RIP

My dog died last night. I never thought I would be the kind of person who would write about my pet dying, but here I am. My parents were crestfallen, they sat by her body the whole night and buried her on the banks of narmada in the morning.

She was a shriveled pup when she was brought to our house 7 years ago. My dad loved her from day one and so did my sister. My ma who has had experience with dogs before was of the opinion that it should be a master-pet relationship and discipline shouldn’t be compromised. When I was asked, I would list 100 different advantages of having a pet. That was it for me, a pet. Duties were assigned in the house about taking care of her ( I and my sister didn’t live in the city, we were both studying , so we weren’t given any, except the occasional helping around). Ma trained her really well, she never climbed beds, or other furnitures, had great sanitary habits ( read it as, never pissed or excreted in the house), even get her paws washed after coming back from the walk ( I still don’t know how Ma taught her that !! ). She defined roles of her own for us. Ma was the bread-giver, strict ,no-nonsense kind. I was a member of the family, who seemed no-nonsense and always kept a distance, Dad absolutely love her, she couldn’t live without him and my sister was this little kid in the house, who everybody loved and bossed around. I was most of the times a mute observer to how my family reacted to this dog and how it reacted back. Analysing and humouring myself that I was trying to learn some dog psychology or in turn human psychology.

Slowly and steadily I wasn’t too sure of myself anymore. I found myself getting attached to this canine inadvertently. One part of my brain said, it is just a pet, the other part could clearly see a personality in her. Whenever my dad dressed up and took out the car keys, she would jump around making a ruckus, clutching her belt in her mouth, as if pleading to take her in the car too. She loved occupying my mom’s seat in the car, that is right in the front, next to my dad. Whenever Ma used to “tell” her that my sister was about to return from the hostel, she would sit on the chair in the balcony, overlooking the road, as if waiting for her. And as soon as she spotted her on dad’s scooter or car, she would jump from her chair and rush down the stairs to greet her by jumping on her and licking her hand. She used to treat my sister as a kid, not really listening to her scoldings, daring to pinch away the food from her plate, but as soon as anyone of us tried scolding my sister, she used to bark out incessantly, as if protecting her. She used to get jealous if I and sister were spending a lot of time with my dad. She would keep her head in my dad’s lap or paw him to get his attention. She was the sole companion of my Ma, for months together when dad was out for work. Needless to say, Ma had softened a huge deal towards her. Overlooking her minor mistakes and sometimes even pampering her.

She seemed to have got some kind of uterus infection because she was losing a lot of blood and had stopped eating. During the last days, when the vet gave up all hopes, Ma used to try to feed her with a spoon, some milk or porridge. She had a peaceful expression on her face, when she died, Ma said.

I wish I was there. I don’t know how would have I reacted to see her dying in front of me. All I know is, it would be sad returning back home now, knowing that she wouldn’t be around to jump on me and lick my hand as soon as I enter those gates.

Rest In Peace.

Not all deceit is malevolent.

The comic strip can be found here.
Caption says - "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" :)

Power of conviction

An excerpt from Neil Gaiman's interview :
"and I feel like the gods smiled on me, and I got very lucky. Normally, in anything I do, I'm fairly miserable. I do it, and I get grumpy because there is a huge, vast gulf, this aching disparity, between the platonic ideal of the project that was living in my head, and the small, sad, wizened, shaking, squeaking thing that I actually produce."
There have been really few, rare times when I have felt truly satisfied with myself. And when i do i feel i take on the world.
Power of Conviction is indeed strong.

Irony

Why is that,
The more i know,
the less i want to speak.
why is that,
The deeper the bonds,
the lesser i seem to know.
why is that,
Sum is greater than its parts,
Is the story behind nearly everything.

An ode to sci-fi

With the frenzy of activity going on these days at CERN, whether the elusive "God's particle - Higgs Boson" would be found at the end of the collision of high energy proton beams in the world's longest/largest particle collider, whether the string theory would at last be vindicated against all those who claimed to be nothing more than Humbug, with hawkings betting 100$ on the fact that Bosons would continue to be elusive, i got into this weird mood after a long time.
Where i feel a certain peace in getting lost in myriad possibilities about life and evolution of the universe, we being a part of it. The more weirder the ideas are, the more peaceful i feel. Right now i feel like picking up something like Eater or Furious Gulf and reading them with a cup of hot coffee . To imagine how a magnetic field could evolve to become paradimensional intelligent being or to wander in an alternate space-time like an esty.
There are these rumours created around the experiment, like mini blackholes would be created in the accelerator, which would suck in everything and ultimately the world would end. I think they are pretty baseless, because the safety of the experiment has been substantiated by thousand of scientists. There are some extremely curious to the extent of being perilous, people like my friend K, who is actually hoping that something would go wrong. According to him, an experiment is more interesting when things go wrong.
Anyways, so this got reminded me of this brilliant short story written by Asimov called the "The last question". It was sent to me by my friend AG. Now, if I am skywalker, He is ObiWan of sci-fiction. We have a Yoda too ;) ( Right AG ? I dont know how SWK would look with pointy ears though :D).The flavour is similar to what Doughlas Adams 's Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy about the "ultimate question" of life,universe and everything, but has a very skilful ending.
I recently watched the whole series of star-wars (all 6 in 2 days), on being loathed by my friend A, on calling myself a sci-fi fan, without having watch the The great Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi in action. She then asked me what did i think of it from the sci-fiction perspective. I found myself carefully contemplating for an answer. "Hard core science fiction for sure", I said. On why i didnt like it that much, I concluded that i got used to the benefords and baxters too soon. For that matter, I am guilty of not being able to enjoy even "The time machine" by H.G wells. Which brought up a question, how does one grade a good science fiction ?
Firstly, the novelty of the ideas, which are supported by enough science, again it shouldnt be just any theory out of thin air, they should mainly be an extrapolation of science we already know today, the more unexplored realm it is, the better. (Like a living magnetic field or BiCentinnial Man, Btw I think Asimov is the best person who has explored the thin line between artificial intelligence and cognition) .
Second the normal consistency of the story against the backdrop of science.
And third, the ending. Sometimes its a message, ( like the humorous one in THGTG, God's last message to the humans ? - "Sorry for the inconvenience" -- I laughed out loud for some 10 minutes at that one ), sometimes a shock ( "The last question" , it just "fits" ).

*Sigh*, I need a hard core science fiction novel right now !

Got this brilliant link: