Heal (paw) the pain !

Dexter its going to be 4 years since I saw you last, since I felt your soft fur, cuddled with you, drank into your unique smell, felt the deep love and innocence in your eyes, the anger when I came home late from work or forgot to let you sniff the new stuff I bought, the doggo ball style we played, the blanket snatching game, the long walks, the sniffing and chomping off the treats, your drools when we eat anything, literally anything.

Your calm self being there beside when I feel alone, lost and broken, the winter snuggle in our comforter and then u just going off because you had enough of the overdose of love I would shower [ya you were mean at times :p but I still love u] the love you gave every person you met, how you bug ma and she getting mad at u and me trying to create peace, uff I can still laugh and both your antics.

Your jumping around when u were ecstatic about a new toy or just me coming home after a tour, I now pack my bags at leisure and miss u even more because I had to do all my packing after you went off to sleep else you would be sad the entire evening.

Your naughty face when you did some mischief but were confident we would not figure that out or the damage is done and your confidence that you  can manipulate us with your charm and you were right each and every time, you would get away most times with a empty threat from us.

How you would knock at the door when I closed it so that u dont bug me, haha every one around thought it was a human knocking haha. How you would try to break a tiff between me and bro by jumping on top of him, how you would get super possessive if anyone tried to hug me, how mad you would get when I would pet another doggo, I miss you waking me up every single morning and the morning cuddles, i miss our car rides together and your joy when u smelled polluted air :).

Dexter, do you know that the dog spa you went to has closed down ? Whenever I see that shop i have so many fond memories, though a new one has come in its place it will be still your spa to me, your eagerness to go there, ur unwillingness to stay there and your anger if i were 5 minutes late to pick you up. How dapper you thought you looked after the spa and how you would flaunt yourself to ma and baba wanting them to acknowledge your highness's hotness :)

Rains always remind me of your raincoat and how u initially thought it did not cool on you as peeps on the street were laughing at you and later on, on my insistence same peeps would pet you and go so that you were convinced you were looking good. Vain ass you are !   Your winter coats and how u preferred the blue over red was funny, even today I have so many people still talking about you and it still brings tears in my eyes. But I feel so proud to be known as Dexter's ma. Haha ya some folks on street still call me that. Haha you improved my social skills :p

My ranting can never stop so I go back to mental ranting again :)
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Dexter I miss you a lot and I am sure you are at a better place now and spreading more joys, I am grateful for the way you touched my life and changed it for ever. I love you a lot and miss you every single day of my life and I know you are there with me always, laughing at my stupidities, hugging me when am down, hearing me ranting to you about my silly problems and not so silly ones as well.

I have stopped eating mackerel, am sure u must be super happy about it u mean ass :) but honestly i cannot eat it without u trying to snatch it from me. I had also stopped eating sea cod caps as we both would eat it together, you unwillingly and me by choice, but now had to make myself eat it again but I remember you each time i eat it [Ok not very time by many times]

I thought with time the pain of missing you would reduce. But it does not and am kind of  trying to learn to live with the pain. Some part of the pain I try to overcome - like how I  hated my house as it had so many memories of the weekends you and I would spend there. You know  past 4 years I hardly went there but now slowly I am trying to not hate the place so much. However some pains have increased. Like seeing another Labrador,  I try to find you in them and I know its not you. If a street doggo tries to come for a cuddle, I again search you in them. I cannot make myself go to a pet store. But I went one time and it hurt me too much so I quickly bought what I needed and left. I so loved our pet store visits how you got special privilege to enter the store coz of your cute ass nature and how exciting those trips were for you :)


Hey now Baban has Angel and he is like your alter ego. Haha. He is a goof ball and poor thing has to bare the load of your supreme legacy but he does not give a doggo fuck. Haha he is one crazy.I do love him in my own way but I guess I still cannot allow another soul to touch my hear the way you did.

