Personal Blog – Literature, Poetry and Reading.

The Book of Dog (This is not a review) Part 1: URGENT- Puppy nowhere to be found!

I have been reading The Book of Dog edited by Hemali Sodhi which claims to be an anthology celebrating our beloved best friends. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to review this book- it touches too close to the heart; but I’ve made it a point to recount my tryst with numerous animals whose pawprints have touched my life in inexplicable and multifarious ways. So, over the course of the next few weeks, I shall attempt (mostly, in vain) to explain the inexplicable. The first in this series is titled “URGENT- Puppy nowhere to be found”.

On a hot September afternoon I was just ready to go to my hostel room and take a nap before I had to go back to the acad block to prepare for my moot throughout early morning hours, when I chanced upon a puppy that could barely walk and looked like he was in a very bad shape. On a closer look, I noticed that his body had been infested with maggots. Yet his little tail would wag every time he received pets. The puppy also had a very serious case of mange. I was appalled by the fact that people around me were least interested in helping this poor baby. Some people helped me rub turmeric and betadine over its body, while most people watched with disgust. I contacted all the animal welfare organizations in the city, veterinarians, sought help from professors, but no one was available right away. A veterinarian who also rescues and fosters animals said he would be available the next day, so I decided to wait.

In the meanwhile, I e-mailed everyone in the university to come forward and help in any way they can. In a world where human beings barely show any humanity to other fellow human beings, I really expected people to come forward and help a puppy that objectively looks like something no one would ever want to go near. He was emaciated, chronically dehydrated, had maggots crawling out of wounds on his body, and a serious case of mange. People abandon and abuse pedigreed dogs and where I was expecting a bunch of low EQ people to sympathize and help. In retrospect, even though my emails may seem like a joke to anyone who reads them now, I would probably do it all over again if I had to.

Any way, since I had to take matters into my own hands, I made a makeshift shelter out of boxes for him, arranged for some towels, a water bowl, and kept feeding him intermittently. I sat with him from 2pm that day until 5am the next morning. I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and was starting to feel extremely sleepy and tired from running around all afternoon and sitting in the same position for 12 hours. I made the worst decision I could have possible made- to rely on another human being. I asked the security guard in front of the acad block to please keep an eye on the puppy and that I would be back in an hour. Just one hour. I just wanted one hour of sleep. By the time I returned, the puppy was nowhere to be found. I asked around, looked outside the campus, nowhere.

Guess what’s the worst thing you can do apart from relying on another human being? It is to expect from them. I wrote yet another email after a long search, hoping someone would have seen him, or at least volunteer to look for him. I made a coupled of angry calls to members in the animal welfare committee for their lack of responsibility, and that’s it. Then there was a breakdown. Which lasted for a whole week, even more. I cried, could not sleep, had nightmares about losing my dog back home. I could not stop thinking about him, whether he was okay, or dead, or alive. I tried to cling to every hope and possibility of him making it somewhere safe, not far away from campus. I hoped he would return. My search continued every day, for a long time. But then reality sank in and my hope was overshadowed by desolation: there’s no way he would have recovered without proper treatment, no way the maggot wounds would have healed by themselves. Mostly, I cannot (till this date) forgive myself or forget the fact that at the very same hour when I was fast asleep, this poor terrified thing was on the run, or worse, deliberately kicked out.

In this context, I like to recall a particular essay from the book titled ‘Part-Time Dogs’ by Jai Arjun Singh where he mentions, “Urban ‘development’ aims to weed out the natural world from our lives; to erase paw prints from cement. It is based on the hubris that we are exalted creatures, capable of living autonomously in our concrete bubbles, after having impinged on the territories of other species; never mind the consequences for the ecology and for our own physical and emotional health.“.

