The Dog I Never Had

When I got a job, I was excited about a number of things. What topped my list was that I would get a dog. I have my own house now, so no one could stop me from getting a pet. With the salary of a journalist, I obviously could not buy a pet, so I decided to adopt one.

I was staying in Delhi then, and considering the number of animal rights NGOs around, it wasn't much difficult, finding an adoption centre. My first visit was quite depressing. A building full of abandoned dogs. Some suffering from serious physical ailments. Others very depressed and looking at you with longing eyes.

As the volunteer there was showing me around, I came across this huge Great Dane. Something in his eyes drew me towards him. As I patted him on the head, he put his head on my lap and licked my palm. He won’t let me get up. He had the advantage of the weight and the height and hugged me with all his strength. I had made my decision then. Bosco was coming home with me.

There were some complications regarding the adoption procedure, since I was staying alone, and the NGO was sceptical about Bosco staying all by himself for nearly 7-8 hours a day. But the dog’s instant liking towards me and his attachment with me, acted in our favour and they trusted me and let me have Bosco.

We were a happy couple. Bosco and I.  He was a funny dog. I had put a mattress for him, but he refused to sleep there. Every night, he would come over to my room, get on my mattress, push me out of it and sleep there. And if I tried to push him back, he would put a paw on me and sleep there as if cuddling me. He won’t eat unless he saw me eating. So we would have dinner together. He was highly protective of me, and won’t let even my friends come in to our apartment unless I told him that they are harmless people, and I loved them. I even had to hug my electrician to let him in.

I don’t know if Bosco picked it up from me, but he loved smoking. Surprised? Well, not really smoking, but he would eat up my cigarettes, if he found them. He would carefully eat the tobacco and throw the butt away. It was funny, but then there were chances of him spoiling his liver, so I couldn’t let him smoke. To save a pet, I lost a smoking partner.

He would chat with my friends too. If I would leave the chat window open, Bosco would slyly come up to my laptop and randomly press buttons with his paw. My friends knew it was bosco sending his greetings across.

 One major problem was leaving Bosco alone all day. He was an understanding dog, and would happily bid me goodbye when I left for office, but my neighbours told me, he would stand in the balcony all day, looking expectantly. Waiting for me to come back. He was lonely. And for those of you who know how dogs are, they feel lonelier than we humans do. Depression attacks them, sooner than it attacks humans. 

They are deeper than we human beings are and they feel much more strongly than we do. In six months’ time, I saw Bosco becoming quieter. He was not the same cheerful dog any more. He would sit in one corner of the house, with his head between his paws. He refused to go for his walks and then slowly stopped eating.

He started losing hair, and soon he was reduced to a thin mass. He refused to welcome my friends home. No one could come near him. He would snap and often bite. I was scared for him, and realised my mistake. I had wronged the innocent creature. I had brought him alive to deal with my loneliness and now, I had reduced him to a lonely being.

One day, as I was sitting across him, and looking at him, I could hear him talk. “Why did you bring me alive, when you had to leave me all alone?” I looked at him with tears in my eyes. His accusing eyes bore into me. “You are not lonely. You have friends. What about me? I was happy inside your head. I was happy being a figment of your imagination. Why did you have to talk about me to your friends? Why did you tell them stories about me? Now I feel real. Alive. But I have nothing to hold on to. Don’t do this, forget me. Wrap me up in your memories, like you used to do earlier. Don’t call me back.”

 I was left wondering. Is it true that he is just a figment of my imagination? But I can see him. How can it be possible? “You can see me, feel me talk to me only when you are alone. When you have nothing to do. When loneliness eats you up. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” came the reply. Yes he was right. I knew he was there, only when loneliness engulfed my heart.

I lifted my eyes to look at him, and he was gone. I ran to the kitchen to check for his bowl, even that was missing. His mattress was gone. I cried out his name. Desperately trying to convince myself that he was real. Bosco did answer to my call, but from inside my head: “you won’t find me in the house. I am there with you always, in your head. This is the only place where I can be alive. Where I am real. The sooner you accept that, the better for both of us. I am the dog you never had.”

Music... Or the Absence of It!

I happened to come across this song today. I was convinced that it is beautiful, when I thought that there is more to it.  It is peaceful.  This has happened to me before, and now that I think, it has most of the time been either  Robi Thakur or a Baul song, or the Bhajans of Lord krishna.

