Archives for March, 2009
Monoo was one of my college buddies, and his mother ran a combo literary-commie salon in Bombay in the late 60s. She was a famous writer, more famous for controversy than her actual writing, and a very loving mother and welcoming hostess. There was always an extra bowl of spaghetti and bright red tomato sauce at her dining table, and conversations filled with ‘deep thoughts’ in her living room.
One day, the commies turned on me. ‘ You’re a young chap. Who are the better communists - the CPI or the CPI(M)?’ The Party was going through one of its regular alphabet soup splinters, and I was asked to pronounce judgment. I had neither the intellect, nor the gumption to take sides. What if I offended one of them, and was shot down like Trotsky? I ducked and weaved… ‘ It all depends on how you define communism, doesn’t it?’ ‘Good point’ and the conversation moved on.
Most lefties I know have a very black and white view of life, and a very grey demeanor. Not grey as in this year’s black, but grey as in sackcloth and ashes, grey as in a winter’s evening in Cleveland. My brother Sridhar is the only one I know with a rollicking sense of humor, and a joie de vivre I have ceased to expect from ideologues of any ilk.
He christened Leia our Dalmatian the Running Dog of Imperialism. Since Leia could work up a good pace when we took her for runs at the race course, this was quite appropriate. When we got Yoda, Sridhar came over, gave him a loving, careful examination and then pronounced that he was the Lap Dog of Capitalism.
I am sure that Marxism has many other labels for canines. Pomeranians are the chattering vassals of the bourgeoise, Rottweilers the attack dogs of reactionary forces, Alsatians the tools of the State’s oppression, Huskies the Beasts of Burden laboring under the Iron Hand, Pie Dogs the Lumpen Proletariat, and dog shows of course are the vulgar indifference of a decaying society to the class struggles raging outside.
Dogs have made it into our language, but at the lower end of the totem pole. I’ve been working like a dog. He was shot like a dog. They’re all dirty dogs. She was treated like a dog. Oscar Wilde was hounded to his grave. Dog days of Summer. Even a dog deserves a better death. His bark is worse than his bite. Bitch. Our prose has been quite dog-a-phobic.
The quality we attribute most to a dog is loyalty, and faithfulness. His Master’s Voice is the ultimate expression of this conceit. The devoted dog, ear cocked, awaiting his lordship’s pleasure.
When Ayesha was young we read a story to her about Australia. In the outback when it got cold, they used to cuddle up to their dogs for warmth. The colder the night, the more dogs were pressed into service. When the temperature really dropped, they were called three dog nights.
Yes indeed, dogs are meant to serve us. It really comes home to you when you see dog walkers in Manhattan. It’s always almost a young man, with rippling muscles, tight black T shirt, very club worthy jeans and shoes, being led by at least a dozen dogs. The dogs are carefree, no thought of being of service, no thought of devotion or loyalty. They are obsessed with only thing – The Spot. Once they find it, the entire pack has to wait. And each member of the gang has to find its own Spot. No sloppy seconds for them.
The walker usually finds his own rhythm, balancing brood in one hand, cellphone in the other, and a whole bunch of plastic sandwich bags clipped to his waist. The pooper scooper laws must be obeyed. He reaches down with the agility of a gymnast, and does the pickup and toss in one graceful movement. Its all very well choreographed.
Jobs done, they all wend their way back home. The pooches are happy. They have been walked. The walker is happy. At ten bucks a canine, he’s earned more than the minimum wage- tax free, and can now go off to meet his drama coach.
Marx would have approved. Every dog must have his day.
Mar 28, 2009 | | Book
Do I listen to loud music all day? Do I work in a noisy environment? Do I go clubbing a lot? I had gone for an ear exam , and the doctor put me through a battery of questions about my ‘sound habits’.
Like all my other doctors, he looked kindly at me and said ‘ For your age…..you’re fine’. As ringing an endorsement as I am likely to get from anyone, for anything these days. He did tell me to steer clear of speakers at rock concerts, and avoid spending time on factory shop floors.
Am I a hipster? Do I go clubbing all night, messenger bag around my neck, and I Pod ganglia snaking out of my ears? Nah. Do I wear hardhats to work and whistle at blondes who walk past? Nah, but it’s an idea worth pursuing. My decibel footprint is modest. Cool jazz is not going to fry my eardrums, and the loudest noise I usually hear is ‘ You’ve got mail’. Not much danger of self inflicted damage to my hearing.
