The Choices ’WE’ Make......

“CHOICE” - sounds like a very mundane and naive word, doesn’t it? But it is this very word, which when put into action shapes up your life. If we take a closer look, it is the various choices we have made in the past that defines our present. Of course, the choices of the initial stages on our behalf were made by our parents, ranging from...what we should wear, what we should eat, where we should go, what we should learn.....to which school we should go to and so on and so forth. As we move on in life, the onus of making our own choices, taking decisions for ourselves, falls upon us......which is how I feel it should be. The reason being, that after we attain a certain age we should be mature and intelligent enough to be culpable for our own lives.

However, it is often seen that even in the later stages of life, sometimes the choices for us are left to our parents to make, be it choosing a suitable life partner for us, or for that matter, choosing a career for us. I totally agree to the fact that this is absolutely a matter of personal choice, while some people might feel that there can be no one better than their parents to decide the course of their lives, the other lot might feel that they are the ones who should decide and be responsible for whatever their future holds. I for one, belong to the second lot of people.....although it is equally true that I haven’t been able to hold on to this belief of mine at all times in life.

Keeping my own life in view, I would like to focus on the two most important decisions in any person’s life, first, a career and second, a life partner.

I have often heard and read that it is best if you take up what interests you as your profession. For in that case, work ceases to be an additional burden that you are forced to carry for life. Today people are often heard of using terms like ‘zero job satisfaction’. That happens when a job is just a piece of task which must be completed to receive a pay cheque at the end of the month....something that has become so very important for survival in today’s world. Today, people are judged not by who they are, but what they do.........to be more specific, by the brand name which they proudly carry around in person in the form of an ID card, and the figure credited to their bank accounts on the last day of every month. Anything for the 5 figure salary and compromises become the more dignified, diplomacy. Such is the rat race, that one who doesn’t match up to the rest.....could be the ones who care more for what they learn, or the ones who believe in getting the much talked about “job satisfaction”, or the ones who believe in sticking to their beliefs.....are termed as failures in life.

As I was saying earlier, when interest becomes your profession, work becomes fun. Talking about my own interest........well for most people who know me and have been with me, it wouldn’t be hard for them to notice and state how much of an interest I have in anything to do with animals. There was a time in school, when me and one of my closest buddies to this day, Monalisa, who was equally passionate about animals, would go on about our plans to someday do some work that would deal with animals. Maneka Gandhi was our idol; we would watch her programme “Heads and Tails” on tv, and talk about how things should change in India from what it is to much better facilities and arrangements when it comes to animals. We were termed crazy by many, as her house was home to almost 14 cats at one time, while mine was home to a dog, two fishes, a rooster, a hen, two parrots and 11 cats!!! We were almost sure that one day we would come up with an entity that could match the standards of what is found in developed countries.

It was in this very mode of thought that I had expressed my desire to take up a career in the field of veterinary sciences.......What? Have you gone nuts!!!!!That was the reaction I received. I was told that this wasn’t a field that would take me anywhere in life. Moreover, having secured a rank at the state level in the board exams in Class 10, how could I even think of something so much beyond normal levels of comprehension. So, that was the end of the “veterinary scientific” story. My mother wanted me to be a doctor, one who deals with humans, of course J....however my strong opposition to dissection, which was an important part of Biology, helped me to opt out of that option. Going by the flow, the only other option in those days, Engineering - the choice in this case completely made by my parents and much to my surprise I seemed to be totally in sync with their views. So, that brings me to where I am today, a Software Engineer by profession who is part of the mad rat race that the rest of the world is involved in.

So, as far as a career is concerned, the decision here was for the most part of it guided by the choices that my parents made for me. I wouldn’t say that I have any major regrets regarding the same, but yes, at times I do wonder what it would have felt like to be doing something that was of greater interest to me.

Moving on to the second aspect, choosing a life partner........well this is a decision, that as per my beliefs, was totally my own. Let’s not delve into the complications associated with the same. I would instead like to talk about the reason behind doing so. During my life, I have come across numerous examples where parents have chosen the best life partners as per their judgement and experience for their darling daughters and beloved sons. While there have been cases that the alliances so formed have been phenomenally successful, there have also been instances that the relationships thus evolving have been a total misfit. It is in these negative occurrences that I have seen the blame game go berserk. Since, it is the parents who had made the decision, the whole world and sadly enough, even the kids start blaming the parents for the failure of the relationship. Not that, a love marriage is the recipe for a guaranteed success story. There have been myriads of wreckages in this scenario as well. But, I still believe that it is better to seemingly know and understand a person, and take a plunge into the unknown, and be responsible for the outcome of the same, than to end up holding somebody else responsible for the worse, if it turns out to be so.

