Happy Maha Shivratri!

 

A Tragedy of Two Puppies

 

This is a real-life story, which I had to unfortunately witness.

There is a boy in a village who is very fond of animals and pets. Once he brought a small white pup from somewhere distant. The bitches who give birth to pups often produce 4-5 offspring at a time; so, he must have just picked one while she was not around and brought the baby to his home. His village home was very spacious, with ample land in the front as well as around the house. Plus, he had several milk-giving cows being reared in front of house. With his loving care and a very safe and friendly environment, the puppy found its footing. But it was really ‘alone’ and the boy noticed that. Next day, he brought another pup, a black one. He kept it along with the white pup. Now, the puppies had got a company of each other!

The two puppies became apple of eye for everyone. For whole day, they used to play various games with each other. Since the white pup was a bit older and bigger, it used to prod the black pup a lot. They quickly learnt the ‘spy game’ and started sniffing and moving around. Small kids from nearby places used to come to see and play with these pups. The little black pup tried to play with the kids by trying to lick their fingers or hand. The pups learnt to recognize and respond to the boy and his family members. During winter, the puppies used to sleep near the ash pile of bonfire for hours. Once some grownup dogs visited the area and the little black pup was seen cozying up to another bigger black dog, which did not show any affection towards it. It seemed that the two pups were not to be adopted again and were fated to be together for a long time to come. Alas, even this was not to be true.

One morning, everyone was shocked to know that both pups were dead. What had transpired intrigued everyone. The boy had got some sort of insecticide or chemical sprayed on the grass in front of his house to scare away the birds who used to visit there and spoil the grains which were being dealt there. The person responsible for spraying the chemical had sprayed a heavy dose and hence a pigeon died after eating poisonous substance. The two little pups, by now well versed in eating miscellaneous things, but devoid of any parental guidance or training, had collected the dead bird and feasted on it, thereby poisoning themselves. When the boy saw them in this condition, he immediately rushed them to a nearby veterinary doctor who gave some medicine but could not save the pups. The two pups were cremated together.

These events which happened so quickly within a month or so appear so tragic that in another world of dogs this could be a plot of a blockbuster movie. On a serious note, I felt sorry for the little pups and hope that they are doing well in their next lives, wherever they are.

- Rahul Tiwary

Travelogue: Sonpur (Bihar) Bridge Over River Ganga

- Rahul Tiwary 

Happy Birthday Hrithik: Inspirational Life of Hrithik Roshan | जन्मदिन की शुभकामनाएँ हृतिक रौशन

 

Poem: Hug O'War By Shel Silverstein

 

I will not play at tug o' war.

I'd rather play at hug o' war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

And everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins

Poem: True Friendship by Alora M. Knight

 

It isn't the years,

It isn't the tears

That makes life worthwhile.

It's the memories that grew

And the people you knew

That will bring back a smile.

 

Mistakes that were made,

Plans often mislaid

Are a part of the past.

What you've kept in your mind

Is where you will find

What you wished to hold fast.

 

Some things in life

May be had without strife.

It can happen that way.

Still, a friendship is earned,

And where love is concerned,

I'm willed to say.

 

When life draws to a close,

Let me be one of those

To cry, "Life has been great!"

It's the friends that were made,

Those who lived unafraid.

That is proof of the world we create.

 

- Alora M. Knight

A Mad Man

 

Picture source

While going for morning walk, I saw a man by the side of the road. He was trying to pull out a long steel bar which was perhaps leftover from some nearby construction work. I did not pay much attention to him and kept going. After half an hour when I was returning, I saw him once again at the same spot from a distance. I tried to understand what he was doing, and here is what I got:

First, he was sitting on the road side, on the ground, in a “palthi” position (squatting). He had a gunny bag besides him. He rose and again tried to handle the steel bar and then it became clear what he was trying to do. Since the steel bar was too long, as the steel bars at construction sites are, he was trying to bend the steel bar into multiple bends in order to put it in that gunny bag! Perhaps in order to carry it to somewhere like his home or to some shop to sell it. Now I took a closer look at him to understand if he was mad. I saw that he had got all his clothes right. But the manner in which he was shaking and moving gave an impression that he was “drunk”! So, in a drunken state, he was trying to bend a long steel bar with his bare hands, in order to put it inside a gunny bag! I was sure that he would never be able to do it no matter how much he tried.

I don’t know what happened to him after I passed by. I don’t know for how many hours he tried to do it or if he fainted or got hit by a passing vehicle, since he was not in his senses. I definitely do not expect to see him tomorrow at the same spot. Whatever happens to him, I wish he gets back to his home safe and stays sober at least in the mornings.