This song talks about Shyam too. The singer, Parvathy Baul, sings about, how it would be wise to keep the love we have for Shyam, in our heart. Locked and hidden. She represents the love for him in various forms and shows us that it is not always necessary to tell the world that you love someone as great as Krishna. Few people can understand the greatness of love after all. So it is not really worth it.

It is rare that I come across good music today. They don’t make it any more, I guess.  I remember, my brother and I grew up listening Abba and Harry Belafonte and Robi Thakur.  Our teenage years went by listening to Jim reeves, Pete Seeger, Beatles, Bob Dylan and Robi Thakur.  Now we listen to Cohen, Nina Simon, lots of Baul and Robi Thakur. Yes, that wise old man was with us through out. You just can’t do without him. He has written for every mood. He helps you get through tough times. He helps you be happier in your happy days and most importantly, he makes you think.

Kids today grow up listening to terribly disturbing songs like lungi dance and Balam pichkari and Fevicol and Sheila ki Jawani and Munni. They are made to believe that music is all about showing flat (or not so flat stomachs)and hip shaking dances. It is all about sexual innuendoes and all about ear splitting noise. I wonder, if their parents’ ever listened to any good music when they grew up, or did they decide to forget everything and call this cacophony music. I wonder.  The absence of good music makes me sad, but I guess it takes a little effort to find out such hidden gems as Parvathy Baul and Anushesh Adil and the likes. And I must say, listening to them is worth the effort.

What's In A Name! They Say...

Twenty three years of my life and I guess I can count the number of times my name has been pronounced or spelled correctly. As a kid I used to come back home from school and sit on the bed, sulking and complaining how no one, not even one teacher pronounced my name correctly. They either called me Sriranjini or for their convenience made it Srironjoni.  And to make things worse for the teachers, I don’t spell my surname by conventionally using the Dutta. I spell it with an A.

Every year when the report cards where given, everyone would be anxious about their marks. But I was anxious about the spelling of my name. I hoped that this time, this teacher would spell it correctly. But somewhere or the other there was a mistake, and till class five, I used to go to the teacher and make them correct the spelling. But then I gave up.

My class mates shortened my name Sriranjani to Sriru, to my horror and disgust. I tried to convince them to not call me by that name, but they won’t listen. So I gave in. In college I became Jini. There is a story behind that. While my name was being enrolled, someone wrote my name as Sriranjohnny (not unlikely, considering, for Bengalis all “a”s become “o”s.). My HOD an old Anglo Indian man said, “So my dear girl, you have Johnny in your name? Like the nursery rhyme?” Some idiot in class shouted, “Or it can be like the brand Jinny and johny!” and there it was.  A new name for me was coined. I was called Jinni for the rest of my college life and much later. Unlike the name, Sriru in school, I kind of liked the name Jinni, and when I went for my post-graduation, I did not give my class mates there another chance to distort my already distorted name.

What surprises me the most is that people get my name wrong even when I clearly spell it out for them.  How is that even humanly possible? This has happened not once but repeatedly.  In certificates of participations to the by-lines of articles I wrote. Even in my school passing certificate, and my voter I.D card and my pan card, my name was spelt wrong. And every time I had to send it back for correction.  

After a point of time, it becomes kind of frustrating. Yes I know my parents were trying to be creative by not naming me a Sreyashi or Ananya or paromita who are produced in thousands every year in Bengal, but then they tried it too hard, and ended up naming me after a South Indian classical Raga. If you are thinking that I have a wonderful voice, you will be disappointed to know, that my music teacher actually abandoned me. See I don’t even do justice to my name.

This is the story I am sure of many other sons and daughters of creative parents.  I guess, when parents name their child creatively, God up there, smiles and makes plans to spoil it all, and have a good laugh.  As the Bengali idiom goes: kana cheler naam Padmalochon. (I am sorry, the translation is not that funny. It is an example of a miss-nomenclature. Like naming me after a classic raga was an epic fail. even the dogs howl in tune.)

So as I earnestly call out to my readers and make a request to spell my name right when you write a comment (I really want to publish your comment, but I want my name to be correct too, right? And my name is right there see? Not asking much of you? Am I? You can even just copy and paste it!), I thank my lucky stars that my parents did not name me Lovely or Sunny. That would have been far more embarrassing I am sure.