So when yesterday I could not find one of the strays called Tripod (she is three legged) near my home in Bangalore, my heart skipped a beat and I started getting flashbacks from three years ago when the puppy went missing. I informed everyone immediately about Tripod’s absence and went to look for her myself (this time around I had learnt my lesson about not relying on other people). Guess what? I found her happy and healthy, she came running to me, jumped on me, and covered with the sloppiest kisses. I was at peace. As Jai Arjun Singh says, we have a big responsibility, those few of us who care about these vulnerable creatures. The ‘strays’, who only know a small patch of terrain as their forever home.

Being there- an ode to my best friend.

You text every day, almost impulsively which forms part of routine. It’s banal, the same old texts that wish you a good morning, ask you how your day was, wish you a good night. The texts don’t seem very extraordinary. Until- they’re having the busiest day at work or are out with friends and are having a good time. They text you nonetheless. They video call you before going out for a party to help them pick the right outfit even though your taste in clothes are nothing like theirs. Sometimes they’ll video call you irrespective of where they are and who they’re with, introduce you to their friends and when you were least expecting it, they send you an unintelligible text asking how your day was. It’s the same text that has buzzed up your phone for eight years now but your heart lights up as if a million candles were lit up inside.

You’ve known them for eight years now and have spent considerable time around each other and in each other’s houses. You’d expect them to take you for granted, which is quite normal in most friendships. You’re in their house only for two weeks. Who cares if the bedsheet hasn’t been changed in four days? But they do, they remember that you prefer them changed every four days, or that you like to light candles before you sleep and they always remember to restock your candle supply lest they be over and you can’t sleep at night. You return home from a trip and the unfolded laundry that you had stuffed in your suitcase is now carefully folded and kept. Finally, it takes you twenty one years but you realise that a lot of people will tell you “I’m here for you” but only a few will translate their words into action; being “there” for someone is best felt when not spelt out, it is in remembering and noticing the little things.

They’re starkly different from you. They don’t like to read. They’re not very keen on walking eight kilometres early in the morning after a night of a little too much booze. They don’t understand organic farming. They don’t take a lot of interest in geopolitics or the history of the Ottoman empire. You don’t understand Japanese. You can’t possibly fathom how they have the patience to willingly teach such a complex language. You don’t like the fact that they’re still not trying to be vegan. Yet you cannot get enough of each other. On some days you wonder how you could possibly be friends with this person. Ding! A notification from them, you open it and see a picture of a gift wrap in which you’d wrapped a book you thought they would like and gifted it to them. They never read the book, yet they saved the gift wrap for some reason and they’ve had it carefully with them for over five years now. You don’t need to wonder anymore.

On very busy days too they still make time. Sending unintelligible good morning texts you know were sent while they were still half asleep. You couldn’t reply because you were getting late to work. A mid-office five minute call to make up for it, asking how their day is going and exchanging random updates about the previous day and plans for the evening. You promise you’ll call them after reaching home. A couple of hours pass, the buzzing phone reads an angry yet affectionate text- how dare you not text me for three hours? A few minutes later- a picture of them taken from their laptop in the ten minutes of break between classes. It’s late evening now and they’re frustrated because you’d promised to call and you were just about to- when suddenly it rings. An angry hello, a smile, the sound of a voice you know too well that shouts “Didii”, and soon enough you’re both laughing. Busy days can be hard, but love is always easy.

“I have booked my tickets, I am coming to see you.” A sentence that makes you feel like hugging every person in the room. You know they’d be by your side- whether you’re physically ill, or you just miss them. There’s nothing more precious than knowing you have one person in the world who won’t wait till you’re dying to come see you. They’d just do it anyway, because you mentioned it.

Lessons Learnt From a Butterfly and Pink Martini’s Hang on Little Tomato

Here’s to flying amidst all our tempests, finding non-refined sugar alternatives at more cafes, and hanging on for better things to come up ahead.

Song of the day is Hang on Little Tomato by Pink Martini. It’s such a straightforward song and yet so profound. There couldn’t be a better song to listen to right now. It is 23 degrees outside and I’m at one of my favourite cafes drinking my favourite beverage- Matcha Chai Latte. I’ve had such a couple of disquieting months and today was particularly the most exacting day I’ve had in a long time. But every cloud has a silver lining- and mine is finally finding jaggery powder at this cafe (I’ve never been to any cafe that had the option of jaggery powder sachets before).

