Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

As the crow flies









Clandestine creeping in
Of relevant restlessness
Growing apathy
Winged venom
Acidic antidotes
Sure seeping in
Of a crow’s courage
Just a tremulous throw away.
So bark away
I’m not an orphaned stray
I will stamp my say
For all those who stay
On a half moon day.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Puppy love

I’ve been fooling around for way to long now. Ideas for a blogpost have been pouring from my brain ever since it realized the sheer magnitude of boredom I have to suffer during lectures xP So, time for a post served up straight from my heart <3
I miss my dog .
It is funny because just about a year back – I didn’t own a dog.
And I used to hate dogs . Okay hate is a strong word – I couldn’t tolerate dogs – I found them very needy.
Then something changed.
The dog in the basket apparently grew up :')
My brother , who emanates doggie love ever since he has been born , came home carrying a heavy basket. Attracted immediately, I demanded to know what was contained in that basket. And to my surprise it was the cutest puppy which was just a few days old :’) and thankfully it wasn’t gonna stay in our place for long. It was to be adopted by my cousin much to my brother’s dismay.  His lifelong thirst for doggie love wasn’t going to be quenched just yet.  And mine was just about to begin!
poser
One fine day during the summery month of June ( okay all the months are summery in chennai -_- :P ) I heard a bark from MY backyard. What was a dog doing in our backyard? :O Okay , maybe I am overreacting here. Our house being a million years old , attracted all species of insects and animals , stray cats purposefully strutting about the hallway wasn’t very uncommon . Still! Stray dogs barking from the backyard simply took it to a whole new level.

Initially everybody at home ( sans my brother) treated the dog ( which would inevitably be named laika ) with disdain and it was quite obvious that we would chase it out soon. Yaja (bro) didn’t even demand for a dog because he knew the answer to that futile question already , “ How can you take care of a dog , when you cannot take care of yourself in the first place?”. However Laika proved to be a beacon of perseverance , clawing and digging her way back to our backyard and after a point we simply gave up chasing her.  Reluctantly she was enlisted into our mad family .
I must describe her here. Not beautiful in the quintessential way , Laika is ravishingly eyecatching with her inhuman energy and innate naughtiness, which is very contagious . A total ragamuffin – she looked like a little sheep when she joined us. Black spots merge with her white coat seamlessly and she had very silky hair for a stray . She is the first love of my life.
My baby
During the early days , I was very hesitant to make any contact with her. My toleration level permitted me to just about share a room with her. However Laikoos has a natural gift of winning over people she really wants to win over. With her insistent love and boyish charm , she slowly entered seeped into the rock which was my heart . Times I have spent with her since are pure magic and now I can only relive them as memories. Thankyou college L
Owning a pet IMO, fundamentally alters you as a person. Read Dean Koontz’s ‘ A big little life’ , a story of his dog trixie and the various meanings he attaches to her and the role she plays in his life. All that unconditional love makes you feel rightly undeserving and surely irks you enough to strive for improvement. Life becomes a little bit rosier, much more cheerful and optimistic when a dog is in love with you.  The faith they show in you sometimes restores your faith in humanity.
Okay enough philosophy.
Getting a bit more specific , I read this article on Pune mirror which set my thoughts in motion. It was about the increasingly violent behavior of stray dogs in Pune and how they are disturbing the lives of civilians and even killing rare species for their meals. So , the paper feels that dog catchers are right in ‘catching and putting an end to the dog menace’ .
I definitely agree that Rabies is a scary disease but animal cruelty is an uglier one.

The dogs should definitely be vaccinated for their and our own good. But dogs don’t bite for no reason . Yes , there are some mad dogs like there are a few mad human beings loitering  this world. Provocation is a 2 way street. Dogs don’t generally enjoy biting humans for fun – it is usually the other way around . We like torturing them by throwing stones and even imitating them . This attitude must be changed . Children from a ripe age must be taught that dogs and other animals deserve the same treatment as the so called ‘superior’ humans.
Okay getting preachy again. All I wanna say is that people should stop this blind paranoia of hating animals , without even attempting to love. For love is always more natural than hate and if we believe otherwise we are fundamentally flawed in nature .
P.S – Have a pet.

P.S . S – I am turning a complete vegetarian after this post. 

Photo credits - Yajur Jayaprakash

Yours
Semi 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The family

Second post in the same month! Don't die of heart attack already xD There are many csk matches for inducing that . In another two days 'SS&S' [semi's stories and sharing's needs a nickname too :P ]
will turn three years old. This year has been a silent one to say the least :- 18 posts in 12 months = blasphemy . I saw this blog with 26 posts in one month! While even Dravid accepts that he can never be a gayle , he still has to perform in his own style to retain his place in the team. Similarly , I need to post more regularly to call myself a blogger :| Okay inconsistency rant over. 
And strangely enough 'sss' has crossed a milestone quietly even when there were no posts to fuel her :P sss has crossed 50,000 views *Fake applause* and it seems only like yesterday I was mulling over 10,000 views. 


