Bolty

                               

Today I said goodbye to my dog, Bolt who we fondly called Bolty. We had to give him away to another family. He spent just four short years with us, but what eventful four years they were.

I still remember the day he came into our lives. He was just a few months old I think, bit large for his age. He scampered about the place sniffing new smells and licking new hands. The kids went nuts over his beautiful black and white fur. I admit, I was a bit weary of touching him. 

I'd always loved the idea of having a dog, but when it happen for real, I was a bit scared. I'd stood at the doorway and extended my arms as far as it could and stroked his back with a finger. And he responded by wagging his tail. Its one of the nicest feelings, a dog wagging his tail because of you.

Slowly, I got over my fear and soon I was spending every waking hour with him. Brushing his hair, using his special powder on him. One time I even put a bit of my dad's lavender talc powder on him.I loved his big soulful beautiful eyes, the colour of honey. The way he would just stare right back at you when you spoke to him, which I did a lot. 

My nephew decided to name him Bolt because he was in that phase where he'd binge watch the cartoon Bolt sixteen billion times a day. So, Bolt it was. Except, it was only later that we realised that Bolty wasn't a "he". Bolt was actually a female dog. But I'd gotten used to call her a "boy" that I refused to acknowledge the sex change. I hope he didn't end up having gender-issues. 

Bolty grew to love us and soon began bringing us his little "presents". Many a time, we opened the front door in the morning and was greeted by the sight of a dead crow or rat at our doorstep. He managed to get pretty much all our chickens too, much to my mom's dismay. But Bolty did manage to prove his strengths soon enough. 

One of the times that I was most proud of him was when he spotted a cobra and barked madly right at its face, preventing it from coming any closer towards our house. I'd never seen him so brave and ferocious before. His nose could've almost touched the snake. After a while, he stopped and sat right there, his eyes on the snake, growling everytime it hissed back at him. I don't know how long he sat there like that, but we knew this dog knew what he was doing. 

Then one morning, there was no Bolty at our doorstep. My dad hunted all over the place for him. We could hear him howling but couldn't figure out where he was. Turns out he had jumped into the well. And had been swimming around trying to keep himself afloat for hours. It took a few hours and lot of effort, but we found a guy who could go down the well and rescue Bolty. 

A group of men lowered this guy into the well using a rope and he was trying to jostle Bolty into a huge basket. I remember watching with bated breath and calling out the frightened dog's to reassure him that he'd soon be safe. He got into the basket once but scampered so hard that he fell into the water again. After a bit of a struggle, the dog was back in the basket and the men were pulling him up. I remember wrapping my arms around him the minute his feet hit the ground. He was shivering and could hardly walk straight. After trying to dry him as much as I could, I slowly led to a spot with good sunlight and let him dry off. 

The rest of the day, we lavished him with eggs and milk and all sorts of goodies, while drying him off with my sister's hairdryer. It took many days to recover from the shock of it all, but soon he was back to running around like crazy and trying to knock me off my feet by jumping onto me. I love that he still remembered.

Pretty soon, Bolty had grown up and had a lot male friends visiting at night. My dad was not pleased, so he'd lock the gates and drive away any stray dog that dared to enter. This one dog would stand at the gate and howl away. It was utterly romantic. And I'm pretty sure that that Romeo had something to do with the litter of puppies Bolty gave birth to a few months later. 

I remember waking up one morning and hearing the news. Bolty was lying in a cozy spot with her tiny little puppies scattered all around her, some on top of each other. I had never seen such tiny puppies up close. Nine of them. Bolty looked tired as ever.

There was a look in her eyes, that seemed to say "Please get me the hell out of here." I didn't understand then, why she looked like that, but now as a mother of a child, I totally get it. One human baby suckling away all night and day is Nothing compared to Nine puppies fighting and struggling and crying all together to get their share of their mom's milk. Poor Bolty. She would take any opportunity to leave her kids alone and just laze around for a bit. 