P.S. 21.02.14. I came across this while surfing the net absent-mindedly. They have put down my thought perfectly well and in an animated way... pretty impressive. Do have a look.

Emotional Atyachar

I was scrolling through the channels last evening and stopped when I saw a graphic visual of a red heart breaking on screen and the words “Emotional Atyachar” coming out of the broken heart. I have heard of this reality show a number of times, but have never watched it.

Fifteen minutes through it and I was trying to figure out the point of this show. For those of you who haven’t watched it, this is a show where a heartbroken girl/boy comes over and tells her/his story. The cast and crew of Emotional Atyachar, enacts the story for the viewers’ benefit and through it tries to give a message:  Don’t trust men even though you “love” him. Don’t trust girls because they are likely to go ahead and get pregnant with your best friend’s child. Don’t trust your best friend because s/he will go ahead and fall in love with your lover.

I was so intrigued by the idea of this show, that I spent some time Youtubing some previous episodes of the same programme. In one of them, the girl was talking about how she found out that her boyfriend was “flirting” with her best friend, by checking his text messages.  I was left wondering how jobless can the girl be, that she spent “30 minutes” trying to look through his text messages and then taking a back-up of all these text messages on her laptop.  (Mind you. To spy over someone you need to be technologically advanced. It would have been a failed attempt if I would have tried it. I am seriously in awe of the girlfriend.) In another episode, the girlfriend was cheating the boyfriend. She had slept with his room-mate and the boyfriend found that out when she was pregnant and had told him that it was the boyfriend’s child she was carrying. The boyfriend knew it wasn't his, because as he proudly claimed on camera, “humlog eksath sote the, but mein ek pillow ko hug kiye bina so nahi sakta. Toh aap samajh sakte ho, k humare beech kabhi kuch ho hi nahi sakta.” (we used to sleep together but I cannot fall asleep if I can’t hug a pillow. So you know, nothing could have happened in between us.) I pity the girlfriend really! The poor thing might have tried to seduce the boyfriend, and when she failed, she went ahead and happily slept with the room-mate. Justified she was, I must say.

There were many other stupid problems. (I am telling you, it is highly addictive. Not because they talk about serious things, but because it gives you a good laugh.) I was amused and disgusted at the same time by two things. Firstly, the youths, the “future of our nation” are so helplessly jobless, that they would come on such shows (look at the name), and talk about their “personal problems.” Secondly, how trivial their problems are.

They are heartbroken and depressed because they “loved” someone, and that person cheated on them.  Mind you they are “depressed”. I wonder what would the child on the street who has got no shelter to sleep would have to say about it. What would the three year old, for whom, being loved means  two chapattis and some curry, has got to say about this “depression.”

The main problem lies in the fact that we are privileged. We are privileged to sit and claim that we “love” and we “care”.  And by love and care we mean holding hands and roaming about in shopping malls. We are privileged to refuse to look in to the depth of these words.  We are privileged to shed tears over stupid silly problems about not being “loved”. About not being “needed”.  About our “loved ones” cheating on us.

It is funny, how the thin, hungry, homeless 3 year old still smiles at the world, while the rich, fat 30 year old, sulks and cries all the time. I wonder, if being happy and content is inversely proportional to being rich and privileged. I am sure the less privileged would look at this show, smile and say, "Atyachar it is."

Of Love and Other Things

Why do we fall in love? Do people look for the heart or is it just the carnal need? What exactly is LOVE? Well I have been musing over this for a long time now. Youths:  teenagers claim to love each other. What do they actually mean by that? Is love all about holding hands, taking tours of all the malls possible and telling each other like 48 times in the 24 hours, how much they love?

But then what? What happens next? They get married after staying “in love” for 10 years and then the love disappears like the morning mist. So that brings me back to the question, “what was all that love about?” is it just a pretence? Is it just another way to keep oneself occupied? Or is it that the person I was “going out” with for 10 years suddenly changed when I started living with him?

I have often wondered what makes us fall in love, and I have been told that unlike animals, we humans look for things more than sex in our partner.  But if that is true, then why does one dress up? Why is one coy? Why does one want to smell good? Why does the 14 year old try his utmost best to hide the awkwardness in his voice?  Why does one try so hard to impress the other? And when the other likes these attributes, we call it “turn ons”.