...Aand this is also my 91st post!! Why does 91 warrant a mention?
a) My second favorite home ( cousin's place) is called that
b) 9*9 = 81 ( my favorite square no. :P ) + 10 ( god's no. = Happy b'day Sachin Ramesh TENdulkar <3) = 91 LOL.
c) I forgot to celebrate  the 90th post :|







Today I am going to write about ze topic ' family' . Partly because it is the 91st post and because I never usually write about them. Also because I read Mario Puzo's 'Family' __/\__
For the review of the book , click -->  here

Disclaimer - A personal post with a lot of I and me's :P 

So yeah lets talk about family. I live with my parents , brother and grandparents. Two characters who stand out distinctly and complete my life in unique ways are my grandmom who I call 'pattimma' and my newly found love <3 = my dog Laika!

Pattimma
She is simply amazing. I can write a book about her ( maybe i will) and it will sell a  million copies. She is a sociologist's delight. Orthodox in the expected ways and progressive in alarming ways. My incessant and annoying amount of talking can be attributed to here genes :P She can talk about tamil serials one minute and switch to complaining about the scarcity of helps in the next. Above all she loves yelling at me and brother with the most hilarious abuses ( from our viewpoint atleast) and we love ignoring it and provoking her to yell even more ^_^
What does the word 'pattimma' mean? It is an unique connotation developed by me after I began to speak. It combines the normal 'patti' ( meaning: granny) with the all important 'amma' ( mother) . For many years I thought I was the only person to use it. However sadly , my dreams were shattered when i saw many old movies where this term was used widely. Whatever. At least my family acted as if I invented it <3  and I bet i'm the only one to use 'thathappa' .
When she was young , she used to walk plenty of kilometers and catch a train and walk plenty more to reach her school. Yet , she is adamant about me cycling to my school which is only 10 minutes away from home. She actually got double promotion from second grade to fourth as she got 100 in all subjects :O if only she had completed her schooling , she would be ruling the world by now.
I am not kidding . she has photographic memory and can remember dates and events alarmingly well . She once amazed the neighbors by correcting the year THEY settled in chennai and the year THEIR DAUGHTER got married :P She remembers the color of sari she wore to every marriage ( and let me tell you , the list is 'quite' long) and can easily detect the lies we say , when they don't coincide with the previous ones :/ And i can't even remember her b'day. Y u no transmit me your good genes? :P
Her managerial skills are amazing as well. Only a taskmaster can make me work - and well , she is one. She gently cajoles the first time , and annoyingly persists with the request. And if i'm still acting dumb , she lets her high pitched voice and past memories of hardships and present bad health do the trick . Ah , grandmothers.
'Saniane' , 'panni' , 'abhistoo' , 'motachi' and other censor-able words  flow from her mouth :P and I love her the most <3 :')
She has the most hilarious contingency plans for disasters. Remember last year when everyone was convinced world was going to end and there was a small tremor in chennai?  The news channels were harping about how the tsunami was going to swallow us all and we live quote close to the beach. So what does pattimma do? Goes quickly to the safe and starts wearing all the golden ornaments! Convinced that she had finally lost it I asked her what she she was doing. And she solemnly explains that if the tsunami 'carries' us away , we'll at least survive with the gold wherever we land xP

Laika
I am not much of a dog person or an animal lover. I don't run away when i see them nor do I go hug and go gaga over them . Pretty much neutral ( semi xP )  towards them .However , when this dog landed up in our backyard , I wasn't very happy to have it around. This can be attributed to my suspicions that my brother must have smuggled it there. However , gradually in her own doggy way 'Laika' has spread her charm over our lives. She hates dogs , thinks she can challenge dobermans and alsations o.O ( very distorted self concept) , wants to fly like the crows - insanely jealous of them and hence chases them  and is scared of cats.
She is rowdy rathore no. 1 :P one cool ragamuffin . Kills you with affection when you are pre occupied and makes you feel guilty for your insolence and indolence towards her. However , when you try to go hug and be nice to her - she acts all cool and begins sleeping :P  She sleeps when she is bored , happy ,tired , angry. In different positions . Very funny ones :)
She has become my best friend in this last one year and I cannot imagine a life without her . This is for you laika  :* :* <3


Pattima + laika = I never thought the combination will work. But it does :O Tired of taking care of human babies all her life , pattimma is now deeply in love with this doggy baby xD She had gone for some marriage and was not home for 2 days. She calls  ME with GREAT concern and inquired if l LAIKA had eaten. There arouse my human envy. If I was any younger , I would have plotted her murder - like i planned my brother's :P