Dogma of Dogs

Dogs, who doesn't love them. Those furry tail-wagging pet delights bouncing up and down at the sight of their family, leaving merry trails of dollops of drool, wolfing down their dog food, non dog food and sometimes even non food, messily lapping up from their bowls, and sometimes (much to the mortification of the housemates) toilet bowls..

My brother and I had always wanted a pet dog and have many a times futilely tried to coax our parents into letting us have one. My mom would cheerfully agree how adorable dogs are. But just as we got to discussing about adopting one she would suddenly remember a saree she had to iron or a plant that was wilting bone dry from not being watered for over four hours and swiftly rush to the obviously more important tasks that was keeping our house together. And my dad would open the newspaper and shake it up a bit and get to reading the editorial section as soon as he heard us mentioning dogs. And that was that.

As a child, I grew up watching Scooby-Doo, Goofy, Pluto, Droopy, Courage The Cowardly dog, The Popeye Show, SpongeBob SquarePants, Dexter's lab… Alas, I digress. That's to say, I grew up enticed by dogs and pups. I would pet random stray dogs, share my lunch with a couple of dogs that roamed inside my school campus, rub the belly of my friends' pet dogs, you get the picture. 

But like every good piece of literature, my story also has its peripeteia and my pronounced love for dogs has now turned to flat-out petrification. 

One late evening, after a hectic day at office, I was enjoying the smoky, dusty, chemical-laden "fresh" air outside our office. That is all was one to expect at Jigani industrial area, Bangalore where my office was at. (I am a bit popular among my friends for making most of what I have, and cheerfully so. *Beams proudly*) 

So as I stood there, with my best friend Mahima, my other colleagues, and my then boss, Fitze, abusing our lungs, waiting for the already late cab to carry us back home, I saw this handsome mighty adorable collared dog walk our way. Dark as it was, I couldn't immediately make out what breed he belonged to. Now i am someone who believes, a breed is to dog as caste is to man, darn it, that's right! So a complete no no for discrimination of dogs based on caste.. er i mean breed. 

The muscular build, the short broad muzzle, the softly floppy ears, the careful, calculated, steady strides towards me, all of these must have been screaming caution at me. But my slightly intoxicated state, thanks to the "fresh" air and my yearning for a jolly good playmate just until I got into the cab quite tilted away my caution antenna, which was now feeding a soothing white noise to my brain. He, the fellow dog, reached me. I must admit, I was a tad taken aback as he walked closer and I assessed, his snout would reach well above my waist. I couldn't also help think that he could go for my throat if he wanted to and he wouldn't even have to sweat for it. And I wouldn't really have a say in it, would I?

What should've been adrenalin pumping in my blood, mistakenly turned out be to oxytocin. All these scary thoughts that just flashed in my head made me want to pet him, rub behind his ears, cuddle him and noshey-kisshey him all the more. And I paid heed to my instinct. Obtusely. 

The reluctant beast shied away from my pats on his head. From behind me, Fitze was calling out to me telling it was a Rottweiler and that they are known to be ferocious. And that I should walk back when I still could. But me being me, gently, lovingly, totally unnecessarily, convinced him I wasn't trying to hurt him. Pfft. Yeah. Right. He took a step back. I took a step forward. He bowed down, I took it as an okay from him to pat him. I touched him. Once. Twice. I reached behind his ears slowly to rub him some. Sounds almost romantic, doesn't it? It was everything that wasn't. 

The beast suddenly looked up at me. Slightly baring his teeth. From behind me, Fitze was cautioning me. Almost shouting at me to move back. But no. The sweet dog was just puppy-eyeing me. Or was he? 

Before I knew it, the dog had taken a giant step forward and half leaped on me, front paws on both my shoulders. He was looking at me dead in the eye. My adrenal gland woke up from its slumber party. But now my muscles were locked up. Nah ah. Wouldn't move. **Great loud thumps of my heart and a lot of blood rushing to my ears and my head that I hadn't been using until a minute ago**

Buuuut....Fitze man to the rescue! He glided behind me unnoticed and slowly put his hand out to me. I was still gaze-locked with the he-dog. Tongue wagging, drool dripping, his breath warm on my terror-stricken face.. Fitze casually asked me to take his hands. The last thing I wanted was the scar of the dog's teeth mark running across my cheeks and nose. So for once, I finally did as I was told. 

Fitze held my hand gingerly and started walking towards the cab that had arrived by then. That darned driver had chosen the right evening to be late. Curses on him. I followed Fitze. As did the dog. He was hopping with me, paws still on my shoulders. Still looking at me intently, as if to dare me to approach another random dog ever again. I tried not to break the glance, lest he pounce on me or chew away my nose or do something more horrific. 

