Dogs and Indian Parliament

Who doesn't love dogs?

I have been travelling a lot since i quit my job. I was supposed to travel to Bangalore last Monday. I got up early and was waiting for my friend in front of a park. Sipping tea with a pack of Parle-G biscuits has always been my favorite to start my day. I was thoroughly enjoying my tea with biscuits at 6:30 in the morning in a road side tea shop. A dog chasing the smell of biscuits, came towards me. He was waging its tail and the communication was clear to me. He was asking a share in biscuits. I wanted to test what he will do if i just ignore him and continue eating biscuits. I think Dogs are much better at reading human body language than we are. May be he understood that am just acting. He neither showed any anger nor turned his back. He was as polite as possible. I bought one more biscuit pack but didn't show any sign of sharing second time either. I finished second pack within no time. It was watching all the way but he didn't show single sign of disappoint. I was impressed with his attitude. 

Chaiwala was watching our act and told me "Sir, you make him wait how much ever you want, but he won't be disappointed. When he initially came to my shop, he was a puppy. I wanted to get rid of him as he was disturbing my customers. I tried everything, but he was always coming back in the morning. One day, i left shop with no one inside to bring water from near by bore well. While coming back i saw him barking at cows who were trying to enter my shop. I never gave anything to him, but still he was showing his part of loyalty towards me. I felt ashamed at myself. Later he became part of our family. Our customers love him a lot. He has grown a lot since then.". 

I bought one more biscuit pack and fed the dog by throwing one biscuit at a time. He too enjoyed his early morning breakfast. I left the place and took a bus to Bangalore. Someone next to my seat was holding almost all available news paper in the town. He must be a paper seller or a politician. I borrowed one Kannada news paper and started glancing each page. There was an article on opposition party agitating against central minister's dog remarks towards Dalits during ongoing winter session in our parliament.This is interesting. What dogs have anything to do in our parliment? No, they haven't. But our parliamentarians have deliberately brought the topic on dogs and wasted precious parliament session hours for several days.

"If somebody throws a stone at a dog, then you say the government is responsible. It is not like that," said Mr. Singh, in a statement which had led to the Opposition demanding his resignation. Anyone who know English basics can clearly understand his statements. What he meant was to never associate local incidents with the Central government. Our so called intellectual media took the matter into their hands and started twisting the facts for TRP. Anyways, thats not my point. If the minister has really compared Dalits to dogs, then the dogs should protest against the remarks not humans. At this point, in my view, no animal on our earth would like to be compared to humans. We have reached down to such low level of morality. If i would be in parliament, i would blame the remarks and give support to dogs. 

Dogs have set an finest example to us on how to live and let live. They are not corrupt. They are not greed. They are loyal. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man. Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Home, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace. A biscuit to the dog is not charity. Charity is the biscuit shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. A person can learn a lot from a dog. Dogs taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk in the woods, a fresh rain, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.

So if someone compare me to a dog, then that would be happiest momemt of my life. 

With Love,

RaDa

Passion can never be part-time

In the midst of growing intolerance of leftist towards rightist, rightist towards leftist, east towards west and west towards east, i have encountered a small glimpse of intolerance in my friends and well-wishers towards me and my plans. To my wonder, am not right or left, not east or west. Am standing right in the middle of our society, struggling to understand the meaning and purpose of my life. In the process, i realized i have some capability in me to follow my dreams and make it a reality.  But the path is not easy one. You will need to accept and work many ups and downs in the graph. You will need to bare many kinds of emotions. You will need to answer questions from people. People have become impatient. They expect you to show results in very short period of time. If you are not able to show results early, then you will be tagged as misfired. You should gain courage to accept the defeat if there is one and rebounce with revisited tactics and statistics. Biggest challenge of all this is to face and clarify false and misinterpreted stories floated on you.You can either ignore and continue your travel. Or you pay heed to these stories and get annoyed and agitated, which will eventually put a break to your pace of achieving your dreams. You go back to your old life and continue to be unhappy.

