My Furry First-Born !

Intrigued by the title? Exactly my intentions when phrasing it like that.I am dedicating this post to one naughty little brat of a pup whom i cherish,as my first born.And indeed,he is one big ball of fur.So,i guess the title coudnt be more apt!

Being a dog person [yeah! lately,i even tell my friends to 'SIT' and 'STAY'!An effect of being around my pup so often],i have always dreamt of having a never-extinguishing-energy-ball-of-fur of my own[in case you are wondering,yes i was hinting at having dogs].But, with the frequent shifting between houses and my father's constant refusal to have anything living,with more than 2 legs in the house,i never got a chance to realise my dream of owning a four legged friend.After my persistant nagging,he reluctantly told me that as long as i am living with them under the same roof, i am not allowed to have any dogs around, but when i get to move out, then i am free to live life with my rules.I guess, by this complex statement, he must have meant a very different context, but since i was not very keen on getting the loopholes in that statement clarified, i just picked up the very obvious meaning and finally when i did move in to a seperate house in Bangalore, the very first thing i did was to hunt around for a mutt! Thankfully, Nichu also turned out to be as much a dog lover as i am.So by the end of the first month in Bangalore, we had both decided to get a four legged friend home. I had always wanted a sand colored labrador.But after many consistant refusals from Nichu as to why we shouldn't be getting a big dog home, i finally agreed to settle for any smaller breed [as long as its not a pomeranian..i just cant stand the shrill barks!].

Much googling later,we decided on a cocker spaniel, that too a chocolate brown coloured one. And i never mentioned a word of this to my parents [:)],decided to spare them from the shock untill i got the pet home.So finally on the D-day, February 17'th 2008 [this was a V-day gift me and nichu were gifting ourselves!], we head off to a pet shop and believe me...i never thought i would see heaven before i die, but i am sure that i was stepping into heaven when i first set foot in that pet shop [though yes, a very bad smelling heaven or probably heaven when it has run out of air fresheners!].The place was full of puppies, all breeds and colors and sizes and with their tiny whining voices and crawling all over the place, they were the most adorable pups in this whole world.The first thing to catch my eyes was a sand coloured flat ball on the floor trying to crawl.It was love at first sight! The tiny ball looked up with the most innocent round eyes and when i bent down to pick him up, he gave the tiniest whine at being disturbed from his comfortable position and snuggled back to sleep in my arms.I knew at that moment, that this was the Lab i had waited all my life for! [My parents were hoping that i would be saying this statement referring a human and they kinda totally gave up on me when they realised i was talking about a puppy!].

Very gleefully,with a mission accomplished look i turn towards nichu and aks.Both of them have this 'will-kill-you' look on their faces and at that precise moment,out walks the owner with a dark chocolaty ball of fur in his hands.I was still standing in the corner with the lab in my arms while the other 2 were examining the spaniel puppy and trying to get him to attempt to crawl.Very reluctantly, i was made to hand back the lab pup and i went over to check on the lazy puppy who went off to sleep the minute he had been put down to crawl!

Yeah,lazy! That's how he had looked to me. The small fellah hardly opened his eyes. All he did was keep flopping around and go to sleep. He wasn’t even whining.I give one look at Nichu.I can see that she has decided this is the pup. I hesistatingly kept saying 'He isnt whining, he looks droopy, he looks doped'. All my persistant remarks went unheeded by the two of them.Finally, giving one last heartbreaking look at the still whining lab pup, we walk out from the pet shop, the brown furry ball still sleeping away in my arms!

By the end of the auto journey back home, i must say, the warm furry little thing had managed to creep his way into my heart and the lab puppy was just a faint reminder.

For the next few days,it was a confused frenzy of two new "mom's" trying very desperately to take care of a one month old baby (that's how old he was when we got him home).There was cerelac and milk and biscuits and water strewn all over the place. The puny little fellah managed to creep under every possible nook and corner in the house.Getting him to eat,in the initial days,was a task by itself.We had made the mistake of keeping cerelac mixed in a huge bowl (compared to his size) and we have nearly had to pry him away from the edge of the bowl before he himself fell headlong into the 'cerelac pond'!

