Look What I Drew

Puppy,

I think I'm getting brighter by the day. It's the spurt of growth that babies undergo. I better make the most of it while I'm young. Because, as you know, as I grow this phenomenon will decelerate. And by the time I am past 25, you know what happens to human beings. We have the illustrious example of my (our? of course not) parents.

While Dad comes up with new things, as much as he might want to believe, he still is improvising on the same patterns of discovery registered in his adult hardwired brain. Well, mother, I don't want to talk more about that side. A Dr. epithet is quite symbolic of eternal smugness and intellectual emptiness these days. Most people with Phds. or medicine degrees equate their accolade to a certification for menial chatter decorated with ostentatious diction but no worthwhile content.

If only puppies like you and babies like me had more exposure to the world, we would revolutionize canine and human thought, respectively. Alas, one day we will grow up to be numb and vain aspiring wannabes like the rest of them. And of course, terrorize children and exercise our absolute control over them, under the pretext of our baseless insecurity towards their future and general well-being. You will start marking your areas by urinating around the place....Gosh I don't know how I am going to take care of you then...sometimes I feel the Abrahamic vain attitude of Homocentrality of Creation is justified. Your species is quite a burden to the human species.

Any way, no point thinking about the inevitable....above is the picture I drew which shows you and me. I have written your name in Devanagari, just to make it seem all cool and cryptic. Some day if ever your IQ permits you to conceive gratitude, you could do something for me in return.

Baby Vaijayanthi.

Puppy's Story - Part 1

Hello Baby,

Oooh! You sent me a story! That was so thoughtful of you! I LOVE stories. In fact, since you took the trouble to type out a (part of a) long story for me, I'm going to return the favour. However, since I am only a puppy and my unevolved, canine brain is incapable of deep, philosophical thought, I will type out a racy detective story for you. This is the first part from one of those books that your mom, Dr. (Mrs.) Iyengar likes to read in her spare time. She even reads to me once in a while.

So here goes:

Chapter 1: In the Beginning, There Was Optimism

6.11 am, an undisclosed residential area of Madras City

Beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, click.

"Hello, you've reached the answering machine of Inspector Kann. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you."

Beep.

"Inspector Kann, this is Sub Inspector Mani. Call me back as soon as possible. There's been a murder."

Click.

Inspector Kann stirred. "Why do they always call when I'm having the best dreams?" he thought to himself and sat up in bed. Inspector Rajni Kann was not a tall man - about 5' 9" in his shoes, but he was, in the eyes of his subordinates and all that dared oppose him, a towering giant. Broad-shouldered and muscular, he inspired awe in his colleagues and struck fear in the hearts of criminals who had the misfortune of crossing his path.

Kann quickly showered and dressed himself, pausing for maybe a couple of extra seconds at the bathroom mirror to admire his “Policeman” moustache. “What’s the point of being a policeman if you don’t have a good moustache?” he would say to people who asked him about it. “Indeed, a vital part of a good Policeman’s image is his moustache. Without it, he might as well be a software developer or something equally mundane”.

He had to call Mani. A murder was Serious Business and it was not often that he had the opportunity to deal with Serious Business.

“Mani, where?”

“Good morning sir!”

“Drop the pleasantries and answer my question”

“East Coast Road, sir. You’ll see my jeep…”

Kann hung up abruptly. He was not one for chit-chat. Also, he did not like paying his cellular phone bill. His detractors did not believe this was coincidence. He closed the door of his 3^rd floor apartment behind him and ran down the stairs. Kann walked outside the complex to his car – an old, second-hand Honda City that he appropriated from a gangster who was now in jail. He didn’t like traveling by the police jeeps; “It makes me feel like I’m in a moving cage. I’m not an animal on display, you know? I’d much rather be in my own car”. He entered the car and turned the key in the ignition. The car came to life with a quiet growl.

After two minutes of meditative inaction, Kann sped out of his apartment complex to the crime scene.

To be continued…

Hope you enjoy it,

Puppy Manohar.

K9 Unit – sniffa dog 4eva!!!11one

A story

Dear Puppy Manohar,

The Ornots

"He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,	320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you." - The Wasteland, T.S Eliot.

The hour glass of morality topples from time to time. And the grains of value in one section slowly slip in to the empty but slowly filling bottom. Villains of one era become the heroes of the other. And vice versa, of course. Grains that were the last to slip in to the apparently despicable bottom during one toppling epoch are the first to be perverted in the next.

And vice versa, of course.