I have had numerous discussions on my decision to quit my job and follow my long pending passion towards writing. The very first question that i would be entitled to answer is "Why can't you stay in your regular job which is the source for your bread and butter and continue writing in your free time?". I understand concerns of people who dared to pose this question to me. They are worried and truly concerned. I don't blame them for their fear for failure. We have to blame ourselves for creating one such society filled with enormous amount of negativity. If you read news papers, watch TV news channels or just sit and listen to your friends, you will understand what am trying to tell you. All you get to see and listen is cynical waves towards every sob story under the sun, which will manipulate you to stay pessimistic. There are millions of vehicles who commute and reach destinations safely, but we get to read about very minimal number of vehicles who met with brutal accidents. Fear fills in you when you drive. Millions of girls who are living a happy and safe life, but we get to see few unfortunate and condemnable rape stories. More fear fills in you when you let your girls out. Billions of people from different caste, religion, color and gender, who are living life with perfect harmony and respect towards each other, but we get to read few stray incidents which are projected as dangerous intolerance between communities. More worries fills in you towards future of your kids. There are millions of couples who are living happy and prosperous life together, but we take to highlight few incidents of breakups and divorces. More fear fills in you towards relationships and commitments. There are millions of people who made valiant effort and succeeded to achieve in their passion, but we get to take those examples of people who tried and failed to do so. More discourage thrown on you. 

Coming back to my story, i am one among such guys who can sit and enjoy with minimum needs like roti, kapada aur makhan. Am one who can switch off my mobile  and 

stay out of social media for months but still stay connected with my dear ones without any hiccups. I don't want to keep working and earn to accumulate excess wealth which am never gonna be able to enjoy. I don't have any plans of passing on the properties we possess to our kids. And i have earned enough to cover basic needs of my family such as food, shelter, health and education. Then what should stop me from leaving my current job and focus on what i want to achieve. Passion can never be a part-time task. But hobbies are part-time. Most of the times people fail to understand this. Majority of the failures will fall into below categories.

1) We fail when we misunderstand our hobbies as our passion and risk everything to gain success in it. Over the period of time, we will start understanding the truth and accept the failure and get back to what we were doing. 

2) Sometimes we categerise our passion as just an hobby and won't be putting honest efforts to acheive what we want to. Lack of planning is also a reason.

If you are capable to clearly distinguish between your hobbies and passion and have strong belief in your passion and if you are ready to take everything with you to work towards making your dreams a reality, then i don't see any issues in doing so. I wish all of you who follow your passion to gain success in whatever you want to achieve and I wish you will set an example for generations to come. 

Good Luck.

With Love,

RaDa

A Crazy Stupid Dream

When i was in deep sleep after late Friday night party, i saw this dream which was unnatural, imaginary, fictional and of-course a stupid dream at around 5:10 AM in the morning which scared shit out of me. 

Dream: 