After this my life got into a bit of a whirlwind. Between marriage and moving and pregnancy, I did not really get to spend a lot of time with Bolty. But everytime, I come back home, he'd recognize me and jump around me like crazy. 

Towards the end, the time I got to spend with him reduced even more, having a baby to care for. Bolty too produced a new batch of puppies. And this time, having gone through the experience myself, I was in total awe of him. 

So today morning, when my mom told me that his new owners arrived and took him away, I couldn't believe I didn't get to say goodbye. My dad then told me that they are still waiting for their car at the gate, I dropped everything, took hold of my baby and ran to the gate. And he was there on leash, with a stranger, looking confused and scared. 

I caressed his head and scratched his ear and rubbed his chin over and over as though trying to make up for the time I'd neglected him. I held onto his face and looked into his eyes and said a silent goodbye as tears started pooling in my eyes. I gave him a final pat on his back and walked away because I couldn't watch him getting into the car and being driven away. I couldn't stop my tears as I walked back into the house. My baby looked at my face curiously. And just like that, Bolty was gone.

The night feels silent now. On most nights, after his random rounds and digging, Bolty used to come and settle down right outside my bedroom window. Some days he'd make an awful racket and I'd get mad at him, but I was still relieved he was there. I had felt safe. And in spite of all the times I'd been too busy to make time for him and been a lousy friend, he still sat there... for me, protecting me. I so love that about him.

I hope his new owners treat him well. And I hope he is happy there. I wonder if he'll miss us. I miss him already.  We'll probably never have a dog again, but then I don't think he can be replaced. I hope someday that my child will get to experience all this with a dog of her own. A dog as wonderful and loyal as my Bolty. 

Thank you, Bolty, for letting me experience unconditional love. For making me feel safe and for being my friend. 

Guess Where I Found Zen?



"Everyone needs to find their Zen. What do I mean by that? Zen means peace, meditation, calmness. We are conditioned to stressing and forboding and worrying, it's human nature. It's difficult for us as humans, to focus on the moment and find peace or even want it, but we do however, need peace in our lives."

Everyone has their own ways to zen.

Ross to Phoebe :

No, no don't!
 Stop cleansing my aura!
No, just leave my aura alone, okay

Of cleansing their auras. I love how Phoebe from F*R*I*E*N*D*S does it by.. well.. literally plucking out the yuckies from your aura. But for the saner lot, it's mostly yoga or music or a walk or whatever. I’ve always wondered what my aura-cleansing technique is. Well not just an aura cleanser.. but also a stress-busting, depression-dissolving, life-mending technique.

I used to sing to ease my worries. No, not just randomly sing.. I would take the pains to listen to a song and write down the lyrics.. even though I could just get it off the Internet. I like to write it down myself cos a) this usually happens in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep and I’m too lazy to turn on the computer again and b) when you write down the lyrics, you can write them down exactly how you hear it if you don’t understand what the actual words are. I don't know how thats better. But it is.

Like the song Survivor by Destiny’s Child. I swear, it goes “I’m a survivor, I’m not go-giver, I’m a bus driver, Imma work harder!”, which sounds all wrong and probably is wrong but it cracks me up so I never really tried to find out the real lyrics.

Anyway, singing usually used to work for me until my nose kept getting blocked all the time and I literally lose my breath after half the song and also its no fun when you have to sing it like “Ibha surbhiber, Ibha bhus drivher”.. It doesn’t really make you feel like a survivor.. or a bus driver for that matter.

So after that, I couldn’t figure out what to do to get rid of all those bad/sad feelings.Until I tried gardening.

It was awesome. Everytime you bring that shovel down on the hard ground, you feel like your cracking through the brains of all your murky problems in life. And when I come across a worm- forgive me all animal right-ist and worm lovers – but I squish it. And I feel better. So there I was, digging and squishing, digging and digging more than I needed to dig. With more aggression that I’ve ever felt in my life. Once I was done, I was proud of myself and resolved that this was going to be my solution to dark days forever. I'd found my zen in the mud and dirt. Everything was great until the next morning when I woke up and found that my arms had temporarily stopped function. Well okay, that’s an over-exaggeration. They did function. Except every time they tried to function, it felt like everyone of those tiny worms I squished the day before had cloned themselves to infinity and had magically made their way inside my body to bite into each inch of the little muscle that I had somewhere between all those bones. Apparently worms have got someone looking out for them too.

