Hop(p)ing Alive

Somethings in life always keeps hope alive. Dexter's love for life is one of them for me.

He is now 11 years old. Over the past 3 -4 years when Labradors his age started  hobnobbing with old age, Dexter still was in his best costume of health. But past 4 - 5 months Dexter was battling with arthritis and bladder problem.

Things which are part and parcel of old age started weighing my family down like any family which has a ageing member. 

But what keeps us going is Dexter does not believe he is unwell or aging. He still tries to run and catch the cat on his good days. He still wants to snatch the blanket from me when I am sleeping. 

Only our reactions now differ. Earlier his naughtiness would make us laugh earlier and now his naughtiness and lack of it brings in tears. 

Life is passing by, finding it difficult to catch up  and living the moment without touching pain is out of my grasp. 

So only thing one can do, make the hugs tighter, the kisses longer, the words sweeter, the touch, more gentle and hope more stronger. 

Letting go of my spark

My first car is a Chevrolet spark. I learned the nuances and not so nuances of driving in this car. If I had to describe it as a character I would say its Ramu Kaka, always silently listening to my or my brother's gestures, soft spoken ( I could never find a blaring horn which would fit it !), never complaining, low on maintenance - he wore the same seat covers for 7 years without wearing them off, always gleaming with the choukidar ka diya hua snaan of ganda pani ( Car wash given by our building watch man with unclean water). Always reliable and rarely wanting attention.

Yes my chevy baby is quintessential Ramu Kaka of Bollywood movies.


But past few months, Ramu Kaka has been giving trouble and now logic tells me to let go and my heart says how can I let go.

The joy of new car is somehow not making the sadness of letting go of an old friend bearable.


Wish done with the old and on with the new was my funda of life.

Well humans are really silly or is it me. Letting go makes us sad, new things makes us restless and yet the eternal truth of life is change.

So here I am with a little tear a big bag of fond memories of time spend together learning to let go of my spark

Living the life !

Dexter is going to be 10 years old this December. One after the other I am getting news of dogs had to be put to sleep due to some disease due to old age. 

Yes my heart bleeds each time I hear these news and Dexter is more smothered with sloppy hugs and kisses which he clearly does not relish.

My brother keeps telling me to always be happy with the fact that we have always ensured  that Dexter is cared and loved for. 

Each time I hear about a friend of parents die, I go through the same phase, minus the smothering with love for obvious reasons :).

Why is memory so short lived and long lived at the same time ? Paradox. We forget the joys of the moment when we worry about the unknown future and we forget about the wonderful moments we spent in past when we are upset with the same person at the moment !

Every Diwali I take care of Dexter as the cracker noise are very hurtful for him and our adoptive stray dog also comes over. 

But this Diwali we went to my house to first Diwali there :) It was so much fun with Dexter going nuts with so many new smells. 

Wishing a pollution free Diwali !

United by Emotions divided by Cricket

Off late I had started watching Zee TV's Zindagi channel and I was pleasantly surprised to see such good content, beautiful and meaningful dialogues, brilliant acting and beautiful actors - mainly the ladies.

Thanks to this channel I think I can relate to the erstwhile part of India. Hope  Indian channels learn that content is the king. Here (Zindagi) sensitive topics have been dealt so beautifully while never loosing touch with reality and same actors (female) have portrayed with equal oomph both positive and negative roles.

Am totally clean bowled by this Pakistani channel


But coming back to score of my pun .. Cricket its a different story.

India Vs Pakistan match is a Ocean of emotion of 164 Crore humans.

Even if you dont care about cricket, when its India Vs Pakistan, you are glued to the Idiot box. And if its India Vs Pakistan World Cup match, it cant get bigger than this ! No Indian or Pakistani can be not cheering and hooting.

Love the emotions, the drama, the Joy, the apprehension, the unity, the serene streets, the uproar, the cheer, the yummy food binge, the friendly banter, the cranky arguments, the silly bets, the extra extra special prayers, the big big bribing to different gods (am sure some of us have a god who listen's to our world cup requests !), the cheers, the laughter, the curses, the swear words evolved specially due to friends watching the match together, the post match victory party, the post match crying den, the lucky jersey, the unlucky whatever. God I could go on and on.

Basically when it comes to cricket, each and every time we defeat Pakistan in a cricket match, the joy is what brings a nation together. We forget diversity, our personal problems, our differences, our sorrows and rebel in the feeling of victory. The same goes to Pakistanis. But yes unfortunately we do hold the 6-0 score and am sure some day the jinx we so love will break and Pakistan will have a reason to celebrate during world cup against India. The joy of defeating Pakistan is much bigger than winning the world cup too for few. I am greedy. I want to defeat Pakistan and win world cup. Yes but if I had to choose I would have chosen WC. I in this case would not care about the battle, I want to win the war.

So I am all set for India Vs SA tomorrow but the joy of Pakistan loosing today is bringing a smirk on my face since morning. Pray it grows bigger tomorrow. :)

Unsung heroes

Cribbing seems to be my latest hobby. During my lunch break couple of days back a colleague and friend of mine narrated a story of house help.

The lady had three children and one of them had Thalassemia and required blood transfusion every month. Her husband on the birth of such a baby had told her to throw the child in the dumpster but she refused to budge to him and loved the child like the rest and worked extra hard to not only make ends meet but have enough to pay for the monthly blood transfusion.

So life was not easy at all for the lady but it got worse. She developed Tuberculosis and subsequently due to negligence lost her battle. The child with thalassemia too died due to negligence after that.

My friend does not know what happened to the family after the death of this lady.