Chandrashekhar Ornot aka Chandra rode on one such grain. He belonged to the family of hereditary skeptics who questioned their values and changed their lifestyle every alternate generation. So thorough was their belief in this way of moral evaluation, that after ages and ages they had come up with an extensive corpus of documents that enlisted every aspect of life (as discovered by them in all their limitations of visualizing the infinte spectrum that is life) Generation after generation, the eldest son in the family would be given to the cause with a heavy heart by the mother. He would then spend the next few years of his life putting a simple “Or Not” in the end of every “Rule of Life”, alternatively if there existed an “Or Not” already, he would have to erase it. Chandra was the eldest son of Mr. Ravikrishnan. He had to follow this tradition as did his father and all other elder sons of the Ornot lineage.

Chandra was not quite unhappy with his Ornot lineage. He liked his family. He loved them more than anyone else in this world. But some idle Tuesday, whilst watching kids play, he would wonder how normal and laid back a life of a conformist must be. He was not envious of conformists. But some where deep inside his heart, he felt it was cool to conform. It made life simple he thought. Simple enough to bother being an unwarranted maverick and adjust with people who dislike rebellion. Simple enough to avoid wasting long intelligent man hours in philosophizing life. Simple enough to circumvent the responsibility of coming up with newer “Fundamental Truths”. Truths, that will give way to new “Rules of life” for his eldest son to “Or Not”.

He felt sorry for his father. His father had spent a long time coming up with innovative “Rules of life”. He had lived those rules religiously. He had dedicated his entire life towards his principles. Principles that would change the way people thought, that would revolutionize an entire generation. He had to watch his only son, “Or Not” all that. He had to watch his son conform to all the old traditions and truths of his forefathers that he spent his whole life “Or not”ing. Every night, when he closed his eyes, Chandra saw the agonized face of his father. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t fathom the amount of pain he had caused his father just to continue the way of his ancestors - the same list of ancestors that his father was a member of.

Chandra had a gargantuan task in front of him. He had spent all of his adolescence and most of his early youth negating the “Book of Rules”. He now had to meditate upon some of his own rules. He had to research life and find new truths. This, he knew, took a lot of contemplation. It wasn’t that he was unsure of himself but he was now questioning the whole premises upon which this tradition was based. He was wondering if he could stop this madness (if he could be that audacious to call it that) so that his son would not go through what he had undergone.

The Plate Alarm Rings….

"I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of."

-Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Chandra was ten. He was called by his mom whilst playing.

“Chandra”, she screamed.

“Yes, mom.”

“Time for you to come home”

“But its just been an hour and 3 minutes; I still have 27 minutes to go”

“Time for you to come home”

“But I still have to time..”

Then he heard the rigging sound of the spoon being hitting on the steel plate. His lamenting was in vain. It was the “Plate Alarm”. There was no point arguing with anyone when the plate alarm rang. All the children in the town ran into their houses hopping straight to the comforting security of their fathers' hugs. But not Chandra. He knew he had to wait where he stood. In the center of the playground stood his mother drumming a huge spoon on a large steel plate. The whole village knew what to expect. But not Chandra. He knew he had to wait where he stood, he was told that once in his life time (and only once) his mother would come out in the center of the playground and play the “Plate Alarm”. He was told that when that happened, he would stand wherever he was, and memorize all the best things that have happened to him as a child. Relive them; those joyful moments of childhood in his mind, for that was it, his childhood was over. The “Plate Alarm” terrorized the other kids as they knew its ringing meant some little innocent Ornot has just lost his childhood. They felt fortunate to have not been Ornot. But somewhere in their little egalitarian minds, they felt it was cool to be one.

..to be continued

regards,

Baby Vaijayanthi.

oh baby you're so fine I wanna make you mine- backstreet boys

Oh Baby Baby

Dear Baby V,

A weird feeling has come over me. I don't know what it is. It puzzles me a fair amount, so I am looking at your dull semi-awake face for some clarity.

Why are we here, baby V? What is our purpose? Do I exist merely to make sure that the feeding bowl gets filled 3 times a day? Do you exist merely for the aunties and uncles to come in and have something to say "OOOOHHHH CHOOOO CHWWWWWEEEETTTT!!!111" to?

Why are we here, baby V?

I have a feeling this is what they call mid-life crisis. You know, there comes a time in every puppy's life when it must evaluate what has happened until this moment and plan for the future. I know I should not be disappointed - I have in you and Mr. and Dr (Mrs.) Iyengar a very caring and responsible family, but I still feel something is missing.

Sigh, why are we here, baby V?