Whether my decision was an infallible and befitting one........is yet to be seen...results to be declared in about a few decades from today............. J

A Special Valentine's Eve.....

Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate love.....love for your partner, family, friends or for that matter “The four legged beings”. This time it was truly a celebration for me, although my interpretation of celebration here is a little different from what would normally be expected - may be a party, gifts n so on. For me, celebration means any act that makes you feel good to the level of ecstasy, one that gives you a feeling of contentment, a feeling of being truly happy with yourself for having done what you did. The onset of this year’s Valentine’s Day was one such celebration for me, and here is what made it so...........

My husband and I were out till about 10:30 p.m. on the eve of Valentine’s Day. He was out parking the two-wheeler and locking up the gate behind us, while I made my way up the stairs to our apartment. As I waited at the door for my husband to come up with the keys, I heard a cry, or rather a bark which sounded significantly different from the barks of the numerous stray dogs in and around our residence. It was one that immediately grabbed and drew my attention towards it unlike the usual barks that we were used to overlooking at that time of the night. When my husband reached our floor with the keys, I pointed out the same to him, to which he said, “Ah, it’s nothing, they must be up to some of their usual tricks”. We walked in and while my husband starting fiddling with his mobile making calls to our family members, I moved to the balcony to take a closer look at the empty plot of land just opposite to our building which was home to all the strays of the area. On one corner of the plot, is an incomplete and uncovered tank like structure. As I was inspecting the area as closely as I could, I once again heard that distressing cry and this time I noticed one of the strays, a white one, which made it easier to spot it in the dark, run towards the “tank” and stand up on its front legs to peep into it. The cry was no longer to be heard. Next I saw the white one climb up the tank, and then it sat down on the side of it while still intently looking inside the structure. My heart told me something was terribly wrong, so I insisted that my husband go and take a look at it. He did so.....

On coming back he told me that a poor fellow, one of the strays, had fallen inside the unattended tank which was also full of water, and it was unable to make its way back. My heart sank, thinking of the trouble in which that pooch was. I immediately started thinking of ways to help it make its way out of that tank. We had moved in to the apartment just a few days back, and the building being an absolutely new one was home to just the two of us. Neither, did we have anything that could help us manage to get that poor creature out of that tank and nor did we have anyone else to call out to for help. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a shot as we realised that the poor thing would not be able to pull through the night if left on its own. We went down and tried looking into the bits and pieces of wood and other materials heaped up under the stairs, which were left after the work in the building. My husband picked up a few that seemed to be of some help and ventured out towards the tank, while I waited at the gate so as to simultaneously keep a watch on the unlocked door as well as, the proceedings of the “Rescue Mission”. I could see my husband trying out all means to help the poor fellow out, but to no avail. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer, so I just latched the gate shut behind me, and ran across the road to see for myself what the exact situation was. On reaching there, I found the dog swimming and trying hard to keep itself from drowning. It was evident that she (don’t know whether it was a he/she, but I am referring to it as a ‘She’ anyways) was very tired. She had somehow taken the support of a few thermocol pieces floating in the water to keep her head above the water level. My husband told me that he had tried pulling her out with his hands but the dog was too scared and so she had tried to bite him. Considering the fact that she was a stray it wasn’t advisable that we try the ‘pulling out feat’ again, as she had certainly not been vaccinated and she was definitely prone to infections being totally exposed all the time. We were in a fix......

It was then that my husband suggested that we ask the people living in the house just adjacent to the plot for help. I had often seen the members of this family from our balcony. They owned three dogs, a Labrador Retriever, a German Shepherd, and another tiny one. I had seen an elderly lady of the family regularly feed the strays of the locality. It was apparent that this family belonged to the “Dog Lovers” group. So, we thought that they might be capable and more importantly willing to help two strangers in a “Stray Dog Rescue Mission”. We decided to go ahead. As my husband walked towards the house to talk to the family, I continued with my efforts to help the distressed dog. By this time, she had realised that we were trying to help her, so she had become a little less apprehensive and was eagerly responding to my calls. She swam towards me and tried to hold on to the log that I had thrown towards her with her teeth. I realised that she must have been struggling in the water for a much longer period than we had initially thought.....she was totally drained out so all she could manage to do was to grab the log with her teeth, she just couldn’t put in any effort to pull herself up. I could hear her breathing hard....it was very evident that she wouldn’t be able to hold on too long.....we needed to do something asap......

Thankfully, I saw my husband walking up towards us alongwith the gentleman from that house.... I looked back and saw the elderly lady standing at the door watching us from a distance. The man, by now we knew his name, Anil, had a dog lace with him, which he had brought with the intention of somehow getting the dog hooked on to the lace and then pulling it out....but it was not to be such an easy task........

