debate of the stray dog issue.

I would like to point out what the stray dog issue is about and what it is not.

1.This is not animal welfare activists vs the rest of the public.
It is so easy to point fingers at people who work for animals and blame them for incidents like this one. Officials have pointed out that if they kill stray dogs animal activists will be up in arms. The fact is that animal welfare NGO’s who are doing the ABC program sterilize healthy dogs as well as euthanize dogs who are unfit. These include rabid, old, aggressive and otherwise infirm dogs. Needless killing of healthy animals is unethical by any standards, not just an animal lovers.

2.This is not about mass killing of all dogs.
Mass killing is not one of the standards by which we define a civilized society. As a society that is getting increasingly scientific and developed in its outlook, this form of culling is from the dark ages. Also as humans, where the is our humanity? Eliminating a species is unscientific and barbaric.


3.This is about a scientific method to tackle the dog population.

When the BMP electrocuted and killed the dogs, the population did not decrease because a vacuum in nature will be filled up as long as there is a food source to sustain a life form. These dogs who are called strays are in fact indigenous Indian dogs. They are part of the balance of nature. They have a role to play, that of the scavenger. Thus, by sterilizing them and vaccinating them along with euthanizing unfit dogs, the best possible balance is being struck. The population has come down after the ABC program as been implemented.
4. This is not about Bangalore becoming the USA or Singapore.

Media reports say that the stray dog problem does not exist in the USA and Singapore. Neither do street children, beggars, garbage, illegal pavement structures, traffic problems, pollution caused by humans etc.

5.This is about systematically clearing garbage.

A comment by Ms Vatsala Dhananjay said that garbage is not the problem as it cannot kill anyone. Infact garbage is the problem. It is a health and hygiene problem. It is a breeding ground for disease. It points fingers at a city that totally lacks civic sense. The lesser the garbage, the lesser the chances of incidents like these occurring.

6. This is about educating the public.
It is all too easy to create mass hysteria. This hysteria clouds rational thinking and actions based on such reactions will always be a cause for regret. Schools, residents associations, and the public must be educated on the ABC program, rabies, stray dogs, do’s and don’ts.


7.This is about regulating breeding.

Breeders indiscriminately allow dogs to have litters and abandon those who they find unfit as well as abandon the male and female dogs once they are too old or unhealthy to breed. These dogs are left to fend for themselves on roads, adding to the population.

8. This is about a need to develop vaccinations to counter rabies.

Just as we will not kill every human being for being potential HIV, hepatitis, TB and polio carriers, but rather work towards a vaccination to eliminate the virus, so too should we work towards eradicating the rabies virus just as we eradicated the smallpox virus. All warm blooded species can carry the rabies virus, if we begin to kill one species, where will we end? Mass vaccination drives, cheap rabies vaccinations easily available is the solution.


We speak so much of Gandhigiri, we want to believe in non violence and we as people who practice it. Where is our Gandhigiri if we react with violence? We co exist with the animals around us. Trying to eliminate a species is never a solution not by any measure scientific or compassionate. We consider ourselves a superior species. We wont prove it by being the school bully. Let is show it by doing what is best for both-humans and animals.

The hollow and hungry media has ripped apart the dignity of Santhi Soundarajan. She won a silver medal for the 800m run at the Doha Asian games. Soon after headlines ran screaming that she had failed the gender test, hyping and sensationalizing the fact that she lacks female sexual characteristics.

Why does this make front page headline news? Because she is of ambiguous gender? Because she cheated (if she did)? Because the Indian sports council or whatever it is that decides which athletes represent India deliberately hid facts? ……the only thing that seems to be highlighted is that she has failed a gender test ,leaving the rest to everyone’s imagination.

It appears that she studied in a girls school and college. She has lived all her life as a woman. This is possible in certain genetic disorders where the sex gene combinations go haywire eg xxy ,xxyy, x0 etc. Such people may be intersexuals.

I do not dismiss that Santhi knew she was not a woman, she preferred to be a woman due to a combination of genetics, hormones and perhaps some external attributes. If that is so, then we need to rethink our outlook to people with gender ambiguity and find a way in which they can be equal participants in events such as this. Unless it is a clear cut case of cheating, I think no one has the right to strip her of her medal. More importantly no one had any right to strip her of her dignity.

My determination to gym can qualify as the newest DSM entry. Gymming can be great fun on some days and a complete torture on others. The weighing scales in the gym are rigged..always!!!.....the gym instructor has a new challenge for you everyday…but at the end of that hour I feel great.

Recently I have tried out running sideways on the treadmill. When I first tried it, I was sure that I would get hurled out of the window and land on the branch of the tree outside. With practice, it has become my favourite form of treadmill exercise.

Does anyone have challenging exercises to do on the treadmill? If you do…do post them!

Exams!

So the exam corrections have begun…..

Some answers….

Science grade-8

1.Define population:

• A place where there are people or cars.
• A non renewable resource

2. Business Studies grade-9

What is a franchise?
When KFC opens many branches or chains.

………………..more to come…………….