When I was a little puppy (much littler than I am now), I had dreams. Not the explicit kind, although I get those as well, but dreams - plans for my future as a big doggie. I dreamed that I would have a nice dogly bark, I would terrorise the birds in the garden. I dreamed I would be big and authoritative. I dreamed I could growl and bark and chase the postman when he delivers the letters for the day, and maybe even the newspaper man if I found the drive to wake up that early in the morning.

I was an ambitious little pup, baby. Now look at me. The birds chatter loudly as if to mock me. I am halfway between a yap and a woof - no aggressive, loud bark for Puppy Manohar. I think sometimes I need female canine company. But sadly, the only things females are interested in are funny email forwards and sad, metaphorical poetry.

I'm glad I have you. Everytime you throw your little sponge ball into the garden and I run after it, I feel as if my existence is validated, even if only for a little while.

Thank you for everything, baby V.

North South East West,
you are the very best.

With licks of love,

Puppy Manohar

I Snoop; I'm a doggie dog!

Baby Vaijayanti's Father

Dear Puppy Manohar,

Heres an essay I wrote for 10 marks.

My Father - Baby Vaijayanthi

My father is a peculiar man, never the less as they all say (and as good Indians ought to) I am proud of him. He stands six feet tall, broad shoulders and in his prime must have swept a lot of women off their feet. He is straight but does not like to look at other peoples wives or jazzy women walking on the street seeking attention (like Vijay's dad or for that matter all grown women). He prefers to walk on street pondering over situations that would never ever happen. Come to think about it, its a tough task, but as mother would put it, "Has no utility what so ever". But its a cool thing, you know, like he comes up with the most irrelevant gifts one could ever give ex. an ipod to your grandmother, a years stalk of staple pins to your father in law or irrelevant inventions like a tea cup with a USB Port. I thinks its pretty futuristic and I believe my dad is cool.

My father is an industrious and sincere worker. He works as a chair at his office. People sit on him.Thats his job. He loves it. Also, of all the other chairs at his branch, people prefer to sit only on him. Everyone who is anyoe sits on him. He is a great team player and is loved and appreciated in his team. He is commended for his work ethic and never say die attitude. Being an extremely versatile professional, he also proactively manages to become a ladder. There is nothing more satisfying than to see people climb up on your shoulders, he says. He has also taken up various other positions for the benefit of the company he works for. Once, he was, much to his ignorance deployed as a corporate spy by the HR. I will one day grow up to become a chair just like my dad. I hope, by then, women are seen in better light as professionals in India than they are seen today.

On account of his superior gene pool and fairer complexion, he acquires a special position in our patriarchal family hierarchy. My mother, apparently, fell for him due to this very reason and her family in their infinite eugenic consciousness were quick to comply. My father, though is not a racist, can not stand people with silly pants. He believes all humans are created equal and should be discriminated only on the basis of their trousers. According to him people with no sub-pelvic dressing sense are uncivilized savages who need to be reformed. This, according to our family psychiatric is a psychological disorder probably induced due to the tight pants he was made to wear as a 70s kid.. Alternatively, according to the doctor, this could be a genetic trait, because all our family patriarchs have always maintained some peculiar criterion to discriminate people and essentially reproach their ways of life to render them inferior. But many of our family members have insisted that the psychiatric is "a smug liberal bastard who just wants to show off his Ivy league education with his ostentatious scientific language and egalitarian concepts of the 18th century french gay-warts". I don't like my religion (that much).

Me and my father spend a lot of time together. We generally do a lot of experiments together. My father despises dogs. He admittedly, does not quite like Manohar's presence in the family. He believes its an act of clear intrusion. "The country is going to the dogs", he mutters. Manohar, does not wear pants. This according to him is a clear sign that he is not suitable for our family. "If after, such long association with the humans, dogs did not learn to wear pants, they never will" But he believes that he can successfully transform Manohar in to a human being. According to the Ancient Hindu Science, Manohar was a Brahmin boy who committed adultery in his last birth. Consequently, he is a dog in this birth. My father is not a huge fan of Karma. Never the less, he diligently and open mindedly considers all avenues towards achieving our goals. Besides such research we also do simple experiments like converting household spices in to opiates like morphine. Recently, we trapped a female anopheles in a transparent plastic container (initially filled with mouth-freshners) We intend to investigate her intestinal contents to track her path. This research according to dad would have serious ramifications in various fields from criminal psychology to immunology.

My father would get a Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal if that happens. I would proud to see my dad get a nobel prize.

regards,

Baby V

"My father's canine hating heterosexual" (in the tune of "Papa Kehte hai")