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Nostalgia

I went to visit my grandmother the other day. I go there once in a while, but this time it was different. I paid more attention to the roads that led me there.

I passed by my old school. I stopped for a brief minute to admire that building where I had spent some of the best years of my life. The stage where I used to read a chapter from the Bible during the school assembly every morning. I remember I had to say “This is the word of the Lord” and 100’s of school girls in  red pinafores and  cream blouses used to repeat “Praise be to the Lord”. There was this one chapter about Moses and those lines were not the word of the Lord, so I decided to skip the routine. My principal, Sr. Leonie called me to her office and chided me saying I was being disrespectful towards the Lord and I will be punished on judgement day. I cried to sleep that night. That’s what a convent could do to you. I laughed to myself when I remembered that. That was the same stage where on my annual day I had danced to Ricky Martin’s Cup of Life. My mother was so proud that she stood in everyone’s way to take pictures of me. I had them lying somewhere in my dresser. Must look for them. Then there was the school grounds where we played so many games and I won the 3rd prize for running for 2 years consecutively. Boy that was something. Ask me to run from my door to the street today, I’ll be panting even before I leave my porch. The roads where I used to cycle back home with friends took me back to the time when I was once trying to show off and a neighbor of mine came up behind me and said “Will you please make it clear which way do you want to ride? It’ll save people driving behind you a  lot of confusion”.

I remembered my pre-degree days with my closest friends Daisey and Diana. The bus we went to college in, 314 H. We made Diana walk close to 4 kms though she had a bus stop right next to her house just so we could travel together. The conductor had a gold tooth and  we used to laugh every time we saw him. There was this bus stop where my friends and me , we used to wait for the bus to take us home or somewhere close by home. I remember there was this guy who called  Daisey and asked her about me. Boy how we laughed. I passed by the little bakery where we once saw 3 boys smoking and one of them put his cigarette down immediately when he saw us. A few feet later, Diana blushed and told me that the boy was her boyfriend. Gosh I was stunned. Diana had a boyfriend at age 16? Jeez ! She freaked me out. I passed by the ice cream cart on the roadside where Daisey had once bribed me with ice cream if I walked an extra mile home (we got a bus that dropped us further away from home and I was mad at her for making me go on that bus). I was in bed with food poisoning for a week after I ate that ice cream. That guy was still there? Wow !

I reached my dear grandma’s house and went to the terrace to relive my younger days. My grandfather and I used to have our evening tea on the terrace everyday. But besides that , there was nothing else to remind me of my childhood days. The neighbourhood had changed so much after I left . There used to be lots of eucalyptus trees and very few houses miles apart from each other. Now that place was so noisy and crowded and polluted that it snapped me back from the past pretty rudely.

 

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Puppy Love

I love the commute to my office. The bus, the walk, everything. I normally take BIAS 5 (the buses that ply back and forth to the airport) and get down near Chinnaswamy stadium (People familiar with Bangalore will know what I am talking about. Those who don’t, its a cricket stadium on MG Road, one of the commercial hubs in Bangalore), cross the road, walk by St. Mark’s Cathedral, take a right near The Book Room, walk down church street and take a right opposite Kaati Zone towards Rest House Crescent road. Its a beautiful walk. The sights and smells are beautiful, ok not the smells. The smells are ugh! One can see sweepers trying their best to clean the roads and the pavements dirtied by us the previous evening, there’s the garbage truck waiting patiently for all the garbage from the eat outs to be dumped in. The smell again ugh! There’s an occassional smell of rotting carcass of some poor mutt that must have died. Then there’s the smell of the sewer that runs below the pavement. I’ve always wondered why does the sewer smell so much in the mornings. Why not at any other time of the day? Nevertheless, continuing, there are people walking towards their offices or riding/driving, each of them wearing an expression of having to carry immense burdens on their wee shoulders. (Not everyone is lucky as me, I love my job).

There’s this dog on the pavement near Indijoe’s. There are few other dogs, but this one in particular caught my attention. He looks fat. Initially I though he must be well fed on scraps from Indijoe. Turned out he was ill. And his neutering had gone wrong. I am not going to elaborate on that, let me leave that to your imagination. He was always lying down when i pass by. I always felt sorry for that poor mutt.

One day as I was passing by that road, I saw him sniff around. I’ve been around dogs for sometime now to decipher their body language. I knew he was hungry. He looked at me for a second and continued sniffing around. This dog, I’ve never seen him sit up leave alone stand and sniff around for scraps. I retraced my steps, went to a little shop and bought a packet of biscuits. I whistled to the dog and placed a few biscuits on the pavement. He came close by, warily though and sniffed at the biscuits, took a lick and looked at me – in the eyes. BAM!! I fell in love with him. I noticed he didn’t have a tail. His big brown eyes spoke volumes of gratitude. I wanted to hug him and say its alright puppy just eat all you want. I just smiled and walked away.

The next day he was there at his usual spot, falling asleep. I still had half the pack of biscuits from the previous day. I went close to him and gave him some. He didnt make an effort to get up and eat. He sat and licked the crumbs off the pavement. He gave me that look again. My heart skipped a beat. I reminded myself not to get too emotionally involved with him, I’ve had my heartbreaks with dogs. I couldn’t stop thinking of him all day.

I didnt take that route for the next two days due to some unavoidable reasons. Couple of days later, I once again got down from the bus near Chinnaswamy stadium, crossed over to St Mark’s Cathedral and walked down the road near The Book Room. I bought a pack of biscuits and smiled to myself when I thought of the big pup. I couldn’t find him.