- Rahul Tiwary

How to Avoid Corona Dialer Tune While Calling On Mobile

 

Ever since Corona virus outbreak happened, government enforced a special “Corona dialer tune” which callers have to listen to when they dial anyone's mobile number. It is an annoying monotone which goes on for too long while the person is just waiting helplessly to be able to talk to the person he called. At the time of any urgent need, this caller tune feels really painful. This is why so many people just hate it. We can’t say for sure which is worse: Corona virus of the Corona dialer tune! But, a few days back, I have found a workaround to avoid this painful experience of forced-listening to this dialer tune. And it is very simple!

All we have to do is summarized below:

1.       Dial the number

2.      As soon as Corona dial tune starts sounding, cut the call

3.      Dial immediately again

4.     This second time, there will be no Corona dial tune and call will ring normally.

I wonder why I could not find this method earlier. This is working for my Airtel network and you can try to validate if it works with other service providers networks too. Hope you will like this workaround. 

- Rahul Tiwary

Two Hugging Goats

 

On the way to my morning walk place, there is a ‘mutton shop’ by the side of the road. It is a usual scene to see goats lined up there for obvious purpose. The shop owner would be brining 8-10 goats in one lot; gradually their numbers would fall and before there would be none left, he would bring in the next lot. So, on that day I just made a casual look at the goats and noticed two interesting goats.

All goats were standing there, tied very close to each other, and facing the shop. But one goat on the extreme left was bending its neck and looking at the traffic! I wondered what it was thinking! And then I noticed that the goat next to it was even more curious. That goat was resting its neck over the neck of earlier goat, as if it was hugging the other goat, and was also looking towards the traffic! Rest all goats were facing the shop. It was a weird scene. The goats may not be knowing their fate, but only these two goats decided to have some distraction by watching the traffic (watching the traffic is a stress buster). And one decided to "hug" the other goat, which allowed it to do so, in almost a friendly manner.  

The only lesson I got out of this was that perhaps humor does not leave us no matter which circumstances we are in.

- Rahul Tiwary

Why I Stopped Using UPI for Small Payments

 

Recently, two things happened. First, I stopped making payments of small amounts using UPI (Unified Payment Interface). This may sound strange, but my reasoning was simple. Each time I made payment of a few rupees using UPI, the transaction got recorded in my bank account statement. If I download my bank account statement, it would run over a lot of pages. It would make it more difficult for me to find or track any important transaction, if such a need arises. Even if there is no need to read bank statement, I found it totally useless to have 100 pages of yearly bank statement comprising of thousands of small amount transactions of Rs 10, 20, 30 and so on. Did the designers of UPI never think about it? 

Once I stopped using UPI, I started using (digital) 'Wallet' for making such small payment. I would load my Wallet with a bigger amount, a couple of times every month using debit card or UPI, and then make use of the Wallet for small payments. It made sense, since the small payment records remained in the Wallet app and did not inflate my bank account statement with unnecessary data.

Now, what is the second thing that happened. I read a news that data showed that customers were using UPI for small payments in a big way and the trend would continue! The huge growth in UPI payments had led to average cash withdrawals from ATMs to increase, since people made small payments using UPI and extracted cash only when bigger payments were necessary.

Given my experience, it seemed as if I was going against the national trend. The national trend is towards UPI, while I have given up on UPI already. Does this mean that I, as an early adopter, have shown an early trend of quitting and other people are going to follow me too? Only time can tell.

I have also been thing about how technology is being called up for very simple activities, which is leading to harmful impact on the environment. I find it pretty useless to make computers, supercomputers, satellites, banking software and communication channels – all being called upon duty merely because I want to make a payment of Rs 10 using UPI to my neighboring tea stall. How about climate change and caring a bit about the environment? Why do we need sophisticated technologies (which all result in carbon emissions) for such a simple thing like making a payment of Rs 5 or 10?

It is to be seen which way the trend will go, but my current mood is clear – I have given up on UPI. UPI feels like a cold soulless capitalist machinery to me, which does harm to our environment and does no good to anyone except the companies running the show.

- Rahul Tiwary 

Bhuri Bai - Tribal Artist

 

I happened to see above painting in a newspaper yesterday and got intrigued to know more about the artist Bhuri Bai. I found that Bhuri Bai is a Bhil artist. She was born in Bhil (tribal) community in Madhya Pradesh. Initially she created art on the walls of her home and moved on to to start using acrylic colors and paper to make paintings. She has won many awards including the highest state honour accorded to artists by the Madhya Pradesh government, the Shikhar Samman.

