I just realized something. When man makes an engine, he is trying to imitate nature. Nature has its own cycle, which to me, appears to begin with gravity.The gravitational pull of the sun keeps planets from flying away. The earth rotates on its orbit and we have day, night and the seasons. In addition to this, gravity on earth allows complex living things to form on it and thrive. It's kind of automatic.

This is what man attempts to replicate. When a key starts the ignition, it kick starts a process the machine moves, apparently on its own. So all machinery is man trying to capture the essentials of a natural process, and make it work for as long as possible for his own convenience.
And this is me with a blanket on top of the heater and that is my dog sharing the hot blanket. A good example of how we capture the heat with the blanket and stay warm the whole December day.

e

https://www.ted.com/talks/bruno_torturra_got_a_smartphone_start_broadcasting#t-383673

A puzzle beyond logic

Why do directors cast middle aged men as romantic leads? That too opposite a teen?
Was just watching a musical. This clearly not young, not romantic looking man is shown watching a girl bathing in a water fall. This actor was doing his best to look enamoured by 'the vision" traipsing in water.
I mean, is it possible for an actor that age to pull it off? why do these actors rehash feelings that they may have probably felt decades before?
And it was not meant to be comical. We are supposed to believe that this "young man" is in the throes of passion.

A successful romantic hero is one whose image can encapsulate the stuff a woman's dream is made of.
This person clearly wasn't that material and he was middle aged. He won't sell.
Stranger still was the moment in the movie when the girl catches him watching her. For some reason she is transfixed.
But she, actually pulled it off.

These are cold days

It's cold now. Just sixteen degrees, and yet to my unprepared South Indian self, it's cold. I had not get any footwear for this weather out of the closet. (For those of you who are not familiar with South Indians: Deep down the south, people, in small towns and villages, don't wear any footwear at all. And you have to tell new comers to the city, that they should own at least one pair of black shoes. And they reply. "Why? We don't get it!!!" I am actually forbidden to wear footwear inside a building. You will find people from some parts always removing their foot wear before they enter a home.) So today I found the floor to be icy cold.

During my online class my feet started to tingle with cold. so I decided to get my blanket. Zelda was lying on it, and growled at me. So I pulled another black one and threw it around.

The warrior princess  was enraged to find a mammoth black creature walking about the house, and barked so loudly that my on line student realized that his teacher had taken a break without excusing herself.

Black black black curse of the caste system

Many educated Indians are uncomfortable talking about caste! They say, "All that has changed!" We don't believe in caste any more, is what they think. The truth is they have not given the matter much thought because these people are usually from the metros which have a cosmopolitan environment. They do not realize the way in which caste is embedded into our psyches.

To explain it from my own experience, a great Marathi woman lived opposite to my house. She deserves a separate post, and I will merely mention that she was a honest high ranking official, who stood up against very powerful and ruthless politicians and yet spoke in gentle tones and was totally unassuming. Behind my house lived a family of Bengalis. The lady of the house taught a variety of Indian dances and made all the kids perform on stages that are coveted by professionals. A Hungarian national with eight kids lived next door. There was a rumour that the man was the third husband of the woman, and we all gossiped about it pretending that such a thing was unbelievable. Actually, we kids were mute witnesses to the cheating and flirtation that adults in our society indulged in, just as they did in probably every human society.

What I am trying to point out is that the metro city can be very cosmopolitan, and children brought up in such places do not know how caste in India actually works. The metros are a very tiny part of India, although they support millions of people. Millions more live in second tier cities, millions and milllions more live in towns and villages, and here a human being is classified based on his caste. High caste people insist on being revered for the simple reason that they were born into high caste families. Low caste people are looked down upon as of inferior birth. And this is just the beginning of the unhappy tale of rank cruelty and injustice. What can we do about it, if we don't even know it exists?

Logical seven year old.

And then there was this third grader in my online class to whom I had just said that a sibling was a brother or a sister.
"So, is the step brother or step sister also called a sibling?"
"No!" I said instantly.
But that was a brilliant question!!!!
"Any way some step brothers or sisters could be close and could have been brought up together and may feel like siblings."

Over the one hour we were on line, we did a lot of other work, but towards the end of the class his question kept niggling my battered brain. So I looked it up on line and found something to tell him
A step brother or sister is called a half sibling.
A logical lawyer in the making...that kid!!!

Horror is the new magic!!!

Horror seems to be the favourite theme for teachers this term.My student online wrote this after we watched a couple of horror clips in class.