The first one month saw me walking around cribbing -the puppy isnt active,the puppy isnt running around,he isnt barking, he isnt whining,he still looked doped and he dint have a tail !!! And oh yes,we named him Hobbes [From Calvin and Hobbes fame! Was hoping that the influence of the name would instill the naughtiness in him and make him active].

And oh lord !! Was i mistaken or what!By the end of second month, what had been a sleepy little doped thing turned out be a 'Vociferous Carnivore' [As Sounak refers to Hobbes!].The transition from a harmless pup to a running-barking-demanding monster was almost instantaneous.

a.What had been a quiet house earlier, now sounded like a raging mad house!
b.His favourite timepass was to scrape off the paint from the wall. So the living room in our house looked like a miniature bull dozer had tried demolishing it off!
c.There is no count to the number of sandals we have sacrificed for his teething days!
d.Every evening, i walked in home, to either see the entire house covered up in shreds and shreds of newspaper and a tiny little brown pup hiding somewhere in the midst of the mess, giving me his most innocent look. Or he would have pulled off every possible thing from the kitchen counter and sitting on top of the water can. One day, he had even dragged the entire garbage bag all over the house and had the house stink like a corporation dump!
e.Barking incessantly, he believed was his birth right!
f.What was termed as 'Taking Hobbes for a walk' turned out to be 'Hobbes taking us for a run'!
g.The families in our lane are so very used to seeing either of us running in the lane screaming out 'Hobbie' at the top of our voices.This is on days, he decides to go off on a run on his own!Some people even pitch in to chase him down shouting out anything which remotely sounds like 'Hobbie'.So most evenings and weekends, see people running around in the lane shouting 'Bobby, Bhaabhi, Habbie' and what not!

He turned out be the world's most naughtiest dog and the most unruly one too! But the little gestures of unconditional love from the puppy heart is enough to melt our hearts and to put up with all his nonsensical deeds! Waking up in mornings and feeling a cold wet nose rubbing against your feet, or getting back from office and seeing an excited puppy prancing all around the house and barking in his doggy language to welcome you home, these are what i call the little joys of life!

Watching the movie 'Marley and me' was like living our life ! We are the proud owners of a dog who has humbled every dog trainer and who still manages to be the same unmanagable irritable mutt...my furry first born !
PS: The photo is of Hobbes taken on day 2 at our house!

Six Degrees of seperation

Its a really really small world out there isn't it? For those of you who dont agree to it, here's the reason why.
Did you know that every person in this world is at most just six steps away from any other person in this world? Be it a stranger in the United Kingdom or a rocket scientist in the NASA or even Barack Obama, all it takes for you to reach out to them, is to contact at most 5 other people,that too one of whom is a personal acquaintance! Isnt that amazing!This is what the concept of 'six degrees of seperation' is all about.

During my college days, i remember having a discussion on the Will Smith movie 'Six degrees of seperation'. This is when i heard the concept first.Gradually in the events of our discussion, most of us even embarked on the 'Kevin Bacon Game',the goal of the game being to link any actor to Kevin Bacon through no more than six connections, where two actors are connected if they have appeared in a movie together. A very interesting game[especially if played in between boring lecture classes!],but since my vocab with respect to Hollywood films was very minimal then [and even now!], i really failed to find a connection between Amitabh bachan, aamir or SRK to Kevin Bacon [Though a friend of mine very successfully did it!.You dont belive it? Try it.If in doubt, please ask me :)].

Also, apparently, there is this game 'Find Satoshi', where a game company is circulating the picture of a Japanese man called Satoshi and the aim of the game is to - find him! [Obviously..Duh!!]