It was evening in my village. Me and my brother Sagar was walking towards our rice mill to meet my other brother Roshan. I suddenly saw a moving shadow image of a herd with more than 50 elephants  walking in a line on a hill few miles outside our village. It was getting dark in the evening. It was not so clear where they were heading. But it looked like they were heading towards our village. Then i saw images of rhinos, tigers attacking wild buffaloes. There were zebras and giraffes too. I was stunned and my blood went cold. I stood there like a sculpture watching them getting down the hill and walking towards our village. Sagar was walking ahead of me and I was behind. He was talking something, thinking that i am following him and listening. But i was not and he didn't notice me trailing back. I called him and showed him the nerve-racking scene. He was like "What the F**K?". We had only few minutes to react. We got into a nearby 2 storey house which was empty. I rushed to the roof top and told Sagar who was following my steps to close the main door of the house. As soon as i reached the roof top, i called up my brother Roshan and told him get into a safe place preferably into our rice which has solid walls and iron doors. He said he is in our farm and it will take few minutes to reach our rice mill. I told him to forget all the work and rush to rice mill along with our workers and lock the doors from inside. I didn't want to take chances. You never know what monkeys can do. I have seen in movies. Monkeys can open the locks. So i insisted him not to lock the doors of our ricemill from outside. Then i called up my pregnant wife Pooja who was at our house in our village along with my dad, mom and grandma. I told her this freaking story. I told her to lock all the doors in our house, take our people and get into our room on the roof top. By the time i finished calling our people, animals had attacked our village. Me and Sagar were frightened to see animals killing people. It was a blood-curdling episode. After few moments, i heard a roaring echo of cheatahs from inside the house we were taking shelter. I rechecked with Sagar if he has locked the main door in the ground floor. His face told me that he didn't. I immediately reacted and was getting down to lock atleast doors of first floor so that i can stop them coming up to the roof top. But i was late. They had already reached the floor and they climbing steps which would bring them to the roof top. In few seconds they were standing in front of us. One was black jaguar which was staring at Sagar. Other was brown cheetah with black spots on it, standing behind the black cat and was interested in me. I thought of jumping out from the roof to the ground taking Sagar along with me. But there were tigers, lions and elephants killing whoever they see. I thought ours was much better state. There were only two cats. But i was wrong. Before we react, black one attacked Sagar and in one shot it grabbed his neck. That was the maximum you can take in a dream. Watching one wild cat killing your own brother. That is the horrifying moment which will wake you up from the dream. I woke up from the dream sweating. My tee was wet around my neck. I had few glasses of water and thanked god it was just a dream. It was around 5:30 in the morning. I tried to get back to sleep, but i could not. Got freshen up and went for a walk.

Hell of a dream, right? Yes, it was. But it was stupid too. Because, there are no hills around which we could see from our village. Grandma i saw in my dream is no more with us. She passed away two years back. Pooja is no more pregnant. She gave birth to a girl two weeks back. And there are no multi storey buildings on the way to our rice mill in our village.

This is not the first time am experiencing this. Few months before, i saw a dream where i was hiding in a shed while four tigers attacking my aunt in my grandpa farm and i was scared and calling her loudly to get back to the shed but she didn't. I got up sweating on my bed, when a tiger grabbed her neck. As soon as i got up, i woke up my wife and told her the story. She acted like she can feel what i saw for few minutes and went back to sleep. I keep seeing these kind of dreams very often and the worst part is i can remember my dreams in the morning. I can recollect and tell what i saw in my dream to people. Many laugh and forget. Few sit back and discuss on that. I might need to visit a psychiatrist again (on a lighter note). I told this to my mom. She was worried. She thought for a moment and told me that may be am getting these dreams as am a nature lover and green activist. I love animals and i am worried about forests encroachment. 

Probably its a sign to me. May be nature is telling me its time to act on it. May be i should join green activists who are already fighting to save forests and wild life and work with them closely.

With Love,

RaDa

I never had a clue 😊

You stepped into my Life,

As my loving wife.

I never had a clue, 

that we would stick together like a glue

There were ups and downs since two years,

the love we showed to each other was very clear

Many times i was more rough on you,

i just wanted the best to happen for you

I wanted you to take more responsibilities,

i know its just matter of time you will gain all abilities

Am lucky to have you as my better half,

Am ready to swallow all sorrows on your behalf

I promise our future would be marvelous,

Looking at us even people in heaven should feel jealous

You have no idea how much i love you,

I can catch a grenade for you :) (This line copied from a song)

With Love,

RaDa 

One is born, Rest are reborn

18-OCT-2015 13:58 PM IST
Pooja was in labor ward giving birth to our baby. I was finding words to give birth to this blog.

As per my wife Pooja's desire, we hosted a wonderful dinner to our family at her dad's place on Friday evening 16, Oct 2015. She loves to be  center of attention and thoroughly attended by people during this entire phase of her pregnancy. She was due on 24, Oct 2015 and only few days to count, who would dare to say 'NO' to her wishes. She knew it and she was brilliantly en-cashing it. Right now, nothing is more important than keeping Pooja and baby happy, safe and content. Everything else has been blurred and has become immaterial, inconsequential, inconsiderable, indifferent, insignificant and irrelevant. 

