Dog Blogs Travel Trips

Friday morning had Vaibhavi bawling “Honey… Honey…, striding purposefully through the office, announcing the arrival of the local honey collectors…as people argued about the scams and scallywags these guys were, a colleague declared his faith in a yogi endorsed ‘ayurvedic’ brand. I scowled in disapproval; the ‘face’ of this disputed brand is a self proclaimed yoga guru, formerly a television yogi, who built a business empire while his supporters canvassed for political campaigns. Over the years, several cases of fraud, and land grab have been raised against his syndicate. Make no mistake, this brand has billions of sheeple swearing by it, but the Baba’s company conducts product tests on animals , immediately knocking it off my shopping list. The products have been proved below par in quality , and the company has forcefully acquired acres of land in an eco-sensitive Himalayan state, also acquiring massive tracts at a pittance in the next. Hobnobbing with the ...

In early 2015, the organization I was affiliated with had an opportunity to expand their network to West Bengal. The euphoria of finally getting a chance to explore my motherland almost drowned in the agonising amount of research and data crunching I had to do, identifying key issues, organisations and movements across the state we wanted to work with. Scenes from the illegal quarries, Birbhum, West Bengal The data was baffling – West Bengal boasts of being the sixth largest economy in the country, and the state’s power infrastructure and roads and railways network is top notch as compared to the rest of the country. Despite having literacy rates higher than the national average, over 30% of the youth in Bengal remained unemployed in 2012-2013. 47 million unemployed young people. This was the same year the state recorded the highest rates of violence against women in the country. Savage destruction of fragile ecology of the Sundarbans and the North Bengal, at the foothills of th...

I've always been interested in stories. I guess it began with the bedtime stories snoozily crafted by Papa when we were kids. Stories of people who withstood scary Skeletors. Carefully personalized for children. So there was He-Man , running alongside the warrior goddess, Teela Radhika . Stories of Himalayan heroics by grandfathers. Growing up in Bengal meant the inevitable fascination for the Durga Ma, the Mother Goddess, gentle, nurturing & benevolent unless provoked. She has the potential to be a positive pain in the you-know-where for the bad guys. Batman came along much later. As we grew older we discovered our own stories. And scripted a few of our own. Over the last few years I've been out & about. Searching for something. Shakti. Soul. Shiva. Shanti. Whatever you wanna call it. I don't know yet. All I found were stories. Sad stories. Strange stories. Stories about strangers. Everyone has a story. You only gotta have the time to listen. I try to write th...

Puppy-sitting has taken its toll on me, and I've succumbed to the idiot box. Yes, I've been watching a lot of TV. And yes, I hate it. Regardless, I find myself glued to the TV on a regular basis, watching with fascinated horror all the ridiculously bejeweled women cribbing and indulging in complex plans of vengeance. As their husbands cavort with the caked-with-make-up ‘vamps’. That reminds me, I loathe how women feel the need to thwack on make-up at social dos while men get away with appearing in clean, ironed clothes! Bah! Anyway, getting back to TV…I blame my University degree in gender & culture, and my liberal parents who refused to indulge in gender biases because I am no longer able to enjoy even a dance ‘reality show’ without cringing at the ridiculous stereotypes being played out on a weekly basis. While TV has definitely matured since the days of ‘ Dostana ’, where homosexuality was openly depicted in mainstream, (though not celebrated, dammit!), uptight Bollyw...

When you're a year older, you start waking up a little tired, just a little weird and just that little bit confused. Birthdays are supposed to be happy right? That's what they sing! I agree with Sid though - "Birthdays mean you realize you're actually not immortal!" People around me have grown up. They are doing stuff. Started working. Started painting. Casanova steadied up. One got married. Engaged. Had kids. Working. Contemplated studying. Started  exercising. Began running. Went back to dancing. Learnt swimming. Doing something. I'm just busy trying to quit going crazy. Ever since I left Goa almost two months ago for training camps, I've been going crazy. At times polite, at times well mannered, strict, loyal, quiet, well dressed, no slang, "rashtriya" bhasha, "decent", meticulous, mathematical, awake, alert, far thinking, conservative, demure, explaining, understanding, sympathetic, observant, eat fruits, be fit, quit smo...

The latest word to be added to my vocabulary is the Arabic word for bougainvillea -  Majnuneh  – the feminine for crazy. I fell in love with the word as soon as I heard it. A massive chunk of my world can be associated with the word ‘crazy’. If not wanting to stuff myself into the tiny little boxes society likes to pigeon hole people into means I’m crazy, it’s alright, I don’t mind being crazy. I learnt a long time ago that ‘crazy’ is often used to dismiss people whose intelligence is assumed to be irrelevant. I’m fine with being irrelevant in an ignorant person’s world. And habibi , all these stereotypes about women and feminine and girls and boys and mardangi and so on and so forth have become old and boring. Majnuneh is my new stereotype - where one can be just whoever the hell they wanna be. (yeah, I got myself an Arab friend, and she teaches me the best words ever!) I must confess I’ve been guilty of indulging in stereotyping as well. I attributed the love f...

I hadn’t hung out with Baga the bitch for a while because she’s become massive and sleeps all day! I think too many people are feeding her. Anyway. So about a week ago, I was chilling outside a friend’s farewell party, staring at the moon, contemplating about change being the only constant in life. Then I heard a soft scrabble of Baga’s oversized toenails on the gravel. My friend had found me. I like to think she sensed the need for silence. For the first time in all these months, she didn’t squawk the leaves down. Seriously, she makes an awful amount of noise, even mewing sounds sometimes! Watching her quiver in happiness I started thinking of these two people who stated that dogs leave a greater carbon footprint than an SUV. And maybe it is time to eat them. Perhaps they were correct. But we really need to consider our priorities when we read this research. I can’t ever accept such a peculiar suggestion that perhaps it’s time to eat dogs because they are more harmful for the enviro...

Once you know something is coming to an end, you tend to look back and think of the good times. Right now it’s time for me to move out of Delhi so here’s the stuff I did during my short stay here. Visit the animal farm . What did you expect I’d start MY list with? Of course the animal farm!! Friendicoes has a fabulous animal sanctuary outside Delhi (in Gurgaon actually). It houses over 600 dogs, as many as 100 cats. They even have horses, cows and donkeys. All the animals are rescued and cannot be rehabilitated. I stayed away from the cattle section because I have a weird fear of big animals with hooves and huge teeth. Ok, stop laughing already! The unique thing about the sanctuary is the love and care with which it is maintained. The dogs are segregated by personality! Yes! Who does that right? The staff identified the rowdy dogs, the timid ones, the fighters and the introverts and have kept the dogs apart in a way that they ca...