You can read about her here on Asian Age website also:

A few of her other paintings are displayed here on Saffron Art website:

It is really great to see her paintings. I hope you liked those too.

- Rahul Tiwary 

Planning to Live Alone is a Bad Idea Any Day

A news item popped up while I was onto something. It was about some actress who was dead. Actors dying young these days does not shock us anymore, due to the excessive exposure to media and particularly related to Sushant death case. Anyways. Her name was Arya Banerjee.

I checked out the news. Found that she was an actress of only 33, She was the daughter of late sitarist Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. She had a master’s degree in classical music and she worked as a model before moving on to acting. She had done a few movies and she was currently living alone in her apartment in Kolkata.  

According to news reports, she was suffering from an ailment. But she lived alone along with her pet. She ordered food from restaurants daily. Last night, she had some food delivered to her flat, she ate it and fell on the floor and died due to her health problem. She only had her pet (perhaps dog) at home and hence no one knew about her situation. Only next morning when the housemaid came, she realized that the flat was locked from the inside and hence alerted neighbors and this led to the discovery of this tragedy.

I started typing the title of this blog post on Google and was shocked to see that after I typed “Planning to live”, it showed “alone” as the top ranked item. 

If it is not due to some cookies on my browser, it is an alarming trend. It tells that a lot of people are planning to live alone. And perhaps they do not realize the risks in their plan.

It is possible that Arya Banerjee’s unfortunate death could have been prevented if there was any other person in her house. Human beings are very fragile. Life may appear very easy, but in the words of a philosopher, given its fragility, life is a "miracle". Living alone is taking a huge risk. May be in the good days, everything will be fine. But if one is sick or in case of an accident, a small problem can snowball into a life threatening situation.

Let Arya Banerjee’s death serve as a warning to all those who are planning or thinking about living alone. Humans are social animals and we are best fitted for living along with our family, for our own safety and wellbeing. 

Om Shanti.  

- Rahul Tiwary

Cosmetic Tampering With Nature to Develop Pet Dog Breeds

If you notice pet dogs, most belong to certain breeds which have been developed through selective breeding over the time. If we look at different breeds of dogs, some have small legs, some are polite, while some others are dangerous. Humans wanted certain “traits” in their pet dogs, and hence they made them like that through selective breeding. For example, humans “made” some dog-breeds best fit for hunting and some others for companionship. All this has been done through selective breeding, i.e. not through any sophisticated scientific or medical process. But is it “fair” to do so?

When I notice some pet dogs, they have such tiny legs that they struggle to walk. Won’t they feel uncomfortable and if given a choice, won’t they choose to be taller? Some are so small in size, even smaller than cats. Perhaps they would fear even cats. What right humans have to make such small dogs, just because they looked cute, and make their whole life filled with “fear” (from other animals)? This is just a thought.

I tried to search the internet for articles and came across this one:

Any dog lover knows that Labrador retrievers are friendly, Dalmatians are hyper, and Australian shepherds are smart. Some dog lovers also know that Labradors are susceptible to hip dysplasia, while deafness and kidney stones run in Dalmatians. 

Breeding dogs for particular characteristics, or phenotypes, has been going on for centuries. Dogs are companions and workers, in service to humans, and they have thus been bred to accentuate desired traits. For instance, Dalmatians have long been coach dogs, in part because of their striking looks and their comfort around horses. Bred for endurance, they can run alongside horse-drawn carriages all day. When kept as a housebound family pet, however, a Dalmatian's excess of energy can make the dog seem wired and can lead to less desirable behaviors, such as gnawing on furniture.

"These restrictive breeding practices reduce effective population size and increase overall genetic drift among domestic dogs, resulting in the loss of genetic diversity within breeds and greater divergence among them," writes Ostrander, who participated in a landmark study of the genomic relationship of 85 different dog breeds.

I think that selective breeding of dogs just to make them be like something we can play with, is in a way their “exploitation”. If given freedom, dogs would naturally evolve to be stronger, better fitted for survival, and would have better health and wellbeing. But through selective breeding process, humans have reduced their natural evolution cycle and forced them to be like something static. It may not be good for the dogs as species. As we read above, some dog breeds are susceptible to certain health issues. And who is responsible for that?

Humans have been exploiting other species in so many ways, that this form of exploitation won’t be so visible. But just start thinking about it and you would open a Pandora box. For example, do you remember some people who claim to be “animal lovers” but keep pet dogs of breeds developed through selective breeding process? Is it “alright”?

- Rahul Tiwary