I told them that she was responding to my calls and trying to hold on to the log. At this, Anil came forward and took the log from me, he asked my husband to support the dog’s weight from underneath with another piece of wood, while he tried to pull her out with the help of the log that she had grabbed onto with her teeth. The two men tried with all their might, and they were almost close to getting her out, but the poor tired creature couldn’t hold on to the log long enough with her teeth........and splash......she went back to the waters!!!! They tried the same process a few more times but, it was the same story over and over again.....the dog was just too tired and she failed to support herself with her teeth alone. Anil then called out to his mother, Judith, the elderly lady at the door, and told her to go get the ladder. I ran towards the house to get it from her. I hurried back with the ladder and handed it over to my husband and he passed it on to Anil. He immediately lowered it into the tank and tried to get the dog on to the ladder somehow. The poor one was quick enough to understand what was expected of her and she managed to pull herself up onto the ladder. By this time, Anil’s mother, Judith, had also come to the site. Then, Anil and my husband used all their strength on one end of the ladder, while the dog perched at the other end, slowly started moving up. I pushed a log underneath the ladder to support her, lest she should suddenly slip. Things were moving on as expected and we knew we were almost there..........but, to my horror, just when we were almost there, she started slipping..........I shouted out to her “No, no, please hold on”, as if I expected her to comprehend my words and feelings...............and to my utter surprise, it seemed as if she did..........she immediately grabbed on to one of the rods of the ladder with her teeth.......I just can’t say how happy I was to see her doing that...........!!!! We realised that we needed to act fast, otherwise all our efforts would soon be back to the waters again........the two men hurriedly pushed the other end of the ladder up, while I pulled the ladder towards the side....we were almost there.......the ladder was at the side of the tank, she knew she had almost made it and all she needed to make it to the ground was one final leap..........in her excitement, she tried jumping off the ladder, and in the process her hind legs got trapped under the weight of the equipment......she shrieked out in pain.....I tried to lift the weight up from her legs and free her.....she knew she couldn’t let go and so inspite of the pain she somehow managed to free herself and jumped down to safety and freedom............!!!!!!!!!!!!! Judith cried out, “Thank your stars, you lucky little one”..............and all of us, the so called members of the rescue team, heaved a sigh of relief, satisfaction, happiness.......n utter joy...........and that was the triumphant and joyous end to the two hour long effort.............!!!!!

It was truly a moment that I will remember for life........words are not enough to express the feeling......the feeling of having succeeded in helping a distressed soul, and it was even more special to me as the soul in question here was one belonging to the afore mentioned group of “The four legged beings”. I have been an animal lover all my life, and anything to do with animals has always made me happy. There have been other such instances in the past, wherein I have tried to lend a helping hand to this community........at times I have succeeded and sadly at times, I have also failed.........but this one will always remain close to my heart......it created a bond of unseen trust between us and the little pooch, and a new bond of friendship between two families.......this is how we ushered in Valentine’s Day, 2010......for me a “Celebration of Love”, in the true sense of the words.

P.S.: Special thanks to Anil and Judith, the God sent angels, without whose help, this wouldn’t have been possible.

A Beginning.....

Blogging.....a term almost everyone is familiar with and a process most people are involved in these days..........

Blogging, or should I say, a Blog has been defined by Wikipedia as follows -

A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

As an individual, I am a regular follower of the blogs written by others, be it my friends, famous personalities or anyone else.....I also make sure that I voice my approbation for the work whenever I happen to like one........but at all times that I would be involved in reading or applauding the works of another, a thought that always crossed my mind was - when would I come up with one of my own.......? The reason behind not having done that for so long........hmmm, let me see.....the possibilities - i) Wasn’t very confident about my writing skills, ii) Lack of Time, iii) Lack of the will to do so, call it laziness if you wish to..........well the first reason doesn’t sound very convincing, for the simple reason that at one point of time, to be specific, during my days at NIT, I was actually into a lot of writing, and more often than not I had also managed to grab the attention of people as well as a considerable amount of admiration for my work........now moving on to the second, lack of time - well if I was to agree to this reason, I would be cheating myself for I am totally aware of the colossal amount of free time that was available to me, atleast in this last one year, and shamefully enough a huge chunk of that was spent sitting in front of the “Idiot Box”...so, reason no.2 ruled out without an ounce of doubt................so that leaves us with, reason no. 3 - Laziness....i.e., a disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to do so - courtesy, Wikipedia. Although I hate to admit it, but I am one belonging to the class of people termed as “The Lazy Lot”......at times I feel life could have been a lot more different than what it is, had I not been the lazy chap that I have been on many occasions in life.

But, as they say, “Better Late Than Never”.......so here I go, my first attempt at “BLOGGING” begins right here........