In a swift movement, Fitze pulled me free from the dog, pushed me into the cab and closed the door right behind me, walking away coolly puffing out rings of smoke. I have never thanked the man enough for saving me that day. Outside, the dog tried to determine what really had happened, paced right outside my window a couple of times before walking away. I breathed out. I was alive. Ah.  

I turned around to understand what else had happened by then and realised everyone had been laughing their heads off at me the whole time. Especially Mahima. That mean person was still laughing, face flushed, tears rolling down her cheeks, holding her stomach and rocking back and forth in her seat. She was laughing so hard, I almost found myself questioning why I became friends with her in the first place. Someone else even walked up to me and showed me a photo of mine that he had clicked while the dog was still cuddling me. Yeah, it turns out the nasty beast was trying to ahem-ahem with me. My ears were hot with embarrassment when Mahima, amidst her breathless guffawing croaked out that the dog tried to lurrve me in very special ways. My throat and lips parched, my eyes refusing to shut and my hyper dilated pupils refused to shrink back to their normal size. At the end of it all, I was monumentally grateful to my stars that I didn't get a very public dose of the unspeakable dog-love or lose a chunk of my face to some macho looking punk-dog stranger. That was enough for a life time. And some more.

And so dogs, stay away from me while I stay away from you. Shoo. 

Look who's talking!

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the steam..” Of late this has become one of the numbers I am caught crooning of the various other nursery rhymes there is no dearth of which in my YouTube home screen. In all fairness Siddharth Gautham does not own a device that could host a YouTube playlist full of these rhymes for him. So, for now, what’s mine is his. My phone and my YouTube subscriptions. Also deserving mention, my handbag (it’s more of a duffel bag these days), my side of the bed, my pillow, my eat-time, my sleep-time, my bathroom time, basically, anything that was once uncontestably mine alone.

Siddharth Gautham is my twenty month old toddler. I write this as I rock him on my lap putting him to sleep. I know he is a tad too old to be rocked to sleep on a lap. Alas, he doesn't know that. Nor is he willing to learn this for a fact. This and few others.

Toddlers are naturally deceptive. They look unbelievably adorable, cushy cushy: like you could hug them n squeeze them all day long. That is until a preposterously strong heel whams on your jaw. Whilst you are still collecting yourself from the pain and recoil, the source will essentially have wriggled away from your arms – most likely with a devilishly cute giggle that will leave you grinning through your teary eyes. (Overcome by love, at this point, I bent down to kiss my ever-so-awake son – been rocking him for the past half hour now. He smiled at me and poked my eye. So I go back to rocking him, leaving him alone).

Toddlers are these marvellous little people that are made of sugar, spice and everything nice with a dash of sweet sweet nectar from satan’s most favourite flower blooming in the great and terrible gardens of the underworld.

They are known to be quite the talkers. The transition from imperceptible babbles and sweet cooing to tiny broken words  understood only by the Ammas and Appas, is too subtle, it almost escapes your notice. The gradient was so gradual, even though I had  made it a point to document every new move of Sid, (every sneeze and barf and laugh and poop and anything remotely associated with him) I can't tell for sure when he spoke his first word and what it was.

Sid was an early talker; that much, I can vouch for. He was only around 10 months old when he started banging on closed doors baby-yelling 'opeyyyy opeyyyy' and if you got him mad enough, he would emphasis on his desire to get the door open and squeal 'opiyaaaa opiyaaaa'.

It is nothing short of a wonder that while I fully understand what Sid baby-talks, I have to look to my brother and SIL to decode everything my little nephew says. Despite the magnitude of the population speaking it, it is a shame that baby-ese (as I would like to term it) is not yet a globally recognised and understood language. It does not have a grammar or vocabulary of its own. No SI units. No ISO standards. Each toddler makes up a language as he/she darn right pleases. How convenient. For them.

A deft communicator that Sid was, (and is) from an early age, he learnt to get things done his way with his vocabulary constituted of barely half a dozen words. His most favourite word, as I recall, was 'opey'. He got us to understand he wanted to go for a walk - all he did was bang his tiny fists on the front door and cry 'opeyyyyy opeyyyy'; if he got thirsty, he would simply pick up a water bottle, toss it across the floor and 'opeyyyy opeyyyy’; and when hungry, the refrigerator door would be yanked off its hinges with a bawl of ‘opeyyy opeyyy’. You get the idea - effective communicator.