I know I know you are bored of my ranting and you know I would give your those famous soul suffocating cuddles and zillion kisses which would embarrass you so I stop but then come on you annoying Dexter the monster why had you to be so frigging awesome :)

I love you more every single day and pray you remain the awesome soul you are in every life you take and if there is heaven above you get the most royal treatment u deserve.

Dexter till we meet again and again

Dexter, my 12 year old boy [ Labrador] left us for his next pursuit of happiness on a sunday of 2016 [May 15th 2016 at 9:05 pm]

My brother was off on his honeymoon  so we did not tell him till he returned a week later. Our entire family's acting skills was put to test that week and we did pass looks like as my brother was not able to make out our loss. He happens to be a very perceptive boy [He is 30+ but will always remain the child to me].

That night after his death, I slept beside him, trying to capture in all my senses his soft ears, his unique smell, his nose that twitched, body so warm growing cold and stiff every minute. His beautiful ever expressive eyes which were truly the window to his amazing soul was shut from me. I held him tight and cried all night and when morning came, that one last car ride which he enjoyed so much, he lay in my arms and I held my boy tight in my heart,hoping this nightmare comes to an end.

For the first year I relived the events of the day every Sunday in my mind. Blaming myself for not being there for the couple of hours I went out, blaming the vet who did not take my endless calls, blaming God for not letting Dexter be in better health longer.

I did some weird stuff to deal with the pain. I went to a tarot reader to find out whether he was happy after I read they can contact animal souls as well. My brother found a psychic who told him dexter will come back to him as another dog. I and my mother felt Dexter's presence initially every night and gradually it decreased. We still feel him around but maybe once in 15 days or more. I Googled this and as usual Google did throw up some explanation on this. Same as that for human soul.

I would sit to write an eulogy, a sonnet , a poem for my child but no words could express the soul shattering pain I am going through and other reason being I am not a good writer and not even a bad poet.

Dealing with loss of human is very difficult but dealing with loss of animal soulmate is excruciatingly painful as unlike humans they dont have selfish motives, no flaws, dont cheat and I could go on. But I am sure we as human are aware of the flaws we have. Some research in USA proved what pet owners have felt for centuries, loss of pet is more traumatic then loss of another human.

The difference between loss of human loved one, others can understand but how can loss of a dog make you so weepy ? Get over it .. he was old .. Get over it .. he is just a dog.. Get over it and get a new one.. Get married !!! Well these were some of the verbal and non verbal communications I received from people close and not so close to me.. some knew Dexter personally some knew him via my facebook post. Another bad thing about FB post.. it shows you memories and thats when I realized my FB post were mostly Dexter's  pictures and the fireworks would go on every morning seeing it.

So No I have not yet got another dog or any pet. My brother has a one and half year old golden retriever named ironically Angel who stays with us from morning to evening and evening to next  day morning he stays with my brother and my sister in law. I call him Gundappa swamy [ Loosely translated King of Goons as he is a hell raiser] Poor thing is always measured against the so much larger than life legacy Dexter has left behind.

My grief is that of mother who waits to meet her dead child in next life. Letting go does not look like an option nor choice but I know eventually I have to make peace with Dexter being in my heart my soul my thoughts and being part of every happy memory I have of my life.

I had made two puppet dogs from the last rice which Dexter use to eat and had given one to my brother and one for me. Something to hold on to when all is gone. I had given away all his clothes toys utensils to a dog shelter. But now my brother feels its time to let go of that too. I grudgingly agreed to it. Letting go is easy said than done.

Some days its a truck load of tears that make my heart light and some days its a sob that makes my heart heavy.

What makes my heart swell up in happiness and tears for once I shed of joy when relatives and friends share how they felt Dexter was a soul from heaven and touched their live in his own special ways.

So Dexter my love you will always be loved more every passing day and my love and hugs and kisses till we meet again and again. Soulmates forever.

Last picture of Dexter taken - 15 days before his last smile.

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.