Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Memories of a Sunset

 

Yesterday, I came across this very beautiful sunset picture in a photoblog that reminded me of a wonderful sunset we had witnessed almost an year ago.

5th of May 2011.

We were rushing through the wide expansive plains of Madhya Pradesh, the largest and centre most state of our country. Destination – Agra- the city of The Taj Mahal in Uttar Pradesh.

Remember the time we shifted from Hyderabad to Delhi last year? Yes, that is the road trip I am talking about.

It was day two. We started from Betul, a town in Madhya Pradesh where we’d halted for the night at a serene little guesthouse, at around 8 AM. With a goodnight’s rest and a light breakfast behind us we were all set to negotiate the 720.5 km on National Highway 3 to Agra. ‘Google maps’ told us we should be there in about 10 hours 29 mins. But we knew that would easily come to just over 12 hours. From all the road trips that we’d taken, we have learned one thing. Google maps always seemed to assume you are a Nascar driver on a Nascar track!

Anyway, it was a lovely day. Bright and chirpy with clear blue skies for miles.

 

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Madhya Pradesh is India’s largest state located right at the heart of our country. Home to the highly endangered Tigers and a very large variety of beautiful wild flora and fauna, this state is breathtakingly beautiful. As we drove through large open plains which were actually National Parks (Click here pls), we did hope to come across some.

But except for the huge packs of different species of Monkeys, we hardly came across any other form of wild life.

I guess we should be thankful and not disappointed because it meant they are all safe far deep in the wild.

 

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It took us the entire day to reach the outskirts of Gwalior.

Gwalior – a city with a rich heritage dating back to the days of the kings and Maharajas. As much as we wanted to explore the beautiful palaces that are a signature aspect of this old city, we just couldn’t afford to.

We still had nearly 130 kilometres to cover before we could retire for the night. That easily meant 3 hours.

The road gets better from this point on. We would be finally on the multi lane express highway after having driven through two way roads the entire day. But it was twilight and the blinding headlights of the heavy approaching traffic would significantly cut down our speed..

Added to that, the heavy traffic mess we were certain to encounter as soon as we entered Agra would ensure that it will be way past midnight before we reached the hotel we had booked for the night.

 

It made sense to keep on driving and not take a break now. To try and cover as much distance as we could before it got really dark.

But we were all rather tired. Buddy in particular. He’d never rested, preferring to be on all four paws for most parts of the day. He now looked weary. Ginger, my serene little girl was as quiet as ever. But she too seemed exhausted. Shadow surprisingly was doing the best. He had slept away most of the journey - on his back with all four paws kicking the air. Now, as the day drew to a close, he seemed wide awake and well rested. At just 10 months of age, he was doing rather well. Except for the fact that he refused to eat anything and just drank a lot of water, he was just fine.

 

We just had to take a break.

And suddenly, as if by sheer force of our wish we came across this beautiful, almost idyllic little railway station.

 

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It was so lovely, so peaceful. There was this beautiful orange glow behind it, the hint of a magnificent sunset. This was our cue to stop and stretch our legs and paws before we hit the Expressway.

It was worth it. I managed to capture memories of one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever witnessed. Memories of an exciting road trip that will stay with us all forever….

 

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The last picture was taken through the windshield. I had sprayed it with water to just try and see how it would look had the sunset been captured through a drizzle!

 

 

Friday, March 23, 2012

A LETTER TO GOD


Dear God, Is it on purpose our names are the same, only reversed?

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Dear God,  Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?

 

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Dear God, When we get to heaven, can we chase the cat? Or is it still the same old story?

 

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Dear God, Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a Dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around?

We do love a nice ride! Would it be so hard to rename the 'Chrysler Eagle' the 'Chrysler Beagle'?

 

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Dear God, If a Dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad Dog?

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Dear God, We Dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?

 

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Dear God, More meatballs, less Dog food, please.

 

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Dear God, Are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are, will we have to apologize?

 

 

Thursday, March 15, 2012

REX

Our friend Mario at Mario’s Meowsings told us this story about Rex and his human handler Leavey. Both of them are survivors of the horrific war in Iraq. Together,they have been through the experiences of staying, eating, sleeping and working in a war ravaged country you and I can only just imagine.

Disabled during one of their missions, his human returned home to New York. Rex was still in service after he was back in the US but some time back he was diagnosed with facial palsy and was declared unfit to serve.

It is only so natural that Leavey wants to live the rest of her life with Rex and has applied to adopt her partner from her war days.
But seems like it isn’t going to happen so easily. Red tape, government regulations- whatever you want to call it, Leavey isn’t being allowed to adopt Rex.
The authorities want to put down the ten year old dog instead of letting him live a civilian life!

We think it is ridiculous and utterly inhuman and so do a lot of  people from all over the world.
We think we must try to make those people with authority change their minds and let Rex and Leavey live together. A lot of things have been accomplished earlier when a huge lot of us come together and raise our paws. So lets try and do this once again.

Pets For Patriots.org is trying to re-unite them. Please support this cause in whichever way you can…blog, like on facebook or sign this petition.

Just please try and spread the word. You can read his complete story here as well.

Rex certainly deserves to live the rest of his days in peace, loved and cared for by someone he loves.


rex
(Googled picture)


Wags,
Ginger, Buddy n Shadow 


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

MARCH FOG??

