One Lesson

A lot of women keep themselves in shitty relationships. I'm not talking about abuse here, just the normal run-of-the-mill ones in which a woman loses a lot and gains very very little. 

Through the years, I have NEVER kept my big mouth shut. I have actively pointed out what was wrong and encouraged friends to step away. Time and again, I've been cold shouldered because these girls chose the guy, chose the misery. I understand, in a way. It's easier to lose a friend than it is to cut out your heart. 

With my closest friend now, I stopped at one point. I am wiser now, after all. I just looked at her as she spoke of all her woes and realized that she would not leave this guy. So I clammed up after that because I didn't want this friendship to fall away as well. But to my amazement, I actually did affect change. And I wasn't even trying!

During her last visit, I was reminiscing about my past. I was telling her about a guy who told me his ex, when she left, said, "You'll regret not marrying me. You'll see. You'll never find anyone like me." I was telling her that ironically, those words were etched into my mind and it was what strengthened my resolve to stay away from him after I left that relationship. I was determined that I would never be as great a fool.

But it is an injustice to call it foolishness. We are indoctrinated from birth with fairy tales and romantic stories, with dreams of soulmates and 'the one', with true love and that 'one love'. Girls, especially, take this to heart completely. 

I told my friend how sad it is that I always hear my friends say things like, 'No one can love him like me.' or 'No one can take care of me like him.' I once heard someone on TV respond to that with, "Have you met everyone in the world, to be able to say that?" Brilliant response! We all desperately want to think we are special, that he is special, or what we  have is special and unique. And we could not be more wrong. My friend was listening quietly, and I didn't even think much about it as I told her- For example, this guy you find so difficult to leave, he's going to marry someone his witch mom wants him to if you left... and do you think that girl is not going to be a good wife to him? Of course she will do her best. And he will live a good life with her. He's not going to roll over and die. She will cook and he will eat. She will bear children, and he will be their father." As I said this, she was deathly silent. And after she went home, she sent a voice message thanking me for everything I said and that she took away several life lessons from our conversation. I was flabbergasted. After all the advice I had deliberately given her, a conversation about myself and my own learnings from relationships is what finally opened her eyes to herself. That she not only left the guy, but decided to enter into an arranged marriage is something that, surprisingly, doesn't bother me at all. Her mistakes are her own. 

I don't want to give the impression that I am cynical. When I say we are wrong in thinking an individual is special, or the relationship is unique, I mean it in this context- no relationship is the ONLY ONE that works or will ever work. But there are people who just 'fit' so well, who work so well together and consciously love each other, (love as a verb), that their relationship is special and unique and heart-warming. The problem is that everyone thinks that they are in one of those, even those who aren't. That's what makes leaving so difficult, when it is the best thing one can do.

If my ex hadn't told me what his ex told him, I wonder how long I would have been a naive romantic. How much more difficult it would have been for me to move on. My friend thanked me again and I decided to write all this down because this is such an important life lesson that changed a core part of me, one that needed to change. I am still amazed that my friend learnt it from me, of all people! It is important to share, to tell our stories to the ones we care about. It is important to say what we think and feel, even if it is social media, even if it might seem like over-sharing. That is the life lesson I took from all this. 

The Street Dog Menace?

Those living in India now, specifically Tamilnadu, must have heard about the latest issue we face- what the media has termed ‘The street dog menace’. We are being bombarded in the media with this news. Every day, the same videos are being shown. The Supreme court has issued a statement saying that those who feed street dogs should be held responsible for the dogs that attack people. Public fury is being whipped up. The steam is rising. The boiling point is fast approaching. Like in Kerala, where in the recent past, men in groups went around hanging street dogs from trees and beating them to death with sticks, people are being triggered. We all know where this is heading.

I have a lot to say. Let me say it. Listen, please. Even though it is futile, even though it will make no difference, I want to speak. I want to scream, actually, but I will settle for speaking. More than 2500 words are in this post. I have warned you. Read it all, if you can.

1) This Government is too corrupt. The disease is bone deep and I do not see how it possibly be removed. Human rights are being violated unchecked. Animals, who are an afterthought, have no hope in this atmosphere of putrid hate.

