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 ...

The country is suffering, while the elite are engaged in Facebook wars. Nothing is going to change till each of us makes up his or her mind to fight patriarchy, caste, communalism and injustice. The working class continues to exist on a pittance, and the politicians continue to roll in rivers of money.  I was standing near a chai-paratha shop on the streets of Delhi when a luxury sedan pulled up. The obese man behind the wheel rolled his (illegally) tinted glass down, bellowing, ‘ abbe oye bhen-chod, paani laa .’ The little chai-shop boy complies, holding out the paani-bottle from a safe distance…I’m assuming that comes with the experience of being cuffed by the customers, and he says, ‘ ye lo ’ … (please note: no  bhaiyaa !) As the man stretches out for the bottle, he shouts,  ‘ Izzat se baat kar, chutiya …’ I struggle to keep the disgust from showing on my face as I wonder why anyone should respect this heaving, gasping, sweating blob of flesh with ...

“… cutting up women is a sport older than cricket but just as popular and equally full of obscure rituals and intricate rules that everyone seems to know...” ~ Mohammed Hanif , Our Lady of Alice Bhatti I'm reading Our Lady of Alice Bhatti as I travel trip my way across India, meeting women for our newest campaign - an ambitious one where we're hoping to dismantle patriarchy using videos and discussions. I'm looking for young women, who want to work with us as Correspondents, to document patriarchy preying on them in its own unique style in their areas. As I read about Alice, a fiercely independent former jailbird, from a poor, ‘low-caste’ Christian family in Pakistan, I am disgusted by how similar life for women in India is to the life of Alice. As I travel from Goa to Kerala, and move to Tamil Nadu, I met Nandhini, from a tiny village just outside Tiruppur town, in Tamil Nadu. She’s just opened a beauty salon, enrolled in English classes and is pretty pissed off wi...

  ‘One must have freedom, sunshine and a little flower.’ ~ Hans Christian Anderson CyberDragon’s Psychedelic Trips are perfect for staring at chickens in the sunshine.  I'm ensconced in a wholly different world as I sit in the balcony, watching Flirty-Chicken mince around, fluffing her tail, while the two roosters flap and squawk, ripping each other to bloodied ribbons. I occasionally run through the yard, reluctantly flapping my arms, calling up childhood phrases (‘fighter-cocks’) to break up the fight. Pichkoo watches from under my chair, covered in her resident cloud of mosquitoes hovering around her little nose. (Pichkoo is very generous, she always shares her various bugs with me, often leaving a fat tick at my doorstep.)  She’s watching the fight, hawk-eyed, probably hoping one rooster will flop over and die. She's also oblivious to Dove-White-Chicken greedily golumphing at her pet mosquitoes. [1] Usually friendly, Fatootie-Chicken is grumpily glaring at...

Who am I? What am I doing on the planet? Am I living the life I came here to live …? I’m thinking about psytrance & psycho-puppies as I amble along, entranced in my Sillie Millie world. We walk a long path at least once a day, an enhanced insight into the world we live in. Every day is a new experience, as we explore the bushes and listen for the birds together, equally curious about the scuffling in the bushes, equally wary to go explore… she sniffs & I sigh at the fresh neon leaves blinging our brains in the bright morning sunlight, and keep an watchful eye out for the inevitable fresh dollops of multi-creature poop she always discovers just the second I turn my back! From our earliest memories, we’ve been marinating in the mantra…. It’s the pursuit of happiness! A few months ago, I found myself marinating in my mind…lost in my thoughts, always a million miles away from here & now, struggling to overcome horrific writer’s block, and g...