Firstly I don’t think I’d have made it out alone but I was inspired by a butterfly I came across during my morning walk today. I noticed that she had a broken wing so I rescued her immediately and brought her home (I don’t mean to misgender the butterfly but for now, I shall refer to the butterfly as “she”). She was kind of flying about unsteadily and trying to flutter her wings but in vain. I carefully placed her on one of my saplings high above on my desk, near my window so that she felt safe and was at a comfortable distance from my cat who kept staring at her with his lecherous eyes (he was probably thinking about how crunchy the butterfly would have felt in his mouth). Jokes apart, I was feeling pretty shitty especially in the afternoon and that’s when the butterfly started fluttering normally again. I felt helpless because I couldn’t actually make her fly but I did go up to her and encourage her to. To my amazement, within the next fifteen minutes or so she was flying normally again and there she went- out the window! I doubt my words of encouragement helped her in any way but I tried. As a human being, I communicated in the language I understood best and I can only hope it worked. Usually works for my pets, so one can only hope.

Lesson learnt was that if the butterfly with a broken wing whom I never expected to fly can fly amidst all her tempests, then so can I. Nature just inspires the human mind in myriad of ways, it’s pretty marvelous. So here I am drinking my matcha latter with jaggery powder, writing again after a whole year to be precise, and most importantly, hanging on to the vine as Pink Martini would have wanted me to. Moreover, if I start to cry, I can always look up at the sky hoping something comes up ahead to turn my tears to dew instead. Here’s to flying amidst all our tempests, finding non-refined sugar alternatives at more cafes, and hanging on for better things to come up ahead.

A place to call home: Pune

I was reading Kundera’s ‘The unbearable lightness of being’ when I came across this line-

“and now he realized that those years were more attractive in retrospect than they were when he was living them”

It strikes a rather painful chord inside me but having realized this bitter truth now, I’ll make an effort to may be not complain about my life in the present. I would often complain to my friends about Pune- how people are not crazy about books, education, music, culture, etc. but I was only ignorant. (How many maharashtrian friends did I have anyway?) The Bengali chauvinist inside me would die within a week of stepping into Calcutta. I would miss Pune terribly- the cleaner roads, the better weather, the better friends, lesser politics, the freedom of wearing shorter clothes, of not being leered at and everything else. Pune gave me a place to breathe and be myself- this was extremely difficult in Calcutta, being surrounded by a so-called ‘upper caste’ family who were inherently bigoted, casteist, capitalist and sexist even though they were not inherently ‘bad people’. It is only because of Pune that I had friends that belonged to different classes, castes and cultures. I wonder how much of that would have been possible if I stayed back in Calcutta, studying at La Martiniere, where everything is inherently linked to status, class and caste. Mixing with people from the so called ‘lower caste’ was looked down upon, at least within our social circle in South Kolkata.

Pune not only introduced me to misal pav, pohe, dabeli, and puran poli but also to neer dosa, filter coffee, dal bati churma, puliyogare, malai kofta and Kashmiri kahwa tea- such was the diversity within my circle of friends and also my parents’. I cannot think of a city more cosmopolitan and more tolerant towards other cultures- something that I find seriously problematic living in Benagluru or hearing from my friends and relatives back in Delhi. I don’t think people in Pune care enough- as long as there is good food, loud guffaws, a little fervour during Ganesh Chaturthi, we mind our own business at the end of the day and nobody cares enough to argue on whose culture is better or worse and why. We will embrace yours without expecting anything in return. I’ll never say Pune is the best city to live in, but I sure as well had the greatest time of my life there. We may not have the best airport, not even a decent one but try stepping out of the airport and you’ll know what I am talking about. We sure have a house in Bengaluru now, two more houses and most of my family in Calcutta, and I am mostly in Cuttack for law school, but there is no other place other than Pune I would call home. And now, more than ever have I realized the stark and sombre difference between a house and a home and perhaps this is why, I find myself belonging more to the state which is a gateway to both- the north and the south.