She was due for few routine tests and scans on Saturday, 17 Oct 2015. So we started the day early in the morning by watching Salman's movie "Bajarangi Bai Jaan", which relaxed her a bit. After running tests and scans till noon, Doctors were alarmed by insufficient fluid in her womb or uterus but said nothing to worry at this stage. But that "Nothing to worry" statement is unavoidable trigger for many other worries. After running repeated tests, doctors were reluctant to wait till due date and advised us to immediately admit her to labor ward to keep her under observations for a day. We just followed doctor advice and got her admitted. 

Pooja was calm and relaxed as she had one full week to enjoy her pregnancy. With these recent quick developments, she got scared and was worried and started crying. She looked like cutest baby is crying to give birth to another baby. We got confidence when we evidenced Doctor consoling Pooja like we console school kid who was scared of her exams. Best gift what Pooja has is - she looks wonderful and cute all time and in all forms of emotions. Day, noon, night, sad, happy, angry, hatred.  You name any type of feeling, her face has the capability to maintain same level of beauty and innocence. Especially in the early morning sleeps, her face seems like sunlight trying to hide behind a sheet of morning mist. 

Doctor said to Pooja "Hey Pooja, Are you scared? Why are you worried? You are now on right hands and in right hospital. You will be under constant observation of best staff. Are you not happy and excited to finally see your baby? Did you not wait for nine long months for this?".

This comforted her. Pooja just nodded with a blink smile on her face. I was happy the way doctor is handling her emotions.
Doctor continued to Pooja "Do you want to keep your baby inside forever? Where do you find schools inside your womb?". We all laughed at it. Doc said "It was supposed to happen anyway in a week. We are just preponing the delivery for the good of mom and baby. So stop worrying and stay happy and enjoy the process". Pooja agreed and gave a broad smile this time. 


Doctor took me to her room and explained the process, options, risks and possibilities. I trusted her. I just left it her to best of her knowledge to take decisions. Then doctor said this wonderful thing to me "Look Rahul, If I get an opportunity to make a wish to God, then I will make two wishes. First I will ask God to keep only boys on the earth and take out all the girls. I cannot see girls through this emotional and physical suffering. If God doesn't agree to that, then I will ask him to keep only one type of delivery process in the world. Either Normal delivery or C-section. It's very hard and tiring process for both doctors and guardians to decide. I hope you understand what am saying. All the best. You both are going to be good parents". I vaguely smiled and nodded. I have understood more than what she said. I wished her good luck and left her room. I informed the same to our parents. 

She was kept under observation for a night. There was nothing much we can do but waiting till morning of Sunday, 18 Oct 2015. Of course, except for taking selfies whenever Pooja came out to meet us. That would cheer her up. I gave her a personality development book to read and provide last minute training to the baby to prepare itself before it's gonna see our world :) :) Last minute tips and notes has always helped me to perform better in main exams/interviews. Me and my brother stayed back at hospital. I spent night updating this news to our friends and well wishers. Excitement bar raised and reached a all new level. 
We got a chance to talk to Pooja twice in the morning, before staff started inducing pain in her through medicines. By 10:30 AM, she slowly picked up the pain. Doctors were informed. Ward room was reserved. Prayers and wishes started pouring for Pooja. I kept updating on the status to people in Whatsapp groups. By around 11:30 AM, Doctor came said she is hopeful for the normal delivery and would wait till 3:00 PM. If Pooja doesn't get expected amount of pain till then, then Doctor said she don't want to take risks and she would opt for cesarean. We agreed. Tension in me started raising. I started picturing Pooja enduring this pain process. That was the tiniest hole of weakness it was looking for. Once the hole is found, all kind of emotions kept breaking inside me just like water breaks out when gates were open in the dam. I went for a long walk and regained control and stayed positive. Just to keep myself busy I started writing this blog. 

