Being a pet parent is easy only as long things are going well. Otherwise, it's quite a nightmare. Pretty much like child-rearing except that the children here never grow up. At least human babies stop being babies after a while. No matter how trained or untrained your pets are, you will face situations that you weren’t prepared for. That’s simply how it is. Just visit a vet clinic and you’ll be amazed at how different animals have different issues and the vet is supposed to figure them out. For instance, last December, our old dog, Ranga, who is around 9, started developing tumours on his thighs. That is when we observed how brittle his health can be. Fortunately, he recovered—except for a limpish run and slowness in getting up and down—but there are similar episodes every now and then. The thought of losing a pet can be a strange scar for most. You can at least tell a child that you love her so much.
My brother Sai has two adorable cats named Pili and Giri. Last week, Giri went missing and for the next 3.5 days, he was nowhere to be found. It was understandably a difficult phase for Sai and my parents, especially my mother. During such moments, you want to rewind time and set things right so that such a mishap doesn’t take place. A cat will wander out of the window and a cat is bound to lose grip and fall into danger and a cat could panic unnecessarily at the sight of a stranger too. That’s part of their furry personality, but as a pet parent, you want to safeguard and provide the best possible care. So, when Giri went AWOL, Sai wasn’t just looking for him. It seemed like he was looking for something much more vital to one’s peace of mind: a closure. A definite news on what really happened. Whether Giri was stolen or poached by the street dogs, or he got lost on his own, starving, beaten, etc. So many questions with no answers attached.
Fortunately, Giri returned home on the afternoon of the fourth day, and the way he was found would make a gripping short story. My wise old mother, who grew up in a village with lots of animals, suggested that they take Pili along during the search for a change. Despite being inside a cotton bag, he meowed aggressively near a specific residential building. This made Sai curious and he stepped inside. 10-15 minutes later, he found Giri hiding behind an electric box. The poor thing was super scared but equally relieved to see his human. He immediately hung onto his trousers, with deafening meows by Giri (in Sai’s arms) as well as Pili (still inside the bag). These two are twins and this was the first time they experienced bereavement. One significant lesson to draw from this episode is, you must always carry a Chinese person with you if you are going to shop in a China market. All languages matter.
There is a weird bunch of folks in our country who stand against the usage of Sanskrit. Their primary scorn is that it’s a language of superiority. Whatever that means. By this logic, we shouldn’t be using English either because there is nothing more imperial/colonial/parasitic than the language of the Brits. If anything, a language should only be seen through the prism of utility. That’s all. A little over 2000 years ago, Greek was the most spoken language in the world. It’s nowhere in the top 50 list today. A language holds onto a society provided the society benefits from that tongue. Otherwise, it leaves you with a pukic—yes, I coined this word as English allows you to drop words like it’s hot in wintry Mangalore—feeling that no amount of superiority can cure.
If you’ve been following my writing, you must have noted that I’ve often shared a desire to have a child named after me. Yes, other’s kids because I am least interested in having one of my own. It’d be damn nice to point to someone in the future and tell them that s/he was named after me. But so far, no luck whatsoever in this regard. However, last month, during a triplet’s birthday party, I finally saw a baby named Shakti. Although she wasn’t named after me, I was delighted to hold her and click a selfie like an awestruck fan. It was a sweet moment but later, I realized that I didn’t want a namesake. I just wanted someone to suggest that they are going to do that, so that I could say, “Oh no, please don’t do that, I hate my name!”
Is it fair to suggest that countries like India, Nepal, Mexico and Morocco are kinder? The hypothesis here being that there are countries that feature street dogs and then there are countries with zero tolerance towards the strays. Gandhiji once wrote that a nation can be judged easily by the way it treats those who can’t speak for themselves. Sounds like a good theory. But in practice, is it morally sound to let street dogs flourish? Particularly when you know that they go through the worst, mainly in cities. Time and time it has been noted that streets with strays tend to be safer as the dogs take it upon themselves to alert the neighbourhood about anything remotely suspicious. Yet, when the sun comes up, the dogs are back to getting mistreated. If this is a sign of kindness, then maybe we need to rethink?
In a one-sided story, the game of distraction plays a massive role. It’s not that he and she can’t be happy together, it’s just that they are not in the right place at the right time. As is often the case, he has chosen her much before she could choose him. So, in his mind, he’d be better off with her, hence all the daydreaming. Can’t blame him. Men tend to get ahead of themselves while women remain practical to a large extent. And as expected, he doesn’t have a Plan B, C or D. Nope. Only one plan and if that fails, he will be a lovelorn, which is ironic given the fact that only he was in love, not her. In a way, there is nothing more beautiful than two people wanting to be together and ending up together. But that seldom happens. In most cases, he learns that he wasn’t good enough. In some cases, she chooses someone else. Here, the bad news is she now loves somebody else. The good news is she is capable of loving someone.
There will be some friends who are going to sound funny only to you. Nobody else finds them as hilarious as you do. You chuckle at their tiniest attempts at a joke. One might call it bias but you can’t rewire your brain anyway. What is funny to you is funny to you. Nobody else can decide humour for you. Well, I feel this way about my Mangalorean friend Karan. I am emphasizing on the city because he feels more at home in Mumbai, and more recently, Kolkata. He’d say something stunningly smart in the middle of a conversation. The best part being, he matches my absurdness with his absurdness. Which is why it’s easier to talk to him.
Me: “How do you spell चम्मच in English?”
He: “Do you need the British or American spelling?”
There is no upside to being an idiot and the downside of being an expert in failures is you only get worse at it. The gyaanis ask us to never give up and to chase our dreams and rinse our mouths with positive words daily. But the deeper truth is a bit hurtful: you can’t go on and on and on the same path for long. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to look around, learn new tricks and try newer methods. If not, you will keep wearing yourself thin by doing the same thing again and again and again. When Edison failed a hundred times, he was trying a hundred different things. So, perhaps, we need to wisen up and shine through by turning our failures into successes.
If there is one thing you should never take for granted, it’s your teeth. Although the great poets from the past glorified heartache, dental suffering has no match in mortal standards. It’s only when you get your cavities filled—the thought of filling a cavity with barfi sounds like poetic justice, no?—without anaesthesia that you come face to face with the dangers of being careless, of being lazy unnecessarily. God forbid root canal; yes, the deepest canal in the world. Well, you should have brushed properly, you should have gargled with brine, you should have massaged your gum, and so much more. When you are lying helplessly on that white chair with the dentist staring into your soul, you pledge to take utmost care of your yellowing pearlies. But a week later, you are back to your pathetic useless self.
All relationships are built on the baseline of trust and affection. Expressing one’s feelings without any filter and doing something extra for each other means a lot in a long-standing bond. Although I’ve written enormously against materialism on this blog, here’s my newfound idea: do what is expected of you and also do what is unexpected of you. If that means gifting thoughtfully, so be it. Both should be in the interest of the others. However, very few acts fly as high as selflessness. True love is treating them with respect and warmth everyday without fail. Also, handing them a birthday gift when it’s not even their birthday helps sometimes.
The 7th para completely describes me, makes me rethink if it'll be worth it.