I came home to my family, hugged my Ma a bit more tight, annoyed my Baba with a little extra dose of sarcasm, gave Dexter few extra minutes of ear rub and let me bhai bug me for a minute extra than his usual quota.

Lucky for me I am trying to see the brighter side of things but my heart did  shed a few tear for this spirit of this  mother, a fighter , a hero and the helplessness that engulfs us so many times.

So being a phoenix is not easy, being a phoenix is not about choice, being a phoenix is the way that you can only survive. Death may not be the end all, just a transition to a new journey and my optimistic soul says a happy journey it will be.

May your body rest in peace and your spirit rise high like a phoenix.

Agnels Batch of 93

Couple of month back(its couple already !) one night i see a very interesting update on Facebook Agnels batch of 93, some one had taken initiative to create a whatsapp group to enable all batch mates to interact with each other. 

I immediately got myself and friends whose number I had added to this group and was pleasantly surprised to see so many kids already enrolled. Only class I guess we enrolled with pleasure :)

It was like a cacophony initially, the famous ones, the infamous ones, the scholars, the last benchers, the invisible ones (Me tops that list), the Funny ones, the sarcastic ones, the ones with the worst luck, the romeos, the divas, the then zero now hero, the introverts, the chatter boxes, the sports champs, the singers, the dancers, the Netas, the abhinetas, the scapegoats, the real sports and the chidkus (not so sport) all together and it felt like school all over again. 

Interesting was to see some people changed so much and some were just the same, We are such a diverse group with many years of zero or minimal contact, vastly different life experiences, nature, mindset, philosophies, backgrounds, attitude, geographical boundaries..( I could go on but my vocabulary and imagination is running short) so yes the essence of what I am trying to say here is the magnitude of diversity is stupendous and yet we are united by the emotion called school.

I am sure you all will agree that School does not stand for a building, it stands for a huge sea of emotions. The first full marks, the first red mark, the first pat on the back, the first slap on the face, the first hug from a friend, the first smack from a not so good friend, the first chalk you threw at a girl, the first chappal (slipper) she threw back at you,  the first day you bunk, the first day you wished you never missed (Your crush's ka bday), the first school trip, the hopefully only farewell party (Fail karnein ka only bright point - Dou dou farewell party .. yes not very puny .. but goes na with the flow :p), the first dream of a career, the realization of different career, the first tiffin sharing, the first tiffin dhaaping (flicking off of the tiffin box), the first blank call, the call phone call, the first birthday dress, the first uniform you thought you looked smart in, the first disaster called hair style, the first one you thought you got it right (only to know it was a catastrophe), the first pang of jealousy, the first burst of forgiveness, the first PJ, the first PJ on you, the first song you learnt during christmas carols, the first parody you made with friends, the first movie with friends, the first Adult movie with friends (:P I am sure all yes all of you did it ) the first cuss word you learned, the first cuss word you taught your sibling, the first tiffin you made for yourself, the first tiffin you claimed to have made for yourself, your first partner, your first partner of the opposite sex, you first lab partner, you first library partner (If anyone had any.. still there is time to make one), the first meeting you had at home to get your family meet your school friends, the first meeting you had at your friends house for the same, the first time you copied, the first time someone copied from you (yes very proud moment for many !) the first time .. I could go on but I am going to stop here and gonna ask my batch mates of 93 to post more firsts.. 

Super happy to reunite with all you guys I knew from ages, and to meet so many new ones and old ones which have now become a new and improved version of themselves and so just too perfect to change.. 

But cant end without making some mentions.. 

Gabbar urf Smita  tops my list.. She was always the scholar without airs in our shivalik gang.. Now she is an adorable yummy mummy, techie and greatest power house of witty nonsense 24 X7

Sam urf Sameera .. the favorite in the group along with Smita.. Both these girls have solid fan following .. 

She is so funny and full of positive energy that I wait for appearance online to bring in a smile 

Without these two lovely ladies our group would loose all its Pun n spunk..

Go Girls

Then comes the very important members that are the backbone of any group  

The Sports.. They are the ones that are inspiration for real sad PJs, Puns etc and keep the banter light hearted .. the stress busters, the rockstars, the show stoppers and the show starters too :)

 The list is thankfully a long one in this group

Bhatia .. sirf Naam hi kaafi hain

Yags Urf list is too long (Guys here can update)

Sunil urf ... too many to remember 

Molly .. Sorry Molloy

Nangu Pungu Dingu number 1 urf Murgi urf Mallu urf Vivek

Uncle urf Chasmis urf Sudhir 

Nangu Pungu Dingu number 2 urf  Stuff urf tattoo man urf Daya urf others I dont know yet

KP urf brian adams urf master chef urf storyteller 

The Foodies.. who keep the group hungry for more :)

The bongs are the toppers here

Sandip 

Sourja

Deepalok

Yours truely

The Veggie brigade

Sallil (tera name first)

Deepali - master chef number 2

The twinkling stars.. they come and go and yet they leave a very bright light behind.. 

Shamli

Vinisha

Ritu 

Shikha

Smitha Paul 

Saurabh 

Vishal 

(Too bad the admins have become twinkling stars.. we need more participation)

Very Important Group - the party organizers 

Mayur the biggest and the best (literally)

Venky the ever enthusiastic 

Janaki the chief and strict account head

Latest active entrant is Mahen as vinisha rightly put the ceo and sutradhar off late :)


Special Mention for the Chupa Rustam Most ROMANTIC .. Rahul Kanavi

Cant believe you were or rather are so Filmi .. Maybe you too should write a book on your love story.. lots more interesting it was than Two states for sure !

Phew  I could go on and on.. shortly will be adding pics to this post .. 

Love you guys .. You really made me smile real hard and loud and inspired me enough to start writing my blog back 

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