We got a chance to meet Pooja and talked to her for a minute at around 12:20 PM. She said she is getting back pain not labor pain. She looked tired. We were worried again. Contrary to other operations, in this case pain is positive sign. Person should not feel comfortable. She should get and endure severe labor pain. So we waited with our fingers crossed.


Bulk of patience she posed, 38 weeks of waiting, tens of medical consultations, exposing to tests and scans, abundance of love and loads of care she spent has finally bearing a fruit today. In fact a healthy fruit with full of life. I had to take a soulful journey to redefine myself  before i see this fruit. Our home was deserted without kids since more than two decades. Last memory I have is of my brother Roshan playing around when he was kid. 

We had few hours more to kill. I had a quick lunch in hospital canteen. Came back to labor ward and sent our parents to have lunch. At 01:30 PM, a labor staff came out and congratulated me. "Congratulations sir, it's a baby girl". I was grandly surprised and was hard to believe. I told her "Are you sure? I might have been mistaken. Am husband of Pooja. We were expecting after 03:00 PM". She said "Yes sir. But Pooja got labor early than expected and she gave birth to a baby girl. It was normal delivery. Congratulations again". I knew she was telling truth. Surprise was heavy to digest. Pooja's grandma joined me. One more staff and Doctor brought our baby out of labor ward. I tried to hold the baby. But I couldn't. My hand were shivering out of excitement. My eyes were filled. I just thanked our doctor and staff and came out to inform our parents and well wishers.

Now a ray of light has arrived from the sky. She has the power to transform anything and everything. She can heal hearts to remove hatred and will fill happiness and love. She has given rebirth to all of us and will take us back to our childhood. We have to recall and relearn all the forgotten naughtiness, games, poems, rhymes, gifts and toys. Our home will be filled with joy and peace. Green around our home will welcome this little queen. 

One is born, rest are reborn.

With Love,
RaDa

A Train Friend

Someone asked me "Why do you keep writing blogs, when a very few people follow it?". That's the question i kept asking myself over years. Writing was never my medium. I was only a vigorous reader. News Paper, Magazines, Novels. Reading was the only way i could pass time and get some knowledge on social factors during my school and college days. At that time parents were living away from us. Emotions were running high. There were very few people i could share my feelings and thoughts. But something barred me from sharing sad stories. I always wanted to share lighter stories and make people laugh and keep them happy. I asked myself "What do i do with sad feelings and thoughts? If i keep it inside. It will burn and swallow me in no time.". One of my teacher told me to try writing personal dairy and share my thoughts. Initially i started writing in Kannada. After my engineering, when i got a job, my English was very bad. I believe it still is. My beloved friend Manish alias Matter encouraged me to write in English. Eventually he later quit IT and became a journalist. After some time, i stopped writing diary but started writing blogs. Even today i try to maintain my emotion quotient in my writing. Only few will catch that.


Anyways. That's how i started writing blogs. You might be wondering the episode i told till now is not complementing the post name "A Train Friend". Yes, you are absolutely right. So lets not waste time. 

It was on 13-Aug-2015 evening 6:30 PM, i boarded a train in railway station of Birur,

Chikmagalur District. I was traveling back from a life changing journey. I was tired after marathon walk of 40 days covering few hundred miles from Dharwad to Birur. And i was excited that am coming back home. Train left the station on time. I had few hours to kill. So i started reading a book. A few minutes after train left station, a family came to our bogie searching for place to sit. Father, Mother and their Son. As it was a weekday, there were many empty seats in our chair car. They settled in 2 rows behind me. I saw them settling down. They looked very familiar. After scratching my head for some time, i  found that they lived in our street sometime back. 2 house next to us. But i never spoke to them. They remained strangers to me. 