It’s the middle of March now. Exactly the middle…isn’t it 14th today? Whoever has heard of fog on a warm March morning?
Well, may be it is not all fog. What with everyone using their motorized vehicles even for a stone throw’s distance and foregoing the simple pleasure of walking, it must be smog. Whatever it is, we weren’t quite amused when we looked outside today morning. The world looked kind of dirty.


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(Normally, it looks like this and you can feel a nice,fresh breeze)
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Every morning, for the last couple of months, we have been enjoying the spring morning sun relaxing on the little bed Daddy has set up for us on the balcony.
This part of our home is East facing.This means the sun shines directly bright and nice every morning on this balcony for about 2 hours before it moves away due west. Unfortunately, this balcony has a half wall which makes it impossible for us to look at the outside world while lying down. So on our request (Read ‘ after getting really depressed, restless and claustrophobic! staring at the wall’) Daddy fixed this bed for us. It is well cushioned and very comfortable and is just at the right height so we can look outside while relaxing.



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It is undoubtedly Buddy’s favourite place in the whole house. He seems to spend almost 2/3rd of the day out there on the bed even after the sun has moved on.

I, Ginger, generally prefer the couch and Shadow keeps shifting from the bedroom to the living-room sofa to the TV room.


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Daddy’s favourite  place is without doubt the TV room.
And Mummy’s? Well, she says hers is wherever we are all sitting together..the entire family.

Wags,
Ginger


Pee ess : In answer to your question, Jed and Abby - Shadow had a sudden anaphylactic reaction, a very severe one on the night of 18th of Feb. Mummy says she will write about it soon. She wants to take the time and do it properly so whatever we learnt from the harrowing experience might be of help to someone someday. Buddy had his neutering surgery done on the 15th of Feb. Routine procedure, but not routine for an older dog. He had a slightly difficult recovery. Both of them are doing quite well now. Thanks a lot.

Monday, March 12, 2012

One day….

 

Many of you will surely connect with this poignant sketch….

Shared and re-shared by hundreds on Facebook, I just had to share it with you.

 

loved n lost

 

 

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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Just US

We didn’t play Holi this time. Neither did Mummy n Daddy. Just too lazy to let the holiday pass by. After a long time, here was a day none of us had any engagements, no hospital duty or appointments to attend to.

It was a beautiful spring morning. We woke up to the sounds of laughter, good-humored screaming and loud music. Not everyone in our colony was being as lazy as us!

A short walk and a late breakfast later we settled down to watch ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. The English version, with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig in it.

Quite an engrossing movie full of all the ingredients that make you stick to your sit. High drama, murder mystery, lost girl, ominous background score, rich fishy businessmen and even fishier family, lovely locales and interesting photography. But at the end of it all, Daddy declared he liked the Danish version better. Yes, he had already watched it much earlier.

We just had to go back and watch the original 2009 version. And it was worth the trouble.

Män som hatar kvinnor’ has a much more organized line of story telling. The way the mystery unfolds here is very structured as compared to the English version. And the sub-titles are so good that you do not even realize you were watching a movie in a language that is completely French to you. Well, Danish, if you like!

Watch the 2011 version if you must. You certainly won’t be disappointed.

Well, we can’t write about this anymore lest we turn out to be spoilers. So go watch it and tell us if you liked it.

 

Anyway, here are a few ‘HOLI’ pictures for you. We fished these out from our old collection just to relive the spirit of Holi.

These are from a beach holiday with some friends, way back in 2009. We were living in Hyderabad then and I, Ginger was an only fur-child.

The two labs you see in the pictures are my friends Mogli and Krazy.

 

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Wish the pictures looked as colourful as the real colours were. Either the sun was too bright or ..ahem..the photographer messed up. Believe me, those colours look so much brighter and livelier in real life. Much like those beautiful flowers blooming all around us here at this time of the year…

 

Wags,

Ginger

 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

SPRING…HOLI…Us…

It’s Holi tomorrow. The bright, vibrant festival of colours.

 

Spring’s here with all of this season’s radiant energies, smells and colours. Holi is like the official announcement of Spring. Like we try hard to equal the pallete of colours nature splashes all around us.

The flowers are in full bloom, the trees greener, the birds chirpier…

The subject of so many movies, songs, legends and poems, this beautiful festival never fails to inspire a sense of delight and joy in every Indian heart.

Here the world outside is already busy with preparing for the festivities and I am cocooned in my office tending to patients. Yes, tomorrow is a holiday but the spirit catches on and I have been restless since morning.

Bright colorful stalls all around selling lovely powders in a myriad colours are just too delicious a subject for an avid street photographer like me. And believe it or not, I haven’t had the chance to take even a single photograph yet!

 

Alright. All’s not lost yet. I still have today evening and the whole day tomorrow.

Am I playing Holi? Well, I don’t know yet. Buddy is still recovering from his surgery and I am not taking a chance with Shadow after the shock he gave us all the other day.

(I know, I know, there’s so much to tell and I haven’t been sharing much.I am sorry, but things have been very difficult for me in the last couple of months and we are all just recovering)

Yes, you do get heaps of hypoallergenic, organic colours these days but I don’t think I would like to take a chance with my kids. May be we will just go out and catch up with some friends we have been ignoring for a thousand years.

And I’m hoping I’ll have some pictures to show.

Till then…I leave you with one of my favourite Spring Pictures

 

spring

 

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