Once there was an eight year old girl, who had to be left alone after her parents got invited to a place. The girl got bored and so she put on the radio, and listened to the news. Suddenly there was a headline about a man, who was a murderer and who had escaped from prison. She got really scared. So she turned off the radio, and went to her room. She hada dog to keepher company. Thinking that she was under the bed, she put her hand under the bed, and it started licking her hand.
After a few minutes,she ran downstairs to get a snack. Then she heard a loud howling noise near her bathroom. So she ran up to see what happened, and when she stepped into her bathroom, she saw her dog howling in the bath tub. She got really upset. She chanced to look into the mirror, and there she
 saw

a writing in blood saying, "Did you check under the bed?"

Sharing my students' work seems like a great way to blog!!!

Magical treats...

Ever heard of  a teacher trying to eat in class without the knowledge of her students? Especially in an on line class with a particularly brilliant and committed student?

Do you think she should have resisted the Hyderabad fruit biscuits?

Why even cut open the plastic cover on the box with a pencil, in stealthy silence?
Is a mere language teacher such an expert at moving her head away from the camera to bite into the treats?

Should she have eaten so many?
Was she seen? Did she appear normal to the student?
Well...The student sounded cheerful enough when she said ,"Bye!"

POOF! POOF! End of some magic.

Heard that we have lost my favourite star  Shah Rukh khan's health and creativity to hard drugs, and in spite of being considered a brand in his own right, he is over. The last few films are a proof to his decline. Nevertheless, he has come a long way, made his mark and of course, accumulated unimaginable amount of wealth, apart from having millions of fans.

In this imperfect world, we are better off thinking of the several moments the khan managed to enliven the silver screen with his special brand of charisma. We have to acknowledge that those moments will always overshadow the mediocrity that we see in his recent work.

True, there must a few in the entertainment industry, who are not victims of substance abuse, but they are so few in number. The goddess of commercial art demands sacrifice of such individuals, it seems.

The magic of cinquain

My student, a girl of  eight or nine wrote these cinquains.
A learning experience for me....

Flowers
yellow, purple
dancing, swaying,hanging
A colourful picture in view
Dazzling

Kitten
playful, naughty
chasing, playing, staring
Soft furry skin against my foot
Tiny

London
massive, concrete
spinning, walking, shopping
We saw the London bridge open
Awesome!

Being Logical...

People's perception of their financial situation is largely based on how their family members think of and speak of their status.When children hear a parent complain repeatedly of financial troubles, they believe that they are in deep trouble. I have counselled students who begin by talking of a financial crisis in the family, but no sooner do I quote the fee for a high end course, than they pull out the full sum in unsoiled currency notes.Such young people truly believe that they are in deep financial trouble.My guess is that they have an extrovert for a parent, who constantly talks of how difficult it is for them theses days, to pay bills, to manage, etc..

When it comes to paying the fee for a course, it is those who are perceived as 'very rich', who pay late. The ones from a lower middle class or even impoverished families pay the fee in instalments, but on the exact dates on which they promised to. The obviously 'rolling in cash' types, in very expensive coiffured, clothed and perfumed glory, rattle away for weeks without shelling out a single pie. But it would seem deeply offensive and cheap to remind them of the fee. Sometimes this goes beyond the last date for payment.

The moral of the story is each person should understand finance in an objective way. Then we would know how much money we need, and plan exactly how to spend our time based on those needs. Or else we would undergo undue anxiety and stress.

From A.E.Housman's "A Shropshire Lad"

 Nature's beauty inspired the ones who cared to luxuriate in it, as well as those who moved through life half awake,and whose subconscious would still have gained from its glorious beauty.Today,the barrenness and toxicity of polluted and contaminated environment have the opposite effect on us.May we all work towards making the earth a greener place.

REVEILLE

          Wake: the silver dusk returning
           Up the beach of darkness brims,
          And the ship of sunrise burning
           Strands upon the eastern rims.


Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
           Trampled to the floor it spanned,
          And the tent of night in tatters
           Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

          Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
           Hear the drums of morning play;
          Hark, the empty highways crying
           "Who'll beyond the hills away?"

          Towns and countries woo together,
           Forelands beacon, belfries call;
          Never lad that trod on leather
           Lived to feast his heart with all.

          Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
           Sunlit pallets never thrive;
          Morns abed and daylight slumber
           Were not meant for man alive.

          Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
           Breath's a ware that will not keep
          Up, lad: when the journey's over
           There'll be time enough to sleep.