I had to figure out another way to unwind before I drove myself insane. I thought of yoga which seemed like the obvious way to go. But I didn’t wanna cause further damage than I had already caused. Everytime I tried yoga in the past, I’d require atleast two days of bed rest atleast until I figure out that I’m bending or twisting in the wrong direction.

That is when I came across this awesome cooking blog. I’m not gonna give you the link b'cos I found it and its mine. And you can’t have it...... It’s mine.

I’m very possessive about my blog finds. I “found” the 1000awesomethings blog and a month later, there was an article about it in the Reader’s Digest. Sure, the blog had atleast a bazillion visitors already… but I found it. :-/

So anyway, the cooking blog.. the secret cooking blog was amazing. I started to make something everyday. And wonder of wonders, everything was.. well.. sorta edible. Well ok, it wasn’t repulsive either! I mean, I was actually good at it and got better everyday. Every afternoon, I’d browse the blog and figure out what I want to make, jot down the recipe and get crackin’. It was awesome, apart from an occasional hard-as-coconut-shells biscuits, everything else was scrummilicious. I was in bliss. It went on great until one day I had my heart set on making Banana bread. I don’t even like bananas, but it just seemed like a cool thing to make! And it was simple as hell too! I went to the store and got extra butter and eggs and everything and was all excited to make it. So in the afternoon, I go to the kitchen to make my much-awaited Banana bread. I lay out all my ingredients until I notice one tiny little thing was missing. We were out of bananas.

I swear, it was like my world was falling apart! I just had to had to make it that day itself! I mean, how can we not have bananas!? We always have bananas! My house literally grew on banana trees! I have never been that terribly upset. I was literally in tears. It was like I just missed out on winning the Nobel Prize. After spending hours, mourning on my bed, I considered trying to make something else. But figured, what’s the point? When you’re looking for lemonade, life just hands you one rotten lemon after another(we were out of lemons too :-( )

I listened to sad songs, sat around in the dark and cried my eyes out. After a while, I wasn’t sure if it was about the bananas (or the lemon) anymore. With the little light coming in through the window and tears flowing down my cheeks, somehow it crossed my mind that this would make a great photograph. All artsy and stuff. Still sniffing and sobbing, but without hesitation, I picked up my phone and clicked a picture of myself... only to find that I looked positively ghastly. It made me cry even more and curse stupid actors in movies who look positively angelic while they cry. Bloody nonsense. Oh, why.. why is everything in my life going so wrong! Where the hell is my goddamn zen! Self pity, self pity and more self-pity. Ugh.

Anyhow, crying always makes me want to pee. I don’t know what the connection is. You’re losing liquid…and somehow that makes you want to lose more liquid. Anyway, I stepped into the bathroom. The bathroom was really dirty from all the mud from the garden and just murk in general. I gestured to the empty room and said to myself “This…this is my life….A big disgusting mess...” Silence.

Without a moment’s thought, I grabbed a sponge and some floor cleaner. Down on all fours, I started scrubbing. After I was done, I looked down and still wasn’t satisfied. So I grabbed hold of every single bathroom-cleaning equipment lying around including an old toothbrush of mine and did it again. This time I gave it my all, which means between the tiles and near the clogged drain. By the time I was on the last tile, I was surprised when I realised that I was actually grinning. I’ve cleaned up the “big disgusting mess”. Ok fine so maybe my life hadn't magically cleaned itself up too. But I realized that if I could clean up this great big mess, well, then no mess is too big for me!

No mess is too big for me.  That's my current aura-cleaning methodology now. I'm on my way to Zen. And to think.. of all the places, I looked.. I found mine in the bathroom. :-)

Interviewobia!