Noise is a whole other deal for Yoda. The Indian monsoons are a terrible time, with the thunderstorms keeping him awake all night. Weather is an act of God, and there is nothing we can do about it.
But Divali is entirely an act of man. We celebrate the festival of lights, with lots of noise. For about a week, the entire country explodes with the sound of firecrackers. The more noise you make, the more you celebrate the triumph of good over evil. The subtext is that the more noise you make, the more money you’ve made.
Makes you long for a good old recession. Nothing like a falling Sensex to give everyone a dose of humility. I am sure this has been researched – as the Dow goes down, ‘please’ and thank yous’ go up.
We have tried different strategies. Swaddling him up in his baby blanket, creating a burrow space, crawling under the bed – they all provide about five minutes’ relief. For a while we all sat in the bedroom and watched DVDs at full volume. But CSI and Law and Order just don’t have enough bang.
The Internet brought us a mini-manual. Probably written by the folks who wrote the protocols for water boarding at Abu Ghraib. Since dogs are afraid of noise, it would be wise to stage ‘noise performances’ to terrorize the dog, followed by praise and some treats. Condition them out of their fear. Start with hand claps, and evolve all the way to gun shots. Yes, gun shots. I kid you not. As a concession to the dog’s tender nerves, it is suggested that the shells be fired into something soft like an old pillow. The punch line is that only adults experienced in firearms should be involved. Dick Cheney need not apply. If he can shoot a Republican donor in the face, he will have no hesitation in shooting your dog in the head.
Thank God for Bark magazine. It won my heart the first time I saw its tag line ‘ Dog is my Co- Pilot’. We saw an ad for an Anxiety Wrap created by a woman for her own pets. It’s like a very tight fitting T shirt with Velcro straps and plastic hooks. Works like a dream.
These wraps are good for a thunderstorm that will pass in an hour or two. But, Diwali is a full 7 day assault on your eardrums. No way he can wear the wrap for all 7 days. So, we fled to our beach house, to get away from it all. But noise making has made its way even to the villages of India. The economists in Delhi would be proud to see trickle down at work..
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When fight is not an option, flight is good.
This year we plan to celebrate Diwali in Italy. Any excuse.
Mar 28, 2009 | | Book
China gave the world Mao’s Red Book. Ayatollah Khomeini gave us his Green Book. And India’s gift to the world was tech support from Bangalore, and the Kama Sutra.
Sex for Dummies, or Yummies depending on your frame of mind and body. Yet, we Indians
have always been the most notorious prudes. For the longest time Bollywood would not show a kiss, though our song and dance sequences in the rain were well into the realm of soft porn. If a contemporary artist were to re-create the temple sculptures of Khajuraho , he would be hanged, drawn and quartered. But, the ancient writhings are protected as part of our heritage , mentioned in history texts, and lovingly immortalized in coffee table books.
In grad school jargon, this is not about providing text, but context. The newly elected Deputy Mayor of Bombay just announced her grand plan to rid the city of the stray dog menace. There are about 600,000 strays in Bombay. I wonder who did the census, and how.
Her brain wave was to shift the stray dogs into ‘dog homes’ outside the city. The icing on the cake, for her not them, was separate male and female enclosures. According to her, having these separate girls and boys dorms would reduce the stray population over the course of a decade. Any time a politician thinks up a permanent solution, it usually involves banning sex for others.
Animal rights activists were outraged. You cant extern dogs. You cant deprive them of sex. It will breed aggressive behavior and devastate them physiologically and psychologically. I am quoting only slightly loosely.
How would dogs react, I wonder? There are some I know who would embrace chastity, even of the enforced kind. Every population has its kooky sub-sets. The kind who see the face of God in every bagel. These dogs would get born again, start an evangelical TV ministry, and soon have their private jets.
There are others who would decide to fly solo, even at the risk of going blind. The outskirts of Bombay would soon have a flourishing industry of sex toys for dogs.
But the large majority would rise up as one to seek out the joys of sex. First would be the frat boys, adept at organizing panty raids. Next would be the make up artists who would put on lipstick and skirts and sneak into the girls’ compound, or affect deep throated growls and find their way to the boys’ hangout. There would be the pole vaulters, the tunnellers, and the doggy pyramids. The Berlin Wall all over again .