But this time, i was coming back from a jorney which had tripped me. I lived with complete strangers for 40 days. I had learnt to talk even to stones.  I called that boy and said "Hi". He was totally puzzled. I told him that we lived in the same street. We introduced ourselves. His name was Ganesh. A graduate in literature, aspiring to be a public servant. Very humble and gentle. His literature background propelled me to share my journey experience and read few parts of the book i wrote in my journey. I was very tensed and eager to know his reaction. Because he was the first person outside my family to read my writing. Initially he had doubts, but when i started sharing experiences for each chunk of my writing. He said he is very much convinced. He was so much convinced, he even shared few contacts in literature who can review and critic my book. I was very thrilled that i met this person. Our discussion traveled across many topics in that 4 hours journey till we reached Mysore. I wondered he was the same neighbor whom i ignored to communicate for more than an year. I was enthralled to encounter the very evident change that journey had brought in me. 

What is more fascinating about travelling in public transport is, it throws immense opportunities to meet strangers and many times they become friends. It will dissolve any inferiority left over in us. We see people from so many different shades of life, it gradually keeps our ego at bay. It forces equality. It promotes integrity. Most importantly, travelling in public transport keeps check on traffic congestion and pollution. It's more eco-friendly. People should understand this.

Few weeks later when i finished typing my book, i chose the person whom i met in the train to read, review and share his opinion and suggestions. I wanted to let him know about this but i became busy with other things. Few days later, a super coincidence happened. On 05-Oct-2015, i was travelling in a train to Chitradurga to attend an opening ceremony of a meditation  center. I just happened to remember him in the train and called him to request to review my book. To my surprise, he was travelling in the very same train. I was like what the hell? That too he was sleeping just few seats next to mine. I was delighted to experience this serendipity. We laughed and shared the same excitement of this coincidence.  That was only our second meet. Comfort level was so high that he shared few of his personal things too. He was very cheerful and agreed to review my book. I was very fortunate to hear that. 

This might look so ordinary incident to you guys. But these type of coincidences brings so many questions to me. How our mind works? How our universe works? Is there a science which can explain this. There is one more repeated attention which has confused me. Since many years, i have very frequently seen this same number 4:20. It might be time in my computer/watch or vehicle registration number. Initially i ignored that as a coincidence.  But later 4:20 crossed my eyes thousands of times. It's so funny, but many times i was worried if god was telling me that am one of the 4:20 guys. That questioned my credibility. :D :D :D

The reason i highlighted the guy i met in train, is the way a stranger can push your limits to achieve more. In my case, he was the first who was practically injected hope in my first book. 

I also experienced the other side of the coin today. Couple of our friends threw a surprise party to my wife. I thought of refreshing memories in our marriage so far. So i took her for a walk in our neighborhood, i sat in front of her on the ground and wrote a poem. As i was writing on our life, words came out quickly and naturally. When i read it in the party, it was emotional for many of us. I liked it myself. My wife uploaded few of party pics in facebook and one of our friend mentioned the poem in a comment on the album. One person from our family, who has been constantly making fun of anything i or my brother did, showed her sadistic part today on my poem. Words i used in the poem might look very ordinary and familiar. I agree i have limitations in English language. Am improving day by day. But she crossed her line today and accused me of copying from others. What can i say? The only thing i copied from her was, i became an engineer too. I hardly speak to that person. I can easily count number of times i spoke to her since my birth. I doubt her intentions were right this time.

Negative vibes are so bad. It is discouraging. Sometimes it is humiliating. Being a critic is an art. An art to push to improve oneself and others. If your intentions are right, you should guide, suggest, help and provide references and platform to rise. Otherwise you should shut your mouth and watch others doing that job.

With this blog i want to thank my train friend for positivity and hope he filled in me :) Thank you my friend.

With Love,
RaDa

Shall discuss over a coffee :)

These days am writing poems for everything. Happy, sad, party etc etc. I opened a real estate page in facebook for my friend. I happened to write a poem to endorse my page. And I liked it. Good job RaDa😊

Shall discuss over a coffee:

You ask for an agent, 

               we'll give you a friend.

You ask for a house,

               we'll give you a home.                                   
You name a place, 

               we'll find you a palace.                                   
It will not stop there,

               that's just your first gear.            
We  will get you loans,

               that's easy to bear.                            
We live in Mysore,

               you can find us in our lobby.

Give us a call, 

           we shall discuss over a coffee.

With Love,

RaDa