One of my favorites was when my mom taught him to tell ‘aamaam aamaam' in response to any question he was asked. It was the most adorable thing watching him respond to a question with 'aamaam aamaam' in baby-talk. His whole tiny body would be speaking the word alongside his tiny mouth. His little head nodding, his knees springing concurring with his each nod, his eyes open wide enough to cover his face.

Sid’s vocabulary grew expeditiously. For example, by when he was 13 months old, Sid could identify at least 5 vehicles. Though his bus and bike were both 'bae’ and his lorry was 'noyee', he got ‘car’ and ‘auto’ right. And to this day, I cannot remember when his 'noyee' became 'lorry' or his 'bae’, 'bus'. (That he can now identify about fifteen types of vehicles is the one of his latest shticks up his sleeve).

Sid has this really disquieting habit of eating anything in his vicinity. Doesn't matter how small it is, or big. He sometimes even flaunts his half chewed content to me and says ‘ennamo’ (meaning 'something’), leaving me running behind him in horror trying to pull the whatever off his mouth, jamming my finger into his mouth, getting bitten royally while magnificently failing to prevent him from swallowing a significant chunk of the ‘ennamo’. So me, in all my likely brilliant farsightedness, taught him to drop anything that is in his hand if I told 'Dhoppu podu' (translates to drop it *dhop*). The idea was to utter the magic word before he tossed his floor-pick into his mouth. He caught up with this pronto. In fact he went a step ahead and started saying 'Dhoppu podu’ on my behalf and started flinging things around. So now I have two things to worry about when he picks something off of the floor or a shelf. The contents of the lower shelves have now been hastily shifted to those that he can't reach. As for the floor, I wish I could do the same without us falling through.

Over time Sid has refined his pronunciation – close to perfection in some cases. What was once ’whee whee’ – his all-time fancy – is now ‘wheels on bus’. ‘Shomae’ has become ‘snowman’. ‘Thoothaaa’ to thootham, ‘miyam’ to Milan, and ‘shenjin’ to ‘fire engine’ are some of the evident changes of a whole lot.
It's been a while since he started using two words at a time; Amma phone, Tata polaam, thootham venum, thoongi venum – many more. He has also stated asking decipherable questions – ‘paati enga?', 'enna saththam?', 'enna aachu?' and the sort.

Of late he has been surprising us by singing some random nursery rhyme. I still remember how one day, out of the blue, he started singing 'Nonny, nonny, yes papa!'. Twinkle Twinkle, Baa baa Black sheep, ABCD are some of the other rhymes he can sing these days. Although, I am starting to think only my husband, and I can actually make out his singing. But who cares?! My baby is a talker, and how!

“குழல்இனிது யாழ்இனிது என்பதம் மக்கள் மழலைச்சொல் கேளா தவர்”. For those of you who can't read/understand Tamil, the above quote is an excerpt from Tirukkural and translates roughly to 'he who has not heard his child’s baby-talk shall claim that the sweetest sound is that of a flute or a harp. And there is nothing more relevant for me at the moment.

Sid just fell asleep, as did my legs. I better go. Good night y'all.

Things to do when you have a Heartburn in the dead of the night

This piece of writing will predominantly be helpful if you satisfy one or more of the following criteria:

1.       You are a girl.

2.       You are a pregnant girl.

3.       You are a pregnant girl in her last trimester.

4.       You are a pregnant girl in her last trimester with indigestion and acidity issues.

5.     You are a pregnant girl in her last trimester with indigestion and acidity issues who wants to make most of the pregnancy woes.

With the prerequisites in place for this think piece to be of any notable use to you, let us ponder on this disquieting malady and the ways of dealing with it. 

Pregnancy, ah! The miracle of genesis, life, birth, nausea, backaches, sleep deprivation, abdominal swelling of unnerving proportions, eternal hunger and nonstop pregnancy harangues from every mummy, aunty and granny you bump into.. 

Now then, when the design and specifications of human reproduction and conception were being schemed carefully, God deeply reflected upon the values of life, space-time continuum, the volume of cosmic dust, the fundamental role of a mosquito in the expanding universe and various other eminent affairs of prodigious order (because He is the God, duh!) and then thought to himself, “Embodiment of indigestion and heartburn into the data package must make for a holistic concoction of all the pains in the rear end. And, mwahahahaha”. From then on, these two afflictions have been prime co-conspirators in disrupting the already-scanty sleep of a pregnant girl in her last trimester. 

An online search for relief from heartburn offers numerous futile remedies that are known to be effective to degrees ‘diddly-squat’. Hence, I am going to list down the more pragmatic things to do when the demon strikes.