Happy Maharashtra Day!

‘FC road’ or ‘FC college road’, Memories from a place.

From L to R, Model Colony Lake, fuel for the day against the backdrop of Fergusson College, my first encounter with the ducks and their peculiar liking for Parle-G, Cafe Goodluck in all its glory (could not find a picture in the library so took it from here).

It is yet another uneventful day in my life amidst the lockdown that does not seem to end and I am suddenly reminded of Venus traders. For those of you who’ve been in Pune, you might know that Venus is every stationery hoarder’s heavenly abode. The two-storeyed building hidden away in the lush green by-lanes of FC road or as some like to call it, FC college road. FC college road would literally mean Fergusson College College Road so I really do not understand the need for college after FC. Anyway, some things, you just learn to tolerate.

For most punekars, going to FC road or JM road also comes with the perpetual fear of getting your two-wheeler towed. It has happened to me twice- once while I parked my two-wheeler right outside the lane between Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks (apparently, my vehicle was outside the permitted confines of parking) and the second time, it was when I was so thrilled to go to Venus during one of my free periods that I parked my vehicle in the even lane on an odd day. In my defense, I was into paper-cutting back then and really needed those fancy tools to make stencils which are now pasted on my wall back in my college. I have no regrets whatsoever except for the fact that I could have been mindful but had I really been mindful, I would have one less towing story to tell today.

I spent a huge part of my day gallivanting in and around FC road. I rarely read Pune Times but this one time, just once, I was lucky to have come across Radhika Apte’s interview in the newspaper about her growing up in Pune’s Model Colony (again, very close to FC road). I love Model Colony and Model Colony Lake was a gem of a discovery I made that day, thanks to Radhika Apte. Soon enough, I started to go to the lake almost every day and my favorite part of the whole experience was feeding the ducks. I always carried some Parle-G biscuits with me so that I could feed a stray dog wherever I go and once, a line of ducks started to surround me while I was breaking the biscuits into little pieces for the dogs to eat inside the park’s premises. Now, I do not know if ducks are allowed to eat biscuits, but I was definitely prohibited from feeding the ducks. I fed them anyway. I had something extra to carry in my bag now- oats for the ducks along with biscuits for the dogs. I never carried lunch to junior college, so I did not mind the extra weight.

If there is something I remeber very fondly about Pune, it has to be this- decent weather that Pune promises, noon, too many trees, too many birds, model colony lake and feeding ducks alone. I also bunked classes sometimes, to feed ducks. Now that I think about it, I may have bunked classes to go read in the British Library or walk around FC road, grab the best vada pav from Chotu’s on JM road, to eat a Rajasthani or Gujarati thali from Panchavati (ah the aamras!), to meet friends at Goodluck for the best bun-maska and chai, to make the occasional visits for lunch to Subway on FC road or German Bakery on Law College Road and to study at Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks before exams. There was also this misal pav place near the signal that I love, ah yes- Sir Misal. (The things I would give up to go have a plate right about now!) Some of you may disagree with me here and think Katakirr is the best misal place but for me, its way too spicy so the award goes to Sir Misal. It does not matter to me whether someone calls it ‘FC road’ or ‘FC college road’, it will always hold a special place in my heart except for the unwarranted towing. Actually, scratch that, the towing too.

Of necessary friendships and late night coffees

I read Helen Kellers autobiography in school and came across a rather peculiar adage- “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light”. Though back then I laughed it off thinking it might resonate with someone like Helen Keller but can never be true for me. It took me five years to change my point of view about the adage. I very much agree with Keller today. Friends are necessary and important. More than a want, friendships are a need.

To be very honest, my survival instincts started acting up after I left the comfort zone of home and family and landed in college. I fainted on the first day I arrived in college and that’s when I realized that I need to make friends, whether I like it or not and so I did. It was one of the wisest decisions I’ve ever made, it has not only saved me from attendance shortages but also helped me fetch extra marks in exams thanks to friends who stay up with me thereby helping me pull those unimaginable all-nighters.