Why do we need these special attributes to express our sexual urges? Are we too ashamed to say it out loud? Or are we scared that we will be misunderstood as complete sex maniacs?

There are two extreme ideas about sex. One group wants to believe that sex is something very bad and shouldn't be spoken about. Another group however is obsessed with sex and can’t think about anything else. But I will tell you what is amusing. To observe the people who have both the extreme ideas packed together in their heads.

They are the most interesting of all. They are obviously a sad case to study, but they are the best example of self-contradictions. On the one hand they can’t help but think only about sex, and on the other hand they scold themselves for thinking that way.  Who are they trying to convince? Themselves?

 “Loving someone” is a lost story nowadays I guess. It all comes down to one thing: getting married, reproducing, getting bored, and getting divorced. What would human beings do without procreation? To stay in love for a long long time, without procreation, one has to pay the price. Romantic dinners, costly gifts. Diamonds and shoes and what not.

Love now means looking at the bright future. otherwise it is a lost cause. A wasted effort. I have heard, girls fall in love after looking at the car the boy owns. They don’t look for the heart any longer. They look for a bright future. The rest will, they say, fall in place.

It is when I muse and ramble and think aloud like this, that I feel that knotted pain in my chest.  The “what ifs” come back to me. What if I was born in another generation, another time, when the attitude towards sex was healthy and love meant doing something for the person I love. Love meant searching for the heart. Love meant talking and listening. Love meant just sitting beside each other and being comfortable. Love meant, bringing out the best in each other.  Love meant longing for your love… feeling the desire to find happiness in making another human being happy.

Adorable Bundles Of Joy

I could not resist sharing this. Animals can be so adorable and full of emotions. Maybe this is the reason I pray all the time that if rebirth is not a myth, I would like to be someone walking on all fours, living in the jungles or flying in the blue sky.Yes I would miss reading maybe, but then, everything else is going to be  bliss. 

Birthday, Expectations and Machines

Gift From Google

 I have been waiting to put up this post for a long time now. I have been writing and rewriting and sitting on my bum about it. But maybe I was waiting for a right time to put it on.

Recently, I have been thinking about the value of life and love. As we grow up and walk the path of life, we come across so many people. Some leave a mark, by doing something good for you. Some leave a mark by hurting you badly and then there are some, who just stay there forever. SO what matters the most? Or rather who matters the most? The ones you loved and still yearn for? Or the ones who love you? I don’t know. I have been looking for this answer for a long time.

There is a lifelong yearning, I think. Urge to know who would really miss you when you are gone. As a very old friend always says, “I would like to see who cries for me when I am gone.”  No matter how much ever I scold him, for always telling me this and thinking about his own death, I can’t help agreeing with him on the point that this is the most intense human feeling, and perhaps our biggest fear. A fear that no one cares and loves me and everyone is just pretending until we are around. When I am gone, no one will really care, and I will be forgotten in a jiffy.

I don’t know if it is normal but even at 23, I am really excited about my birthday. Yes I love to get calls exactly at midnight and still keep track of who is the first one to wish me. I know I am too old to gush about birthdays, but then I think what matters to me is the question: “To whom do I really matter.”

I think the root cause of this hurt is the expectation. The expectation which we go on carrying in our hearts. The expectation that so and so will call me, and when I do not get that call, it is just a sheet of gloom covering my heart.

But I think machines are making us happier than human beings these days. Yesterday I turned 23, and to be very honest, I was excited about it for almost a week. But the spirits dampened when I hardly got calls at midnight.  My fault may be because I have changed my number and only a handful knew my number, but even those did not call. It was only relatives.  I went off to sleep, with a sad heart, and woke up cribbing to someone how no one wished me, and I did not matter to anyone. However Google surprised me pleasantly by giving me a special doodle. Of course it was visible only to me,  but still it was a pleasant surprise. After all someone very unexpected remembered and surprised me pleasantly.

I always knew that I should expect the unexpected, but at the age of 23, I realised it. The sooner we learn to be ready for the unexpected, the easier it would be for us to be less gloomy and complaining.  Human nature is too complex to understand.  People value trivial things a bit too much. Emotions come second to them.  So would it be too much to say that we are nearing the dark ages, when machines would take control of the world, and human beings would just be slaves, kept prisoner in some underground dungeon?

Happy new year to all.