Canine Lovers

Posted by Flyaway Mind comments (7)

These days I find myself surrounded by dog lovers. Lotsa friends are screaming the war-cry PFA (People for Animals).Not that I have anything against them. But curiously, I had a history of ‘dog phobia’ as a kid.



 I must have been six or seven years old then. I remember that day when the twin chechis in my neighbourhood house came to pick me up, to play at their home. Those days, there were three ferocious looking Alsatian dogs in their house, which as far as I can remember always used to remain caged… The moment I entered the gate , one massive dog came pouncing upon me. I froze for few seconds…. Then my childish instincts told me “run”. And run I did, for my dear life. Soon the second dog also followed the wild chase. I was screaming and running … I remember vividly that I ran & almost reached their backyard. From the opposite end I could see the third dog closing in on me. Amidst all the pandemonium , I fell down ….I scraped my arms and knees.. The rest of the story I can’t remember. I remember only a tiger-look-alike-dog’s tongue wagging close to my face.. Thankfully, uncle (the twin’s father)came as my rescue ranger and somehow managed to control those terrible beasts…

Later, for months I used to have night mares about large dogs chasing me & tearing me apart. I used to wake up in the middle of the night all scared. I even used to be afraid to go to school , since on the way to bus stop there were many street dogs…I developed a perennial fear of dogs. Later I started to make a conscious effort to get rid of the phobia.. Gradually as I grew up, the fear faded away.. I am in perfect harmony with street dogs now. As for the pet ones, I like to admire them preferably from a distance and might even venture to stroke their silky smooth hair. But the moment they try to be friendly , climb all over me and decide to give me a face wash with their loving tongue, I will die of heart attack!!!!

There is this colleague of mine with whom I was discussing about my weekend trip to home..
He: I wish my home was close by..
Me: missing mummy..huh?
He: hmm..I miss my baby!!!
Me: eh? oh..i didn’t knew you were married **evil grin**
He: my baby is my Labrador Leo… He even sleeps with me on my bed…
Me: I see.. So the baby is your cute little puppy
He: hmm...my baby is just 12 yrs old
Me: duh!!!

I have this buddy of mine who is into the business of exporting injured little street puppies from Bangalore to Kerala..hehee.. The brave heroine once rescued a hairless, half-eared little puppy from the streets of Bangalore . She christened him as Chesko & they were happily living together ever after until that fatal day when her evil landlady found him out & screamed, “Either you are out or that hairless creature!!!” .So after much thought, a clever plan was devised to smuggle Chesko from Bangalore to her home in Cochin. Chesko was sedated with a pack of sleeping pills. Then he was carefully packed up in a box with lotsa holes to breathe in ..Thus the heroine boarded the bus “Kallada Travels” to Kerala. Everything went on peacefully till midnight until Chesko woke up & decided he had enough of the caged life. He started whining & fidgeting around… The heroine thought Chesko was suffocating & opened the cover a wee bit so that Chesko can breathe better.. And out jumped smart Chesko!!! Happy at the new found freedom, he gave loud barks & started running in between the seats. Imagine the surprise on fellow passengers’s face …And the funny story ended with the heroine having to pay fine to “kallada travels” for illegally smuggling dogs to Kerala & spoiling their carpet by having the dog pee on it!!!! :)

And there is this bloggie dude who is clicking away to glory his doggie Sparky's pics.I saw a heap of them in his flicker album...


I was feeling very blue at office yesterday. It usually happens when I don’t have much work to do & I feel dumb. And one interesting thing I have noticed is that I enjoy chatting , orkutting & blogging only when I have lots of work to do. So while I am banging my head on some deadlines, I will sneak out in between, to scrap a buddy or chat with a long-time-no-see friend or indulge in bloghopping. Otherwise I don’t even feel like effectively utilizing my free time for such ‘productive’ work... Sigh!!!

By evening I was feeling so mad that I jumped out early from office & decided to make my otherwise boring life colourful. So I went for a bit of shopping and later proceeded to have a haircut which was absolutely not necessary. I must say shopping is a wonderful form of art that cheers me up from my deep blues..heehee.. I know gals are gonna support me in this hands down. And of late, I got to do lots of ‘Onam shopping’ for the whole family!!!