Money. The money that we need to fix this country is in the hands of politicians and celebrities. The staggering amount of money that is in the hands of the few cannot even be imagined. Crores of crores. And what is available is being spent in ways that boggle the mind. A statue that costs 300 crores. Run that amount in your mind and look around you at the filth on the streets. At the way our people live in slums. At the animals that are diseased and rotting on the streets.

Compassion is the privilege of those who are well fed and satisfied. And yet, miraculously, compassion exists in the lowest members of the social ladder. Open Instagram and see the homeless, the beggars on the streets who part with their food to feed street dogs. How many watchmen in India keep a biscuit packet in their pockets? How many poor women who run food messes feed street dogs with leftover food? How many butchers go around in the morning with a bucket of rice cooked with offal meat and bones? I have met these people and talked to them. I do the same whenever I can.

This truly is the Kali Yuga, the epoch of unchecked degradation of the human soul outlined in Hindu scripture. Why else would compassion be punished to this extent? Those who feed dogs should be held responsible, is it? Let’s look at some facts-

Cost of vaccination per dog: Rabies Rs.200 and Paro Rs.600 totalling Rs.800 approximately.

Cost of neutering a male dog: Rs.500 and a spaying a female dog: Rs.750 at the Government Veterinary hospital. Privately neutering and spaying will cost double or triple those amounts.

For the most part, the people who feed street dogs are not rich. What they do is already beyond their means. To ask them to vaccinate, neuter and take up medical treatment for street dogs is unthinkable. What the Supreme Court has done with their statement is frightened these people and perhaps even intimidated a few into stopping. How is that a solution? If you give ten rupees to an old beggar, do you think you should be asked to take him or her to a hospital and get them treated and provide for them? Don’t you want to just give them what you can and move away from them and forget their existence? Isn’t your compassion limited? That is your right. No one can ask more from you. And yet, people are applauding the Supreme Court’s statement. Everyone needs someone to point at, someone to make a villain of, someone to take the responsibility. Let’s talk about responsibility in depth.

2) Do you know that your local corporation has a responsibility to neuter and spay street dogs every day? They receive funds for it. There are countless Government veterinary doctors who ready to do ten operations per day per doctor. They are good people. I have talked to them. And yet, what is being done? A few street dogs are being captured and photographed. There are either released again or mostly, killed. However, their photographs are being sent to the head office saying that their operations have been performed and the funds are collected and pocketed. Do I have proof for this? Excuse me while I laugh hysterically. How do you get proof for the corruption happening in this country? Sometimes, once in a blue moon, a few dozen street dogs actually are neutered and released. The number is proudly published in the newspapers. It makes no difference- in the next mating season, the dogs more than compensate for it. So that’s how the Government executes its responsibility. Let’s move on to human beings in general.

3) I am appalled by the violence of the response against street dogs. Why this fury against animals who have a limited intelligence? It doesn’t come forth against members of our own species who are vastly superior in intelligence and morals. If you pulled up the statistics on how many women and children are being raped in a minute and how many people are being attacked by dogs in a minute across the world, which statistic do you think would be higher? And yet we don’t see any calls for men as a sub-species to be held responsible for the crime? In fact, when the ‘Me too’ movement was at its peak, there were men who were audacious enough to start a hashtag saying ‘Not all men’. It made the blood boil. If you are a man reading this, imagine what your life would be like if you knew there was a serial killer in your neighbourhood targeting men of your age group. Imagine what every day would be like, what all precautions you would take and how much it would influence your every single plan. That’s what it’s like for women from the moment we are old enough to go to the neighbourhood store till the day we die. One serial killer is enough. One rapist is enough. Life cannot be the same.

The point of this is that we are speciest. We pride ourselves on not being racist or casteist or sexist, but speciesm isn’t a trending fad yet. I hope it will become one, because only then will we stop the wholesale crimes we commit against other species without conscience or fear of punishment. Until then, we as a species are morally reprehensible. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We have single-handedly caused the extinction of complete species’ of animals and we continue to do so. And how do we respond to animals that are less intelligent than us who we see as a threat- just kill them. It’s easier. There’s no one to question us.