                               Ever wonder what Hell is gonna be like? I personally think Hell is gonna be different for different people. For me its gonna be this room with a chair in it and and a big scary man waiting, armed with an endless list of questions for an interview that lasts for an eternity. As in job-interview.. not celebrity interview(well not yet atleast). And you know wat? Those interviewers could be in their version of Hell as well...Cos trust me... If you're ever given the opportunity to interview me... turn around and run for your life. Its gonna hurt you more than its gonna hurt me.. Hurt or rather make you wanna kill yourself.

When I begin an interview, its almost like my brains stop functioning and the only words in my vocabulary are "ummm" and "what?".I suck so bad that I might as well  go dye my hair blond and get a boob-job done. (I've nothing against that sections of people in the society personally. I've never even met one actually. I'm just quoting somebody.)
I've always been supremely bad at anything that involved questions and answers being spoken aloud. I tell people "I knew the answer to that but I just got so nervous and I forgot it." Thats not really true. Yes, I get nervous but most of the time I have nooo clue what the answer is either. I mean, I prepare so hard most of the time and work out specific answers. Like if I've memorized A,B,C and the interviewer goes "Sooooo, what comes after B?", I would toootally freak out and sing him the ummm song. I sometimes wish I could just say "I dunno".. but someone once told me never admit to not knowing anythin during an interview. Which is a pity cos that would've been my reply to pretty much aall the questions - Why do you want to work in advertising? I dunno. What sort of a renumeration do you expect?  I dunno. Do you prefer design or copy? I dunno. Cos seriously and honestly I don't know! They should have something like an open test where they ask the questions and then give you like a week or a month to come up with the answers. I could've googled aall the questions then and come up with wonderful answers. Sometimes life feels so meaningless and empty without Google.
I always flunked vivas in college. I got a zero for a Hindi spoken test once and I thought it was hilarious at that point. But its kinda pathetic now when you think of it. And one time this viva lady inturrupted me while I was giving her an answer to her question and said -"My dear child, you're not making mistakes.. you're making blunders!" And I just gave her a beeg toothy smile, cos I had noo idea what she meant, just like I had noo idea what her question was and no idea what on earth I was goin on about. I mean, wasn't blunders and mistakes the same? Huh?
The reason I was unemployed for sooo long was whenever I applied some place and they called back to set a date for an interview and I chickened out and ran for cover. I can't help it! Its a disease!! Or is it? Ok, Google break!

Ok so maybe there is'nt exactly an interview phobia but maybe its somthing like a cross between Phronemophia (Fear of Thinking) and Ophthalmophobia (Fear of being Stared at) and Lalophobia (Fear of Speaking). So my point being, its really not something I can help.
            I figured maybe if I were to do a phone interview, I would fare much better since I wouldn't have to see the big scary question man. So I went through a phone interview recently and sadly enough it wasnt any better... if not worse.
 I messed up right from the beginning.
He goes - Hello.
I go Hello.
He- I'm so n so calling from so n so company for that interview we scheduled this morning.
Me- Oh.. Helloooow (The hello normal people usually reserve for pretty lil girls or babies)
Ugh.
The guy was totally sweet. He probably actually figured I've been transplanted with a 6 year old's brain so he spoke to me appropriately. I applaud his patience. I mean I concluded by the end of the conversation that this was a man with a wife and young children cos there is noo way he could've put up with thaaat much bullshit for thaat long. He kept asking me stuff like he aaactually expected me to know the answer. I mean they were simple questions. And I would've been able to have given him essay answers to them had he given me say coupla hours or days to think about it. Poor guy wanted me to answer em soo bad. At one point it went like this.. This is the hypothetically version k. Say he had asked me somthing like "Ok what is green-eyed and goes meow?"
I went like ummmm...ummmmm..ummm for a good 5 minutes. And then finally went kaa...
He was like yeaaaah...yeaaahh?
Me - Kaaa...umm..
Him - Kaaaa...?What comes after kaaa... Come on now, you can do it.
Me - Ummm...
Him- Do you want to think about it for a while?
Me- Yes!
Him - Ok, tell me when you want me to prompt you.
Me - Okay......Hmmmm.........(silence)........ummmm....(silence)......well......(silence)......
Him - Do you want me to prompt you now? (Its almost like he's begging me to put him outta his misery)
Me - Umm.. okay.