1.   Wake up with a start as soon as you feel that corrosive liquid itching its way up your oesophagus. Look at the time and cringe. 

2.       Suppress the nasty wet burps. On second thought, let it out rather noisily.

3.       Look around to see if your husband has woken up to your noise. 

4.       Fake a hiccup. Fake a noisy hiccup. 

5.      If (husband==asleep), repeat actions 2 and 4. 

6.    If step 5 is ineffective, open the water bottle and drink a couple of indecently loud gulps of water. You could accidentally hit the bottle on your bed stead on purpose when you put it back in its place.

7.   If there is still that obstinate snore rumbling, it is time to give up on your innocuous attempts at waking up your husband. 

8.      Very loudly, get off the bed and walk out of your bedroom. 

9.      Sit on your couch and sulk a bit. 

10.   By now, it is already time for the acid to make its second ascend up your throat. 

11.  Rush to the kitchen and gulp down some cold milk. It helps – for about 2 mins. 

12. Noisily straggle through the contents of your refrigerator till you reach a pack of biscuits. Even if you know the exact location of the pack, move around and shuffle the stuff inside the fridge a bit. If you have not woken up your mom yet, the next morning she will notice the holy mess on account of your mid-night snack-attack and fuss over you and pamper you a little more acknowledging your lack of sleep. 

13.   Unhappily, groggily munch on a couple of those biscuits and go back to the couch. 

14.   Suddenly think of a wise-ass quirky status for your Whatsapp and update it.

15.   Ponder over if the status is good enough for the bigger social networks. 

16.   Reluctantly decide to browse through Reddit. End up looking for the r/Funny subreddit and fortuitously spending over half hour dry-retch laughing at the ever-so-funny images. 

17.   Get the shock of a lifetime and have your heart skip a beat when you hear your parents’ bedroom open. 

18.   Throw dismayed looks at your mom who walks in on you laughing at your monitor, sitting all alone in the dark, in the dead of the night.

19.  Listen to her rants about how you are going to go unquestionably, unconditionally, positively blind if you keep doing what you were doing in step 16. Half dazedly squint as your mom turns on the light. 

20.   Simper a bit. 

21.   Sheepishly inform her you were unable to sleep, thanks to your acidity and heartburn. You could also think of replacing your abashed looks with those of a puppy dog – whichever works best with your mom.  

22.   Listen to her nocturnal diatribe as to why you should rather be sitting on the floor, in your pooja room, meditating and praying for better health for you and your baby and how it will inadvertently relax you enough to get you sleepy again. 

23.  Wait for your mom to take a pause and most respectfully, fake-yawn. Announce you are finally sleepy.

24.  Hug your mom (you will need to. You cannot afford to walk out on her now and not expect to wake up to grim consequences the next morning.)

25.   Take another gulp of cold milk and head straight to your bedroom with an apologetic look.

26.   Be greeted by your husband’s loud snores.

27.   Sulk more on your bed till your heartburn subsides.

28.   Get back to sleep.

Following this religiously might help alleviate the distress your sleeplessness shall cause. 

But be warned. Your mom walking in on you doing the same thing unceasingly every other night, despite her relentless insistence on the need for your spiritual inclination might not go down merrily. You might have to think of varying your routine a bit so as to not get caught doing the same step every night. If for instance, your mom walks in on you noisily shuffling through the fridge, she might offer to make you a nice bread toast. You will have at least 3 months of this misery to put up with – enough time to figure out more fun stuff to do. Afterall, Reddit is not the only heartburn-haven. 

Enjoy every phase of the pregnancy – people say. If only they could also offer a  canny and reasonable piece of advice of how exactly one could do it! But, it definitely is fun feeling the squirms and wriggles inside your tummy knowing that there is a little you, waiting to impound on anything that could remotely be termed your life, your privacy and your routine for an eternity. 
Can't wait to hold you in my arms and adore your little yawns and hiccups. Love you, my baby!

Happy 2016! :)

Less than 24 hours, and we are headed into a whole new year!

For some, 2015 was the best of the years and for some, not so much.

There were some rewards, some rebukes and some near-faints after one too many pints.

There were some tears of joy that kindled your zest, and some tears that rolled because of the dust – oh, the pollution!

Still and all, let’s march on to 2016 – a year, we hope, that shall come with all the fun and sun and love and blossom and a whole new life that we know will be awesome!

Happy 2016 Everyone!

P.S: Phew! Woke up from my comatose slumber just in time for at least one post, this year. Hoping to be less dormant in 2016. Take care y'all!