4) There’s no one to question us. That’s the greatest irony, isn’t it? Without thousands of religions on this planet with any number of deities, we still have no one to question us. I dropped off a friend at her home yesterday and her mother came out to speak to me. A devout Hindu woman if there ever was one. Starts the day with a bath and a complete set of rituals done before an array of gods in her pooja room. She talked to me proudly about her watchman who keeps a big pile of stones on the compound wall and makes sure not a single street dog even thinks about walking in front of their house. This way she does not have to be offended by the sight of dog poop anywhere near her house. She told me proudly about her cousin who walks the streets with a taser rod to attack any dogs that comes near him. Funny how her Gods have taught her more about hygiene than compassion.

And yet, she runs to the gate when a cow comes along, so that she can feed it a banana and touch its head. It can definitely poop in front of her gate because its poop is holy. Does she know that 99% of male calves end up on a butcher’s block? She does. Only the females, i.e. the cows have been lucky enough to be singled out by God. Sometimes, I wonder, if I had to explain all this to an alien, what would I say? How would I even approach this hypocrisy?

5) Recently, I read a post in which there was this question- if a wild tiger or lion was roaming the streets, would you feel safe and say, let it roam? The implication being that street dogs are the same since they attack people. So they should be dealt with. Let me answer that question. No, as an animal lover, I wouldn’t want wild animals roaming the streets. I would want it to be humanely captured and released into a sanctuary or reserve.

But the thing is- dogs are not wild animals. We have a responsibility towards them that we do not have toward any other creature on earth. Tens of thousands of years ago, our ancestors domesticated a particular species of wild animals and brought them into their lives as companions. Through the years, those majestic animals have been bred and interbred to create the helpess dogs that we see today. These animals have zero capacity to exist in the wild. They have very little in common with their own ancestors. They have been bred to become creatures who are solely dependent on humans for survival. Street dogs exist on the kindness of some humans and the trash piles of all humans. This is the crime that we have committed against them.

In the recent past, the death of a British monarch caused the internet to explode in a frenzy of memes and posts. We got to see how much anger and resentment lives in the hearts of those countries that were former colonies. We want the British to acknowledge their brutal past and answer for their ancestors. We want reparations. Let’s acknowledge that what we have done to dogs is our responsibility. We answer for our ancestors and we owe these animals reparations. We owe them homes with food and safety, so that they don’t live on the streets, and they don’t become so desperate and beastly that they attack people.

Let me emphasize this fact- as a species, we have a socio-moral responsibility to street dogs. We created them. In that context, we are the Gods. What Gods we are!

6) Let us not close our eyes to what we are. Animals are being abused every day. I won’t go into those horrors here. I don’t have the courage to type all that. Go to Bangalore. Slow down as you near the city. You will see at least one Golden Retriever or Labrador on the highway that has become old, so their rich owners have abandoned them on the outskirts of the city. It’s happening more often than you think. Look closely at the packs of street dogs. You’ll soon see that one of them at least is a dog that has been abandoned. At the rate street dogs are reproducing, people are actually adding to their numbers by abandoning animals that have no street sense. Imagine the fear and hunger and helplessness those pets must feel. Imagine your little child suddenly ripped from its home and standing in the middle of some street somewhere. Close your eyes and feel it. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, open your heart and feel it. Do you think these animals chose this existence? That they want to live in such misery? That they want to go mad and attack people. What choice is open to them?

I have adopted 7 dogs from the streets. I don’t have the money or physical strength to do more. Even though there are a few hundreds like me, we are not enough. What we do is not enough. On a daily basis, my heart hurts that I cannot save them all.

I have friends. They don’t love dogs. But I know that they are kind people. When I tell them about street dogs, which is very rare, they express their pity. But that’s where it stops. I don’t blame them. Not everyone can take up every cause. Not everyone can be an activist. We all struggle, we all have lives. But, it pains me that people are unaware of so many things. Even those that are educated and well-off have no clue. The media that shows a video of street dogs chasing a man does not reveal everything else that I have typed in this post, does it? Furious anger is being whipped up. Compassion is being suppressed. Politics ensures people are kept poor and angry. That way, everything the Government says is seen as true, and people become puppets. Most of us know this. Yet, we have become so passive and submissive, that we would rather not think about it. Life is difficult enough as it is. Why open our eyes too wide and see what we don’t want to see. But we cannot afford to live like this, not for long.

