Three Mary Oliver poems and a bookmark
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Dogged reviews! on May 28, 2013
Mary Oliver with Percy. ~Photo by Rachel Giese Brown
Once for new year’s, I received a greeting card from my English teacher with a note tucked in between.
It was a time when commercialization was yet to encroach the spaces between people. When time was a luxury people had. When greeting cards were hand made and mails came in envelopes. It was a time when postcards were precious and stamp collection was well, still a hobby.
The note read:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
— Mary Oliver
Not sure what I wanted to do with my life or who I wished to be, the lost ward that I was, marveled at the words. I was engrossed in the note when I met the ire of jealous seniors.
A fair decade in between and if you discount what I quote at interviews, I still am clueless as to what I want.
It was way later in sophomore year that I read Mary Oliver, the 77-year-young Pulitzer Prize winner and America’s best-selling poet. Having carved herself a life little far from the urban humdrum, her poems too, breath of an escape. In the woods, accompanied by her pet ‘Percy’, who she named after the famous 18th century Romatic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she keeps assigning new meanings to the world.
Here are three of this dog’s favorite May Oliver poems:
I. Wild Geese
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
II. Excerpt from In Blackwater Woods
“to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
And as for the answer to how to live a life, Mary Oliver’s best friend Percy, the dog gives the simplest mantra ever:
III. I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life
“Love, love, love says Percy.
And run as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.
Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.”
Like words scribbled neatly in her notebook, lost lads like me seek refuge in not knowing what the journey is all about but setting forth.
As for the note, I still have it as a cherished bookmark.
An ode to happiness
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Paw Prints on May 11, 2013
The best of friends rarely have less than four feet. Image courtesy Aakriti.
“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
War Horse movie review ─ proudly sentimental
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Dogged reviews! on May 5, 2013
Warhorse: a tale of loyalty, hope and perseverance against odds.
With no boundary to call their own, no land to claim ─ animals, in wars of men nearly always fall victim to the brute brutality.
The frenzy and futility of war has oft been the subject of art, Steven Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ brings to screen an emotionally charged epic which does not shy away from making the audience look for tissue paper. Set against the backdrop of British poverty during the timeline of World War I, War Horse, based on the bestselling novel by Michael Morpurgo and long running stage production tells the tale of a boy’s friendship with his horse; their separation during war, the hardships they endure and their miraculous reunion. Running through the motion picture is an overwhelming sense of the waste of war and its horrors. Joey, the horse gets transferred from one owner to the next, caressing the thin fine line of fate that marks death and survival.
Most of the horses who somehow managed to survive World War I were sold to be butchered as horsemeat after the war. Man’s way of a deserving reward for the muted loyalty?
But the true merit of this movie is not in the set pieces that are characteristically Disney, but the question that it asks you – why wage war?
Michael Morpurgo aptly puts it in the novel:
“I tell you, my friends,’ he said one day. ‘I tell you that I am the only sane man in the regiment. It’s the others that are mad, but they don’t know it. They fight a war and they don’t know what for. Isn’t that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different colour uniform and speaks a different language? And it’s me they call mad!”
Preeti Shenoy on Humans and dogs
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Guest posts! on April 9, 2013
Rarely does one comes across a celebrated artist who is as approachable as the winter sun, caressing the tuft of grass peeking from the sidewalk. Spinning the yarn of tales, one bestseller after the another, ardent dog lover Preeti Shenoy wears many hats. In this exclusive guest post for Dog with Blog she shares of her canine camaraderie.
The writer in Preeti Shenoy at work 🙂
Any dog-lover will vouch that the world is sharply divided into two—those who love dogs and those who don’t understand the former. When I was travelling to the venue at a literature festival organised in Agra recently, I had a very interesting conversation with a fellow author and one of the organisers of the Lit-fest, both of whom are ‘non-dog-lovers’. They have both never had dogs, petted dogs or interacted with them.
‘Won’t it bite?’ asked one, as he had seen numerous pictures of mine with my Doberman.
I wanted to correct him and say that firstly a dog is never an ‘it’. A dog is always a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. But I let that be, as most people who have no idea about dogs make this mistake.
‘No, she won’t bite. In fact if she bites you I will give you a million rupees,’ I said.
‘In that case I would happily get bitten,’ he said.
‘That is precisely my point. She will not bite unless I give her a command to ‘attack’. And if that happens, I can assure you, she will go for your neck and your life will matter more to you than the million bucks,’ I smiled as everyone laughed.
The truth is,dogs can be trained to behave exactly how you want them to. It all boils down to the behaviour of the dog-owner. There really are no bad dogs—just incredibly stupid dog-owners who know no better.