As I inch closer to project submission deadlines in the midst of a lockdown, away from college, and as my mother stares at me with absolute disbelief that I’m brewing myself a cup of coffee at 3 am, this is presumably the first time in life I feel not so sure about completing my projects on time or of not doing a good enough job. Suddenly, it is not about the deadlines and a lump rises at the back of my throat. This angst emanates from the sudden realization of being away from college and missing my friends and not knowing when we’ll see each other again. I’m finally starting to realise how important friends are.

They accompany you to GH or Sanjay Bhaiya’s canteen or Nescafe when you’re in dire need of coffee but are also dreading wasting even 10 minutes of your time. Those 10 minutes of break time to go have an espresso or cheap machine coffee and talking about the random-est things in life with friends have presumably been one of my most cherished memories of college. Those 10 minutes ensured that I get the much needed oxytocin to calm my nerves and that caffeine (though I think now its really all placebo) to help me stay awake throughout the night and fetch that ‘O’ (or ‘E’) in my exams. It’s as easy as walking with a friend to get coffees! We procrastinate but we also get the work done and there is no place more like home than the company of friends in college. (Things are not the same when your friends from college live in the same city as you do, trust me.)

Of distastes and disqualifications

I just finished reading this book called ‘No Longer Human’ and I noticed that the protagonist was a partially relatable character. The protagonist fears humankind and has developed an unconscionable distaste for it which makes him feel disqualified to be a human being. I agree with the first half you see but I have an emendation for the latter half when it comes to me. Allow me to elucidate.

My distaste for most people arises from indifference, but in a society that thrives on relationships and pretty much makes everything about these relationships, my indifference is often met with contempt. “How can you not care?” “Simply”. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been told I’m quite altruistic so I guess I do care, depending on the person and circumstance.

This distaste does not result from me feeling disqualified to be a human being but from a position that views others disqualified to exist in the first place. I cannot wrap my around the naivety, the stupidity, the selfishness, the arrogance, the stubbornness, the fatuousness that some are born with and carry with them throughout their lives. Some think this distaste is a result of a narcissistic personality or even a superiority complex and that is another reason why I feel most human beings as incapable of deciphering emotions, or even being considerate. [Having superiority complex or a narcissistic personality has hidden feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I do not feel either. Is it simply not possible to have contempt for most human beings? ]

But I shall continue to maintain on the surface a smile when I see someone I do not want to see or do not particularly like, pretend a little more each day because…I really don’t know why.

Dishes

I grew up with a high regard for our housemaids, to the point that I would emulate their job and demand a fee later. For instance, in my aunt’s house in Kolkata, I would do a few chores like washing the dishes, dusting the shelves and my aunt would hand me a hundred rupee note after. I grew up to love doing dishes to the point that I would offer to help our mashi (housemaid, in Bengali). I was amazed by how she would go to at least ten houses per day and do not only dishes, but also jhadu (dusting) and pocha (mopping).

When I was in ninth grade, my friend in Pune had a knack for cleaning and she made sure that we kept the kitchen counter clean and organized while we experimented in the kitchen. Then came the post eating rituals. It was something as simple as keeping our dishes in the sink, throwing leftovers in the dustbin and pouring a little bit of tap water into our empty coffee mugs so that its easier for the bai (housemaid, in Marathi) to do the dishes.

Today when I look back, there is a sense of haughtiness that comes from being able to do chores without a sweat of frustration and I scorn at those who scorn at doing household chores. I am grateful that I grew up in an environment where I was encouraged to help our mashi do the dishes or at times forced to do my own dishes when mashi did not turn up, I am grateful to friends and their families who did not treat me like a privileged guest, but as a part of their own family and I was expected to keep the dishes in the sink like every other member. It’s made my life easier in the times of lockdown and otherwise where I now clean my own room, do my dishes and clean up the kitchen counter each time I cook something for my family. Some of my friends are struggling now and I, I laugh in the face of their adversity!