7) What is the solution? There are two choices- kill them or adopt them. The Government will do nothing. They have started propaganda to ensure people support whatever drastic measures they are going to take. The media is their tool, as always. Public sentiment is being turned against animal lovers and street dogs. I am guessing that soon, we will see a wholesale capture and killing of street dogs across the country.

The solution lies only with people. Awareness and compassion. Instead of fearing these animals, feed them. Their instinct is to be friendly with and love humans. Everyone just needs to feed them. Earn their love. Keep their bellies full. What possible reason could they have to attack if they are fed and treated with kindness? Except for the occasional stray that contracts rabies and attacks- those ones should be captured and euthanized, yes. There is no other choice. Every neighborhood has hundreds of people. Start a collection of funds. Give it to the one or two animal lovers in the area who are more than willing to spend their time and energy to get street dogs neutered and vaccinated. All we need is money and a maybe a little help with transport.

The solution lies with people. Stop being angry with animals that don’t know better. Stop being angry with people are trying to help. Awareness and compassion. Awareness and compassion. Awareness and compassion. I beg of you.

………Even as I write this, I know it won’t happen. We are too selfish to do this, and it is too much to ask. Compassion is costly, in too many ways. Violence is cheaper, faster and more effective. Personal responsibility is too scary to think about because it’s too much work. My heart bleeds for the violence that is to come. I am already tearing up at the injustice that millions of animals are going to face, that are going to be punished for the actions of the few. If there is a God, I only ask one thing- do better next time, God. Wipe my species off the face of this overwhelmed and struggling planet and do better next time.

Floored!

I decided to try some floor exercises recently. You know what I'm talking about. You go to the store, buy a new yoga mat, shoes, socks, head band, wrist band, ugly track pants and then come home feeling like you lost 10 kilos just because your debit card is lighter. Worse, you look like you escaped from some 70's disco zoo for humans.

So I did that. And as usual, I was humbled beyond all belief. The conclusion I have come to is that I may possibly have no core. If I do, then as the flat bellied exercise gurus insist, I do not want to engage it. You hear me, I DO NOT want to engage my core. I want to divorce it. What is the procedure for that please?

How do they do it so elegantly in the videos, man? Each time my leg starts towards the floor from above, it falls with a thud. Like its dead. Like its not connected to my brain in any way. I feel like a beast, I tell you, a beast. Maybe its an Indian thing. Take yesterday, for example. As I fell this way and that, the spicy Ruchi mixed vegetable pickle in my stomach decided to reverse direction and come up the tube. So to complete the beast image, I was breathing fire. To add the nail to the coffin, let me assure you- the only exercise I could do with ease and grace was the donkey kick. I realize now that I should not be proud of myself for that, not even a little bit. 

I don't like the instructors, I must add.  Even though I don't know them, as human beings, I don't like them. They smile. They SMILE. How? I know they don't have scalp sweat that runs into their eyes and burns them. Still, its just obscene. Rude. Keep your core and your smile. Instead, tell me how to get a refund on all the crap I bought. Then I'll smile. 

So anyway, the final conclusion I have come to is that there are people like me in the world, who should only be vertical. Walk, run, zumba, whatever, but keep that stomach and those thighs below sea level. Do not go horizontal. You'll just see things you don't want to see, and feel them too. Don't forget the pickle. Let that be your guide. Listen to your body. Let the pickle travel down, and be at peace.

Inner Pieces

People say that the path to salvation lies in your spiritual evolution. On the way, you attain such things as inner peace. I don't know about that.

The whole thing is pretty nerve-wracking, if you ask me. Once you assimilate the fact that the Universe is governed by this wacky law and that your thoughts and beliefs create your reality, there's no going back from that quicksand. Let me explain.