By the time I reached back home, it was around 8 pm..My roomie was not back yet.And I hate being the home-alone heroine when I’m not in my moods. So I went and washed all my dirty clothes accumulated, multiplied & exponentiated over a week’s time :) And , washing dirty clothes give me some sort of mental satisfaction that I did something productive & fruitful. Now whenever I tell this, my well-wisher friends have always cheerfully offered to outsource their laundry stuff to me…No, I am not taking any of your chweet offers.

I finished all these hard work, but still my roomie was not back.. So I went out for a relaxing night walk in the park, listening to the soothing music on Fever-104. And for the zillionth time , the music playing is “cash meri aankhon mein..” I want to bang my head on the wall if I hear this stupid song one more time.. Later something caught my interest. The chatterbox RJ is talking crap on some topic called “Midweek crisis”

Hurray!!! Now I know what is actually the root cause behind my blue feelings. heeheee..Yesterday was afterall wednesday. On a more serious note, there seems to so many complex terminologies these days for simple crisis that we go through in our everyday life.. Mid-life crisis, mid week-crisis, insomnia, PMS, exam blues, anxiety disorder & what not. All these seems to be a part of our everyday vocabulary…You are welcome to add to this terminology-list & on your own ways of effective midweek crisis management :)

In a place far away from the maddening crowd, set in the tranquil interiors of a quaint little village in Kolar district, enclosed with hills on all sides and dotted with green fields of corn & vegetables.. This is the place where we packed off for an outward bound training program from office. There were no proper roads connecting this place & during the last half an hour of the bumpy, jerky journey , we didn't even come across a single bmtc bus. Muddy tracks led us to the camp where we stayed, in the tents..it seemed to be so far away from civilization...

It was a unique experience living in the tent & having campfire dinner every night. In the nights, we had friendly visitors inside our tent in the forms of beetles & centipedes, who found their way inside our cozy blankets for a nap.. Once in the middle of night, it rained very heavily & our tent got almost flooded.Well, but as usual nothing could hinder my beauty sleep.

In the evenings after the training, we were free birds. And the team was out in fields playing football, cricket & volley ball. I tried my hands at playing cricket. The word 'tried playing' will be an understatement, considering the way I excelled. Because the only time my bat hit the ball, it went for a direct catch :( I guess, it's time to start our all girls team :D One evening, a few of us enthusiasts, decided to explore the wild country side. We trekked to a nearby hill. While trekking up, at a high altitude, we were taken up by surprise when we hit upon a plain, which was segmented into cultivated vegetable fields . Yes, a farm right in the middle of the hill, in the middle of nowhere. I guess it is the concept of 'step-farming'. And when we hit the top, the sun had almost set at the horizon.The panoramic view of the fields & hills was breathtaking in the mellowing evening light. Next day,we went for yet another expedition. We conquered another adjacent hill & hoisted our flag there (ok..not flag, but our office logoed cap propped up on a stick).

And the best part of camping was saved up for the last. It was rafting. We had to build our own rafts using bamboo poles, ropes & lifebuoys. Yes, and we built our dilapidated looking Noah's Ark , by tying the bamboo poles together using figure-of-eight-knot & appropriately fitting the lifebuoys to keep the raft afloat. Phew.. So I mastered the art of tying the figure-of-eight-knot so well that, now I can even tie a ferocious bull safely to the pole. So here is our hard work...














And what to say, we rafted in the lake in our Titanic.. No..It was not a tragic Titanic!!!! We the proud sailors rowed hard to reach our destination at the other end of the lake. And in the middle of the lake, the sailors momentarily lost their sense of direction, abandoned their oars & started splashing the muddy water on each other. Thankfully, we had life jackets on & hence I am still alive to write this crap post.











With this ended our three days of frolic & adventure....

The Weirdo Tag

Posted by Flyaway Mind comments (10)

I was on hibernation for quite a while & hence guilty of abandoning my little bloggie.I was awakened from my sleepy mode by this IIMBian & told to write 8 weird / arbit things about myself. So here I bare my soul ….

1.) I have this weird habit of talking in my sleep sometimes .And there were times when I had screamed out in my dreams & hence scared the living daylights out of my poor roomies :)This was much prevalent during my college days. While, I used to sleep peacefully throughout these episodes, my roomies had tough time getting back their beauty sleep :D

During BTech, at hostel, my bed used to be right next to the windows. Once I dreamt about a hand extending through the open windows & trying to strangle me. I screamed out … A few weeks later, this incident actually took place in the adjacent room, where a guy actually put his hands through the window & tried to flick the purse..