Well, anyways, moving onto the more important matter. The reason why this post is here. My daily trips to and forth office,in the shuttle,is what i like to call my 'Enlightment time' [:)]. The time of the day where, since i have nothing better to do, i let my mind wander away and recapture or explore its creativity [not that it has too much, but still!].So today, for no particular reason,we[my mind and me] decided to have an iteration of the various faces in my life till date and the result was very very surprising.It's really amazing to realise how small the world has shrunk to. I guess it really takes a lot,in today's world,to lose touch with friends or not to keep in contact with the people around.I have realised that there is no single person i have completely lost touch with.Invariably there is some link around which will take me till there [:)].This is how the topic of 'six degrees of seperation' entered my head and i was very impatient till i reached my seat and researched more on it [;)].

Outcome of research - i have realised that the most complex web, the human web, is the most easiest to be networked and maintained and to be broken too !

Well, end of the day, i guess i am really not freaked off on letting go of people. There is always some link to take me back :).And if not,guess they just arent meant to be found [not my loss :)!].

Right now, i have embarked on finding out my six links to reach the president of United States.Hmmm..or should it be Richard gere..hmmm or Abhishek Bachan..or Suriya..Damn it ! For once i thought i have set my heart on accomplishing something .. and i am still confused !

Remember to forget me...............

I happened to see Shif's latest post in her blog about her visit to calicut. Never before has the pang of nostalgia struck me such a force.

Do i hear a why?
Well, here's why...

In this big new era of 'nuclearisation' and independent living, the one factor conveniently forgotten by everyone is 'The joy of togetherness,of being one big family'.

These days,for me,being homesick means missing my home and folks at Trivandrum. But, until around 3 years ago, homesick meant, missing the big cool home "Jaya" at Kalliaserry,Kannur. The one lovingly built and nurtured by my grandfather, with the large courtyard around it, the uncountable varieties of trees and plants around. I always used to claim, that even in a famine, the only thing which we might miss at this house is probably milk [since we never had any cows in the house!].But with a garden rich in mangoes, coconuts, pepper, pineapples, chikku,jackfruits,curry leaves, varieties of spinach and chillies, bittergourd, pappaya..and god knows what else, the place was a heaven for living! As kids, our entire summer holidays were spent under the mango tree, waiting to catch every ripe mango falling off it.But this very rarely happened, since we would have already clambered up the tree and pulled off any fruit which looked edible. Nothing beats the fun of climbing up a mango tree,arms laden with salt, red chilli powder mixed with a little coconut oil and picking out the first mango in your reach and enjoying the delicious combination ! [Damn..i wish i never grew up !].

But no,this is not the house which first came into my mind when i saw the pictures in shif's blog. It was my ancesteral house,Tharavadu, which came rushing into my memory. The house where my great grandmother was born and bought up. The place where my grandmother and her siblings grew up. The house was witness to my mother and her sibling's growing years too. Sad to say, my generation was just passing visitors to the house.

A lovely old house,more than 90 years old, built in the traditional kerala style, with not even water connections.A big huge 'kolam' [pond] and the crackling old well was the only means of water supply here.The ladies of the house kept themselves fit by drawing water day in and day out.As kids, we always used to run away and hide since we dint want to do that tedious chore! The 'Chikku' tree in the front of the house had been such a source of joy in the blazing summer heat. The sacred 'Tulsi' always looked so pious in the evenings when the lamps were lit.One could not even see any house anywhere in the vicinity [though, this changed with the effect of 'development'!].It was pitch dark once twilight set in. That is the only time when we kids sit around the elders (scared by tales of ghosts and spirits roaming in and around the house!).Electricity had been a luxury there and it was always one small yellow bulb giving out a tiny bit of glow around the house.

Dusk was the time when old tales sprang up and everyone used to go into peels of laughter,struck with the memories of an era which had gone by. We used to enjoy listening to tales of the heroic and romantic [;)] deeds of our grand-uncles and aunts and our parents! They all had memories attached to each and every day of their growing years and the house was a witness to all of them. The house had stood by to see the cycle of life go by, generations after generations.