Animal cells dont have animal cells (bio answer grade-11)

an answer to "Explain how HIV-AIDS can affect the economy if the government does not take measures to prevent it"

HIV-AIDS is a commodity. It is good for health. (grade-12)

If the legal system in India flushed itself down the loo, everyone will clap their hands and be happy.

A recent verdict spared a rapist from the death sentence by saying that he had a momentary lapse seeing a girl alone in a field. The girl was eight and she bled to death.

A senile lawyer, rotting in the body and brain now tries to bring Jessica Laal’s character into question by saying that she refused a sexual favour because she preferred someone else.

Justice for Hetal Parekh, raped and murdered, came after 14 years.

The parents of Priyadarshini Matoo still wait………

And along with the judiciary the media and human rights activists can become a part of the sewage.

The media simply loves to give long sleazy insights into “a day in the life of the rape victim”……………………mostly she is a woman of loose morals………so , that being the case, implies our puritan media, she asked for it……..

Poor guy…all he had was a momentary lapse…..

The human rights activists meanwhile hold candlelight vigils to prevent the hanging of rapist-murderers. While the victims families suffer through agony the HRA holiday in Hawaii…………when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was sentenced to death, the media and the HRA’s went to every extent possible to make him out to be a poor bloke who was wronged……….

We can protest, cry, scream, blog, get violent…..but it is that minority that wins…Vox Populi??!!………….as if!

Reading blogs here and there, about this thing and that, annoys me even as it amuses. But I must not rush to type out hard hitting adjectives and nasty things that my brain is throwing up at a speed that frustrates my fingers. They are being held down, each on some letter on the keyboard, while a diplomatic discussion via my nerve impulses goes on between them and my brain. The brain trying to work out the best way possible to communicate its (imagined) excellent analysis, and if I may add ,superior view of the
mangled and confused (though excellently worded) , highly opinionated and sting ray venom loaded rambling on these blogs. The fingers tap their impatience. Diplomatic dialogue is the same everywhere.!

Ah! But I ramble myself…….

Clothes, jewels, houses, cars and gadgets…….the labels of snobbery for the intellectual's poor country cousin……… and identity, political alliances, religion and such stuff, the shredding and salad making of which, the status symbols of the imagined intellectual elite.

As far as I can see, their arguments stand only on the debris of those they have verbally destroyed. Certainly not on their own merit. What good an argument is that? The school bully is happily fed with the snack time munchies of other children, is he not?

With so many examples that I want to give to substantiate my haphazard thoughts, I feel limited by saying “Now take for example what the rag and tag girl said about designer jeans”………….so…….I will allow my thoughts to jumble and tumble and occasionally my fingers may outsmart my brain and quietly push in some evil refreshing thought, well camouflaged .


And….may I add…kind of you dear reader for still reading on……

So why must the priestly caste be shredded in order to make the non temple inheriting, non thread wearing but otherwise perfectly normal multicellulars feel good about themselves as they sit shaking their heads over cups coffee and deep fried things?

……………if you stand tall on debris, you will crash right through and the splinters will cut you and the ash will blacken the many parts of the anatomy that hit it……………….

Besides all that is achieved is another layer of cement to strengthen the granite stone strong dividing wall…………

Actions, I was taught in my Human Values class, a century ago in school, speak louder than words. So list 5 people ( non kudumbi) whose standard of living , education, health and general well being has improved thanks to consistent hands on effort and struggle by the eminent authors of such blogs………………..um….list 1.


………………and now as my lunch bell rings……I must go…..more later…..

Yes! Pamuk wins the Nobel Prize...

and please do not miss the white fluff on his worktable!

Crikey!

Living in the eternal hope that there might be some truth…...just some in the Bermuda triangle mystery.....as well as so many others ......Easter Island, Atlantis, the Aztecs, the Myans….. I wonder with cat like curiosity about the things people believe in totally or at least secretly hope might be true………aliens….yeti…..vampires……timetravel……..

Do write in……..

My cousin Lars and his wife Anna...more pics later!

Flower Fairies

Fear freezes us into inaction. As a defense mechanism, inaction works quite well. What fear also does is fills the silences that it creates with despair. Despair fills everything with everything unsaid. Words, chiseled and polished in the mind, in the hope of the sentence being perfect, come out instead haphazardly and strew themselves around, so that all one ends up doing is hurriedly gathering them up and trying to string them together again.
Fear. That is what it does to us.

And so it is the fear of loss that causes the loss. We go back to our fetal self . Close our eyes, curl ourselves into that state of being which was the safest. We weld slowly and surely each link of the chain that we allow to rest on ourselves, cold. What is that strange comfort that we find in allowing ourselves to be so bound?

Inaction the conjoined twin of Fear freezes us.

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

………………………..

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
………………

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all
already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

Extracts from the love song of J Alfred Prufrock-TS Eliot.


And so fear prevents us from feeling, from believing, from accepting want.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”


Extracts from the love song of Alfred J Prufrock-TS Eliot.

Bleak?....defeatist?....yes…but also true?.....

I am not talking here about having the will to conquer fear, nor about being able to pull together and all the talk that accompanies such thoughts. I am limiting myself to understanding Fear and its possibilities……and I am still groping….