2.) Though I love hearing music, I don’t have an ear for English music especially the heavy metal kind. With a roommate addicted to Vh1 channel, I don’t have much of a choice. I call some of those songs utter “NOISE POLLUTION” :) Music lovers, don’t throw stones at me!!!

3.) I have very good memory about people & incidents. Recently, I got introduced to a colleague from another branch of our office. I instantly recognized her as my classmate in 4th standard. She was there in my class only for 2 years. And she didn’t even remember having heard my name, let alone my face :(

4.) I hate hypocrisy. Am allergic & repellant to people whose words and actions don’t compliment each other. I understand that a little hypocrisy is necessary to survive in this world. But I have seen some extreme cases. I can’t stand these people…

5.) I derive sadistic pleasure out of killing mosquitoes with the mosquito bat. I like chasing them with the bat & watch them attain nirvana…

6.) I take some time to trust people. Trust is not something that blooms instantly for me. So I take time to make friends, but once friendship is formed, it’s there to stay. I have friends right from my kinder garden onwards, with whom I still maintain good contacts with.

7.) I am an “attention seeker”, as far as my mother is concerned. So when I have a cold & headache, I like to exaggerate it & inform my mother that I have fever :) After all, nobody dies from all the extra care, attention & love showered on them.. hehee..

8.) Last weird habit about me is “I-won’t-ever-acknowledge-I-am-weirdo” hahaa….


People tagged to write 8 weird things about themselves:
-The attention seeker
-Toothless wonder
-Aths
-Minu
-Pophabhi

It rained heavily in Bangalore on friday. We were having Ethnic Day celebrations at office terrace, when the menacing thunderous clouds rolled up and it began raining cats & dogs.Heavy pellets splashed on us from the tarpaulin sheet overhead. I was traveling home that night. And in Kerala the monsoon was setting in with all its ferocity .

My growing up years were closely associated with monsoon. It was the season I used to love as a kid, the season which used to irritate me when I grew up, the season that arouses waves of nostalgia when I think of it now. I used to hate it because, I could no longer go out anywhere and had to stay back at home. Hence my moods used to be as cloudy as the overcast monsoon sky. There was a persistent damp feeling everywhere & dresses took forever to dry up.

My home is on the banks of river Periyar and it's mesmerizing to watch the river when it is raining. The rain lashing on the gentle river and creating turbulent whirlpools is something I love watching .During my childhood, it was usual for Periyar to flood up during monsoon & threateningly encroach on it's banks. It was something much awaited by us, to play on the swollen river banks swarming with fish, crabs and an occasional water snake. And when the flood gates of Boothathankettu Dam were opened up due to overloading, the rain swollen river used to look menacingly beautiful.

Once when I was 7 years old, I went to play in the river accompanied by my mother. I started playing on the flooded stone steps leading to the river. As a child, I used to behave exactly opposite of what I was told to do .So when my mother shouted, 'Dont go further', I had this sudden inner urge to step forth. Involuntarily I took a few paces ahead . But there were no more steps... I fell into a deep gorge and was helplessly drowning in the river. My mother who never swam in her entire life time was forced to jump into the water and drag me out. Now the moment I was confirmed alive I got a good doze of scolding. Thus ended my trysts with the river. Never again during my childhood was I taken anywhere 1 km radius from the river. Even the mention of the word 'river' resulted in terrible outbursts in the form of scolding & threats!!! But then unknown to my family , I had eloped several times with my best friend to the river banks & plucked those tempting water lilies. That's entirely another story.

I remember the time when we went for Goa trip from college. That was one of our best tours. We stayed in a beautiful beach resort , which ensured that we spent a whole day on the sun-kissed sandy beaches of Goa. But the only kill-joy was our Sir who screamed at us, every time we attempted anything adventurous. So in the afternoon, we locked his door from outside when we went out :) We were frolicking in the sea, when out of blue, it started raining. It was not an ordinary drizzle; it was a heavy thunderous outpour.. And we delightfully stayed in the sea, while the heavens poured itself out. It was simply blissful...And the best part was, we were so far away from the shore, even crossing the danger zone, where a red pole was hoisted as warning.

These incidents surface my mind when I think about monsoon. Between, I am planning to buy the book 'Where the rain is born' compiled by Anitha Nair.It's a collection of stories about Kerala. The title of the book itself is too tempting for me...

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