The next day same story and the day after that. But yes, this morning was a bit different. I walked down the road, the pack of biscuits still in my bag, the sights and smells playing on my mind, the smell of the sewer, the smell of rotting carcass again and this time my tummy felt queasy. I saw the garbage truck parked a little distance away and even before I could reach it, my stomach did a double somersault. I saw him there, inside the garbage truck, lying motionless. The smell of the garbage and him… ugh! I felt bad for him that he had to meet such a sad end, he had to be dumped in a garbage truck. But atleast his sufferings had ended. I said a little prayer for his soul and walked on towards my office.

I know tomorrow would be just another day and life will have to go on. I must remind myself once again not to get emotionally attached to any dogs henceforth… Here puppy puppy.. biscuit????

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Where are we headed?

Have crimes against women increased of late? When I talk about women, I am talking about nature too. 

Seriously, what is happening to us? Like the recent molestation and attempt to murders cases were not raging me enough, I was walking to office the other day, I was passing through the Chinnaswamy stadium when I saw two very beautiful gulmohar trees razed down. I was shocked to numbness in my limbs. I was even more angry with myself that there was nothing I could do to help those trees. 

Last evening, I step out of office and what do I see? Many more trees chopped down. The smell of the leaves under my feet made me nauseous with grief. Just imagine the number of decades those trees took to grow. And imagine the number of birds that were left homeless and eggless. 

Like that wasn’t sad enough, i read this http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/article3693700.ece in today’s paper. Monkeys, poisoned to death? Seriously? 

Have we lost all regard for nature? We’re already headed towards doom, why are we speeding up the process? 

Pull your socks up people, if you want to preserve this world for your kids,pull your socks up and lets do something to stop this massacre.

 

Suggestions welcome ! 

Like Gautam(my boss) and Mahatma Gandhi say, we have to be the change we want to see in the world. 

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Who’s hungry for love?

There is a new supermarket opened up near my house. The other day my husband and i went to check it out. While he was parking the car, i stood at the entrance and examined the vegetables that were being sold there. A huge black dog comes and stands beside me. He was a stray and he looked very handsome. His height reached uptp my thighs. He looked well fed. He looked at me with his big black eyes. I have been reading ‘Inside of a dog’ by Alexandra Horowitz and had started interpreting everything a dog would do. This guy confused me a bit, he was looking at me but for what… Was it a threat for having come into his territory or was it expectation of food? However, i cooed to him and he wagged his tail. I ran in and got him a packet of biscuits. He devoured all the biscuits. I went away, a smile on my lips. The book was working.
The next day i went there again, and he came bouncing towards me. I patted his huge head and he wagged his tail and sniffed my legs. His eyes were so warm and full of love. I went in to get some biscuits again. I came out with the biscuits and he was gone. Probably he was just hungry for love. I made it a habit to go to the store everyday. And he’d be there waiting for me, for a pat on his big head and he’d be gone before i could even enter the store. Now i don’t know if i’m going there because he’d like to see me or if i’d like to see him. The dog and i have become hungry for love.
I havent seen him from the past two days and my tummy feels a little uneasy. I just hope he’s there today.
The shopkeeper has started giving me discount coupons now

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Trash beneath the Metro lines

I bought apples from Nilgiris. The very red ones. I was wondering if they would be sweet, but when I bit into it, almost a mouthful of juice squirted out and the sweetness was beyond anything I can imagine. I lost myself in the apple. I felt for a moment like Snow White where the wicked queen gives her the sweetest apple lined with poison.

I finished it with a very heavy heart and was looking for a place to discard the remains and guess what I see… all the world’s a trash bin. What shook me even more was our citizens have found a new dumpyard now… right in the middle of the road, beneath the metro lines. I blinked twice when I saw that.

We complain non stop about the government not doing enough for us, my question is, what are we doing to help ourselves?

Are we that ignorant that we sit and watch people trashing the city… the middle of the road for crying out loud. What is wrong with people seriously?

I rummaged through my handbag which always has some unwanted paper, and to my luck found a whole paper bag, I put the remains of my yummy apple into it and carried it back home and put it into my dustbin… and then this thought pops into my mind… where are the contents of this dustbin going to be trashed? Beneath the metro lines again?

 

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Brands

I saw this guy carrying a blue black and`red shoulder bag the other day. The bag looked pretty nice and classy. I scanned the bag with my eyes until my eyes rested on the logo – it was Tommy Hilfiger’s logo. My eyebrows raised involuntarily.

Brands carry a weightage of their own. Had it been a bag without a logo or a brand name it wouldn’t have stayed in my mind for so long. But just becase it carried Tommy Hilfiger’s symbol, I havent stopped thinking about getting a bag like that for myself.

Shoes – I normally wouldn’t buy ankle covering sneakers. And the color grey is definitley not in my wardrobe. But I saw these shoes in Nike and put it in my must buy list. Just the thought that it was from Nike made me respect those shoes a little more (chuckle)

A person carrying something “branded” would gain respect instantly from onlookers.His standards would shoot up the roof in a second. One might think that this is much ado about nothing, but hey, this is just a thought that popped into my mind !

Have a lovely weekend. I wouldn’t say sunny here because of the unpredictable rains.

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Importance of motivation

Motivation is the most important factor to keep you going anywhere, be it in your office or your home, or when you go shopping or even travelling.

When you are working somewhere, even if you were earning a big fat salary, if you are not motivated enough, the salary is not going to matter. If your work environment is nice, your boss is your best buddy, believe me the salary is only an added incentive to your performance.

Every employee deserves a pat on his shoulder even for the smallest thing he does. After all, each of us still have a little kid alive inside us no matter how old we grow. 

Just a thought that popped into my mind after my meeting with my boss. 

Have a happy weekend