In my eyes, my mother had always been the calm,loving,gentle lady i see everyday.But these dusk time stories reminded me that she had once been a little girl too..a little girl who used to do more antics than i did [And i always used these stories as references for my defence in the later days ;)!]

The weirdest thing about the house was that every single room had a particular name - 'Kottalakam','vadakemuri' and so forth.Till date i have no clue which room is which. I always fumbled my way around the house!The puja room was an assortment of pictures of gods and godesses and ancestors and huge lamps and 'basmam'(holy ash).My great-great-grandfather had been a renowed astrologer in those days and the puja room also had his books and 'Ezhuthu ola' [Palm leaves] and other artifacts from his era.The entire house had a musty smell.The old creaking wooden steps leading to the top floor always spooked me out every time. The house was always abuzz with the voices of the people and the rattling of vessels and the screams of the little ones. There was no television or phone to eat away into the precious time, which was used for catching up on the one year that had gone by.

The house had been a witness to a golden era in the history of our family.

That day had been the last day anyone in our family would be stepping foot in that house again.After the house had been ripped away of each and every bit of memory of the MK family, i turned to have one last glance at the house which had given me so many fond memories and i could hear the winds whisper

Remember to forget me …………………………………………...

Heights of laziness...

Wondering what's with the title? I been wanting to come up with something real nice in my blog,but i am under the effect of my suggestive 'Title',so.............
Happened to be tagged by Ashwin to answer few questions and know myself better. While browsing through..i felt some of the questions pretty intriguing,so figured, why not post it here. Adding my answers to each of those questions too. Hence here goes..

1. Were you named after anyone?
Yeah me..Anyone born after me and named 'Deepthi',obviously they take up after me.. I set the benchmark ! ;)

2. When was the last time you cried?
Errrr...hmmm... 2 minutes ago.. was cutting onions for dinner ;).

3. Do you like your handwriting?
I do... but i am not too sure of what others think of it!

4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
Fish..any kind

5. Do you have kids?
I aint married yet... not a reasonable answer i agree..but nevertheless.. !;)

6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
I would probably find a place for myself in another planet. Only i know how much i am struggling to live with myself !

7. Do you use sarcasm?
Try going through my answers and figure it out.I hate to admit my flaws ;)

8. Do you still have your tonsils?
Do i still have my what ?
Since i never knew it existed in the first place, i am sure i wouldn't know it even if its lost!

9. Would you bungee jump?
Life is definitely making me go through a whole lot of bungee jumping ..that too without any safety harnesses.Someone's gotto set the rules right !!

10. What is your favorite cereal?
Anything which has the cute cartoon pictures on the cover !

11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Err.. with sandals.. not possible!

12. If you were to pick your own first name, what would it be?
No way ! Are you freaking kidding me ?
This way i atleast get to blame my parents for my first name ;).

13. What is your favorite ice-cream?
AS long as it's ice and cream..i really dont bother about the color!But i hate black current though.. reminds me of having chilled cough syrup!

14. What is the first thing you notice about people?
Shoe, watch,perfume smell and finger nails.

15. Red or Pink?
Can i go with black?

16. Whom do you miss the most?
My mind.. I have absolutely no clue where it has gone to !

17. What are you listening to right now?
My puppy gloriously snoring away!Seriously i never knew that dogs snore..untill i got Hobbes home!

18. Favorite smells?
UDV.. been my perfume for the last 7 years.. cant get over it ;)

19. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My mother.

20. Favorite Foods?
Not a discriminating foodie!

21. Scary movies or happy endings?
Happy movies with scary endings!

22. Summer or Winter?
Summery winters !!

23. Hugs or Kisses?
I am sure this question has been included here for all the single's to woo any probable bait.. I am not falling for it :) !

24. Do you have a special talent?
I myself am a very unique talent and living with myself is the rarest talent i have ever mastered till date!

25. Favorite piece of jewelery?
Now this is definitely a suggestive question.. and i am taking the bait.. Diamond ring !!

26. How did you meet your spouse/significant other?
Really??..I met? when ? How? Who? Where?