Him - The first part is correct. Its also has a tail and rhymes with Mat!

Me - Ummmmmmmmmmmmm....... Kaa...at?

Him- YESSSS! (trust me, he wouldn't know such joy even as his son graduates from college)

But he's a daredevil this guy. He actually goes and asks me a 2nd question. I almost felt sorry for him.
So this is to all the interviewers I've encountered at some stage of my life... on behalf of the bright-eyed unspeakably dumb female who sat in front of you and made you Hate your job, I'm sorry. But it really is a disease!

Job vs Marriage vs Ostrich Theory

You know, I just realised a lil earlier today that I'm turning 24 this year. 24! Thats like well a grown-up's age. I remember being a kid and having uncles who are 24. Shucks! I'm an uncle! Well, no an aunt technically. Actually no I became an aunt when i was...ok even before i was born. My cousins got kids older than me. Ok but why am I explaining this? What was I saying? Oh yeah, I'm like all old now! If u go back a few posts in my blog u'll see one bout why being 21 sucks. Now this is like 3 years later. And I actually had to count from 21 to 24 to see how many years. Ugh, old age sucks!

So this is probably the age around when most of my uncles n aunts got jobs and stuff. And I'm supposed to go out and get meself one of those things. A job. Me. Working.

Its not like I've never thought of it. I've thought of it a lot. I've always seen myself as this successful career woman who wears her hair in a bun (straighten hair) and wears grey suits and pencil skirts and stockings and heels, swinging a briefcase. Oooh and square glasses. And a cappachino in hand. Okay, so maybe I just had the outfit all planned out, not my life.

And I had this vision where I would drive up into my old school/college in my Audi, and all the other girls who were mean to me or smarter than me or prettier than me or just plain made my life miserable back then would be fat housewives with screaming brats (no offence to housewives here).

But you know what? I don't think thats happening. Cos I'm probably gonna get into being a fat housewife even before I get a job. Ha!

Yeah,my great big career-woman dreams down the drain. But you know what? The big working life sounds awesome but scares me shitless. I mean, Working...is so much different from Studying. You can always scrape thru somehow in the end in case of education. You kinda know what your getting into. Cos you've been doing just that for so many years. But work. I know nothing bout it! And I have to do it alone! No mommy and daddy to pull you outta crap. No friends to shoulder the blame or let you sneak a peek at their answers.

A coupla months ago, I thought I wanted to get married. I was like Hey! That sounds like fun! Maybe I should give that a shot!

But that was before, I started THINKING straight. And now everyone is all worked up about it and I'm like What Have I Started! I'm not ready to get married!! I mite be 24 but my mind is stuck at 4! Marriage is scarier than work! Its permanent! And you can always quit a job. But marriage..yeah well i guess you could technically quit..but not in my family..any talk of quitting, they send you for counselling.

So I've been walking around like a wet dog a lot recently and people have been asking me why. So now you know. I hate this point I'm at right now. I would give anything to go back just a coupla years and when it comes back to this point again, rewind again (No not back to high school. I can't put myself thru that torture again.Yeesh!)

So maybe I hate change. Maybe I can't adapt to it. Maybe I can't take risks. Atleast on my own. Maybe I should do what the ostriches do. The Ostrich Theory. Stick my head in a hole on the ground until danger passes. Right, so if anybody needs me for anything, you know where I'll be. Waiting, with my head in the mud, for my life to make sense again.

p.s- when I tried to type "job" as a tag for this post, it sorta automatically clicked into "jobless" from a previous post. I tried to turn it into "job" a coupla times but then I realised..uh hello, the damn thing is right. I'm not job...I'm jobLess! Face it! The computer knows better!