You know how sometimes people get asked what their favorite time of the day is, and they say that its when they wake up in the morning? I find that impressive. When I wake up, even before my consciousness fully kicks in, I involuntarily think, "Oh shit, not again." Then, as the booting up process completes, I realize that I just put a really negative thought out there and desperately try to undo it.  

"No, No, Universe, I didn't mean that. I meant, wow, another day of possibilities, I'm so grateful, yes, I am, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

It's a desperate and pathetic attempt. Most of the time, I'm sure the Universe only registered the first output and I'm going to fall dead. The Universe would go (in Morgan Freeman's voice) "So Ye Asked, So Ye Shall Receive!" and make a horrid pinching movement and down here, I'd croak. 

This is my morning ritual, and please note, I haven't even opened my eyes yet. Inner peace, my ass.

How can something that sucks the joy out of life, give me eternal joy? That's what I want to know. So the guy who cuts me off in traffic- I can't imagine his death in gruesome detail? It's not like I'm going to kidnap and kill him. Can't I just imagine it? NOOOOOOOOOO, says spirituality. You must bless him. I mean, come on!

When I was a little girl, times were simpler. We knew about this thing called Karma. Back then, it was pretty practical. An eye for an eye. Don't do bad stuff or bad stuff would happen to you. There was no talk about thoughts and feelings and beliefs. We were all free to nourish the utmost evil in the cesspools of our minds. Don't you yearn for simpler times like that? You released everything and lived carefree. 

Now, masters like Buddha have set us these bad examples we feel obliged to follow. Books have been published. You can't walk 10 feet without stumbling on someone who talks about inner engineering. It's all light, love, rainbows and unicorns. Makes me sick, sometimes. Rainbow colors. Black is also a respectable color, you know. I want to wear black, learn ten different types of martial arts and take down 20 people at the same time? Answer me honestly, wouldn't that be far more satisfying than 20 hours of meditation?

Meditation! Don't get me started on that! Lord in heaven. if there was ever a way to make you want to embrace the dark side, it's meditation. How many hours can you sit like that and not achieve a psychotic break?! Don't you have thighs that protest? Knees that creak? Brains that check out? I don't know.

All in all, what has spirituality done for me? I think I have become paranoid and life, more stressful. And inner peace? Please. Inner pieces is more like it. 

Bless you all!

From the ashes...

I've written before about Godmen. Except for a rare few genuine spiritual masters, there are many such who have read the literature, nailed the look and the accent, and have gone on to achieve success and fame. 

Nithyananda, perhaps, is the most notorious one in recent times. There is even a documentary now entitled 'My daughter joined a cult' in which they seem to systematically take down the image he has cultivated. 

Long before this, but after his infamous sex tape with Ranjitha, I learnt of his personal paradise Kailasa where he had hidden himself away. I was amused to learn he had his own channel live streaming day and night from this Kailasa.  

So, snacks in hand, I opened the website, sat back and smirked, ready to pooh and paah at this charlatan. That's when the Universe decided to teach me a lesson. I watched him do his daily discourse, which I think was called a satsang. That day's topic was about love. This Mister-I-smile-too-much opened his mouth and put forward the most wonderful and accurate and exact definition of love I have ever heard. He said, "Love is the highest vision you can have for someone. It has nothing to do with your feelings, or theirs, or desires or sacrifices or anything. It is simply the highest existence you can envision for them."

That's not verbatim, FYI. But I admit I was floored. I just sat there gaping and listened to the whole satsang. For many days after that, I tuned in, but I never heard anything that profound again. It was good spiritual literature, for the most part, but nothing remarkable. Of course, there was a lot of pompous posturing and self-gratifying statements. I never visited his virtual Kailasa after that.

The point of this, the lesson I learnt, may seem fairly simple. Don't be so smugly superior and so quick to dismiss and deride another person. I am not defending Nithyananda, of course. He has been accused of many vile things, which I think may be true. But like the proverbial rose blooming in the desert, I learnt that there is gold hidden in dirt, that there are diamonds to be found in ashes, that words precious and true may fall even from the lips of those who are called monsters. 

If nothing else, I learnt to better understand this thing that we call love. How unlikely a source, yet how beautiful this lesson!