News, of wars in Ukraine, Syria, Nigeria and Iran.....So sickening and scary to realize how different life is, depending on where you are born. Maxims, ideologies, words: all aspects of language seem totally incapable of describing the chaos of reality, and the convoluted working of the brain of the animal called man who creates this chaos.
The lesson seems to be that we have to pay for the consequences of being less than totally watchful for signs of discord. An editor of an Indian newspaper has written that although having a government with religious affiliation is a negative, it has at least torn of the hypocrisy of secularism that pervaded in India.
How many times within the doors of a home or in the middle seat of a running car, or during the casual conversations of acquaintances and distant relatives have we all heard disparaging words that describe people who belong to different religions and castes? Within India, violence is mostly caste based, although the minority religions live in varying degrees of comfort or discomfort, depending on their level of education and economic status.

India is hardly aware of or owning up to the injustice within the nation. Divisive forces love this situation, as it gives them scope to draw loyalists to their camp. To top it, there are posts on social media about our military capabilities and how it will be strengthened. Luckily, there are only a few, because Indians rarely watch the news. Only cricket and cinema interests them. But this lethargy is not sufficient to save us.
Today, I read an account of the American journalist who was in captivity in Syria for more than two years, and could feel that he wanted to say so many things, but could not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?_r=0

Millions are not aware of what's happening, and are blissfully ignorant of how this could happen to them too.

My online class was tough today. It was with a student preparing for his GCSE. For a person his age, this student is quite serious about improving his writing skills, and getting good grades. But when he is not working on an assessment and is attending a class without a goal, he is sometimes distracted.

I began by asking him what he did in school that day. He said he was doing AQA fact finding, I feverishly typed the words trying to find some work for him to do, while at the same time making small talk about it.
First my connection was slow. Then I realized that the file I had downloaded was not about English but dance. So, I quickly found another one. But the class proved to be tough.

Its North Indian Diwali today; people completed their Lakshmi Pooja and started bursting crackers, just as the class started. It was horrible for three reasons.

1. The student has no deadline, and was not focussed.
2. his mike is horrible even on days when he is serious
3. there was a din of crackers and drums outside the home.

We indulged in a shouting match, and I was winner, because he just pretended not to hear anything.Then he kind of excused himself and went somewhere. I don’t like these moments not only because my authority is totally ignored, but also because it is not good in the long run for my profession, if students don’t gain from such classes. I can visualise the student wait for the opportune moment to say, “Oh that class is not all that useful.” and the parents and others agreeing to stop it. Hmmmm….

Any way, the last twenty minutes I got him to do an exercise.

The magic of the ideal and the logic of being far away from it.

I love the ideal and then I love myself too. You knew that counting the number of Is in that sentence, right? Coming back to the point, the situation of being far removed from the ideal does not make me jealous of perfect lives. I am a fan of perfectly good looking, totally kind hearted and brilliant, dedicated people found scattered over this earth.

The ideal of love, despite the lack of any noticeable romance in my life; the ideal of bravery, although I walk away from street dogs that get enraged when I enter their domain with my puppy; the ideal of dedicated service to the public by certain people , while I just about survive as a freelancer; all these great things inspire me. Inspire me to what? Don't ask. I have not accomplished anything inspirational myself. Being inspired is my speciality. Not being inspirational.

Such a shame. hmmmm
Also feel ashamed when I read the news of people killing each other in wars that seem to be unceasing and killing dozens of journalists covering the news, while I watch fox crime for thrills and the news during the ad breaks.

Yuck! Isn't there a way to help without stepping down from the lap of luxury? Or at least without the risk of being killed? Feeling really bad for the journalists being killed by the extremists.

When logic seems to be just not there

Why are some people happy, no matter what?

Why are some pissed off, no matter what they get or get to do?

Why did that super successful beloved beloved beloved artist kill himself?

Why is my dog never illogical and all animal instinct?

What's with bitching and hurting others? Just what about it is so great that it is universal?

When will I earn more than I do now?

Just don't get it!!!!

As a kid, I loved taking the public transport. Thirty five years ago, buses were not so crowded, and I lived in a cool (literally and metaphorically) part of the city. So waiting in the bus was a time to feel the breeze and check out all the fascinating humans who were around me.

The thrilling part was judging where exactly the bus would stop, and beat others running towards the steps and feel the movement of the heavy vehicle under your feet.

If I got a seat, I would put my head out like a dog and feel the breeze. I loved standing too, because my feet felt the buzz of the engine, and it was great to hold the bars and sway as the bus turned and braked. I do not know if bus technology has improved and we no longer get tickled when we stand. It is a long time since I travelled by bus.