Canines like humans, will not be denied.
The Deputy Mayor claims to have a Labrador doggy at home. I am sure that he too would demand to be externed once he heard of all the fun that the strays were having.
Scene change from Bombay to Delhi, where the problem is not dogs but monkeys. The High Court has made it an offense to feed monkeys, and rapped an official on the knuckles for not providing the justices with a hit list of those who have been fined for this misdemeanor. They too believe that the answer lies in externment. Monkey camps outside Delhi, with vet care thrown in.
I wonder how Yoda would react if he could read the papers and came up to speed on the world around him. Sex is anyway a hypothetical since he’s been fixed. But externment? No way.
‘Pack our bags folks. Its time to go to New York’.
Mar 28, 2009 | | Book
Closely watched Trains is a Czech film classic. A train dispatcher decorates his girlfriend’s rear end with an official rubber stamp from the German occupation. She is delighted, her mother is distraught, he is brought up on charges for ‘defaming the official German language’.
European art house films never have happy endings, and this is no exception. Though, government rubber stamps will always have a joyous association.
Mina who comes from a family of distinguished bureaucrats, refers to all government officials as Penguin Butts. Whether it is a reference to their anatomy , their slow measured movement, or their intellect I have not been able to discover. It’s a wonderful image though in the era of Happy Feet.
Penguin Butts are the same the world over. I had always believed that India was unique. Surely no one could compare with our insistence on forms filled out in triplicate, no wall color could be more depressing than our own shade of PWD green. At least pen pushers push pens. Ours don’t push anything. They show great signs of life and enthusiasm at 5.15 every evening, and when they are lost in rapturous contemplation of their retirement benefits.
The DMV in Manhattan was my wake up call. The bureaucratic mind set is everywhere. It knows no boundaries, it transcends all cultures, and it is more global than McDonalds. The DMV in New Jersey was even worse. Why does everything go downhill once you cross the Hudson?
When my hand luggage was stolen right in the high security area of the check in counter at aris airport, I went in to make the police complaint, and was confronted with a report in quintuplicate. Each form had its own color. Nice shades too. The French believe in good design in all parts of their life.
Travel is always high stress for me. Each time I am in an immigration line, I am convinced that they will take me away, and interrogate me under a bright light. Customs agents strike terror in my hearts. And ‘declaring’ Yoda as a plant/animal we are bringing in, adds its own special frisson.
Mina has found the perfect answer to Yoda and the bureaucrats. She has learned to kill them with kindness. They usually want to see a rabies certificate. She has three on hand. They want to see a recent doctor’s certificate. She has them going back three years. We were told that the EU required a special set of forms to be filled out by our vet. We have two full sets.
With a cheerful smile, she plants Yoda on the customs counter, fishes out three pounds of paper work, and fans them out on the table. The only thing missing is ‘ Pick a card, any card’. When you wave a mound of forms in front of a bureaucrat, they have two reactions. First, it must all be kosher if there is so much paper at hand. Second, no way am I going to read through all this. We get waved on.
Yoda was microchipped some time ago, and we have the paperwork to prove it. We have the little metallic tag on his harness, we have reports from George our vet, and from the ‘Lab’. All we have to do is say that he’s been chipped and offer to show the papers. ‘ Do you have anything else to declare?’. We look back at our 8 bags and with great insouciance say ‘No’. And waltz our way out .
The only time we were ever stopped at Customs with Yoda was by a woman officer. She ooked a little fierce, and had obviously not had a good day. She asked us to take Yoda out of his bag, and place him on the counter. She picked him up, examined him carefully, and then just kept looking at him. I was about to have my usual anxiety attack.
Moments ticked by, and she turned to us and asked ‘ Do you mind if I hold him for a bit?. I’ve got a Shih Tzu at home’. She played with Yoda, he looked up at her adoringly, we did the fond parent bit, the sniffer dogs came by and were shushed by their handlers, and everyone took a time out.
I know that I will never have the courage to smuggle anything. I sweat bullets over the extra duty free bottle of wine. But if I ever decide to switch careers and become a mule, Yoda will be my talisman. They may look askance at me, but no one will ever stop him.
Mar 28, 2009 | | Book