Dogs like the Doberman, German Shepherd and Rottweiler have been used as Military and Police dogs for many years now and have cracked hundreds of narcotic cases. They are also used as ‘Search and rescue’ dogs to locate suspects or missing people or objects. Dogs also assist the law enforcement agencies to detect illicit substances or drugs or explosives. Many dogs are also used as guide dogs for the blind. Dogs are also used in therapy for treating disability, illness, disease and trauma.
Dogs have existed along with humans for thousands of centuries. In many cultures, dogs have been worshipped as a deity and a royal animal. Sadly, in some cultures, dog has also been maligned as ‘unclean’ and fear of dogs is instilled in people, right from childhood.
It would probably be a concept alien to many Westerners.
I have noticed so many people in India, are terrified of dogs. I wondered why, as I have always grown up with dogs.
I found this interesting question asked in an online forum:
Why are some Indian/Pakistani people so afraid of dogs?
I live in an area heavily populated by Indians and Pakistani residents, and whenever we take our dog out, they all cower away from him. A little background information, he’s a 12 week old puppy and weighs about 8 lbs. Is it something about the area that they are from that makes them afraid of dogs? I’m not being racist or stereotyping anyone (I mean I’m asian/white), but I’m just really really curious why they run away from a puppy??
I can imagine the puzzled bewilderment of the person who must have asked this question.
This was the answer chosen as the ‘best answer’:
In some 3rd World Countries the dogs are feral and wild, they run in the streets and they hurt people. Over time it has become a cultural thing to be scared of dogs you can because the dogs in their home countries are wild and mean. When the parents come over they imprint their children with this fear.
For me, dogs are an embodiment of unconditional, selfless, pure love. Such love is impossible to get from humans. My dog is always beside me. Always.
Even as I type this she is right next to me, at the foot of my bed. If I pause and go downstairs to make a cup of tea, she will follow me like a shadow, will wait till I brew my chai and then she will come back right upstairs with me, and she will do this even when she is in the middle of deep sleep!
When I eat,she lies on the floor, between by legs, under the table. When I go for a shower, she waits outside the bathroom. When I am on the treadmill, she waits patiently, watching me. She understands my mood so perfectly that even though I am a seasoned dog owner, I am still moved. If I am feeling a bit low or under-weather, she will put her head in my lap to ‘comfort me’ or give me a huge lick to say ‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter’.
When I work too much, she will close my lap-top with her paw and tug my T-shirt to take her out for a walk or a game of ‘fetch’.
She has her own personality and she can be very naughty at times. She would want me to play with her and if I refuse, she knows precisely what to do—she will take my pen or my T-shirt from the wash in her mouth and she will stand and look at me with her ‘bait’ as though to say ‘Come on now. Come on! I know you want it!’ and I will be forced to follow her. She will then proceed to run faster than Usain Bolt around the Garden and I will do a close chase. Must admit that this workout is much more fun than the boring old treadmill!
Having a dog is like having a child. In fact it is a lot harder than having a child—as children grow up and can do stuff for themselves after a while. Having a dog is a lot of hard work. You will be forced to wake up at 6.00 AM for the rest of your life.(or at least for the life-span of the dog). No matter how tired you are, you have to be up at the crack of dawn as your furry-companion has to be let out for their ‘morning business’. Having a dog makes you disciplined. It also makes you understand that it isn’t really that important to have your home in ‘perfect sparkling condition’ all the time. Having a dog, opens your heart in so many ways. Having a dog, brings unconditional love into your life. Having a dog, teaches you to live in the moment.
Woofs and words: Preeti Shenoy with her best friend ‘Lostris’.
My dog has enriched my life in so many ways. As have countless dogs, all over the world, enriched the lives of those who have had them.
Dogs do make the world a better place. Whatever you give a dog, you get back exponentially, multiplied to the power of infinity. Dogs have that much love to give.
If only the same could be said of humans.
Vagrants in the wild
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Ramblings on March 19, 2013
Kaalicharan earmarks the onset of summer by the pristine waters of River Kosi.
If a man could be two places at one time,
I’d be with you.
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
— If by ‘Bread’
In that momentary reverie by the turquoise waters of Kosi river, I realized what I had come to.
What I lost and yet what was not lost in me.
Time leaps but vagrants remain enshrined — sometimes like footprints sealed in fossils and at others; resting like pebbles in the river bed, once touched and forever waiting.
When the world makes no sense, which is so often the case, I rest my head on my paw and return to Neverland.
Why actors get euphoric on winning an Oscar?
Posted by Abhishek Joshi in Funny bones! on March 6, 2013
Blizzard and Phoneix, our canine correspondents for arts & entertainment wonder why Academy awards are that big a deal?
Photograph courtesy Anuradha Kurup.
Also from the canine detectives, why the dog watched CNBC?
Dog with the blog! 