Once as I was about to climb a bus my friend asked me "What's the time?" I tried to look at my wrist watch, but was too engrossed with the running towards the steps that I did not answer her."No time to see the time." said a young man behind us. My friend and I pretended not to have heard him but smiled secretly at each other. I used this incident in a story I wrote for a school text book.

Now the buses are much better, although the crowds are unbearable. However, my memory of the rickety old buses makes them precious to me.

Excellent breakfast. Two slices of fried bread and fried potato. Two cups of rice, first with rasam and potato, and then with curd and curry leaf powder. A cup of cold, cold coffee and half a cube of cheese. 

The magic fades

When I lived in Tamilnadu, I often heard praises of "Neeya Naana" a talk show that encouraged participants to share their views and conducted debates between groups that held conflicting view.
After I moved to hindi speaking state, where I started working from home, I happened to watch snippets from this program, and then got to watch a couple of these shows along with my daughter.

Although I sensed a bias and an 'I already know what you gonna say" attitude in the facilitator, I was deeply hurt at how he handled the teachers in the public vs private schools debate,

Firstly, how can you ask teachers in private schools what they provide for kids? These teachers are paid very low salaries, and rarely have a say in what the management decides. Secondly, how can you dismiss their claims of being motivated, and their ideas as empty jargon? And point out that their jobs being insecure, they could not be motivated as they claimed to be? Can we quantify their honest approach? Also, how could you praise government school teachers on facilities provided by the government when they also never get to participate in the process whereby the govt decides how much to spend and what to spend on these schools?
He clearly wanted to say that government schools provide a lot for student community, all of whom should rush to be admitted in them. But it looked he was anxious that he could not get his point through, without cutting private school teachers in the middle of their speeches, and without springing questions at them almost as soon as they finished each sentence. The government school teachers however, were not meted out the same treatment.
I worked as a teacher in private schools for over ten years. May be that was why it hurt a lot. I know numerous stories of government schools without walls, without teachers, with dust laden equipment that no one knew how to operate.Poor young men from villages have shared horrendous stories of how their teachers used to demand Pepsi from poor kids and told them if they got him what he wanted they could go home. The teacher would fail all of them,and then call the parents asking for favours such as goods from their shops, and promote them only after the parents gave them what they wanted.

I am not digging deep, because people in my state know how much worse these stories can get.
Coming back to the program, the facilitator conducted an impromptu quiz for the teachers. Fortunately most of the private school teachers managed to do well. This episode made me realize how humiliating it can be to be at the receiving end of such public debates.
The expression of the private school teachers turned dead, and even the smug smiles of the government school teachers soon became forced and fixed.
Such programmes are supposed to have enthusiastic participants. Now sensitive people like me should keep away from them, I guess.

Lost Magic!!!

There is a huge post office near my daughter's office. It is at the corner of a street, surrounded by high walls, with a coat of brick red paint, and with a prominent bi- lingual board saying that it is The Post Office. I can imagine how the authorities of a bygone era might have conceived of it. Allotted a spacious piece of land , placed strategically in the most easily approachable part of the city, and close to the national highway! A public office altruistically designed to provide space for this public work and that public service.

Some lucky school graduates would have got appointed there. They would have spent busy days doing the important work of dispensing information to people from employers, from the government and from their near and dear. It was also part of a network of thousands and thousands such post offices.

Today it is dwarfed in stature as well as in status. Everyone uses the phone, or the internet or skype and its importance in the past is remembered by middle aged people like me who used to constantly peep into the mail box or peer into the street waiting for the post man. As for the construction itself, it is hardly a landmark in the middle of towering high rises. Hmmmmm!!!!

Genie in a bottle

Today I prepared a brilliant play thing for zelda, my crazy puppy. Two flies got into a two litre plastic bottle. I shut the lid and there it is...my see through fly aquarium. Zelda is transfixed and all attention. She has been watching the flies move around, and trying to lick them and paw them.  I am a genius and my dog is not bored.

What a great opportunity this is... for all of us to publish ourselves, to be heard and above all to write.Unfortunately, we are not making the best of it.
There was a time when I would click 'next blog' and read some soulful, witty, smart or casual comments made by people from Singapore, Japan, Ireland, the States and many other places. But today when I do the same thing, every other blog page shows that the writer has moved on, or has stopped writing.

This offer of public space - It may not last forever. One day they may start selling this space. I am not a techie predicting this based on some foreknowledge gained by logical insight. I am just an ordinary person talking about the transitory nature of opportunities.

Use this plenty folks.

The confusing collage the world would make today!!!!!

What a strange world we live in!!! The television shows so many lives, each one varying from the others so much that no comparison is possible.
 On the one hand we have the yuppies shopping, touring  and fine dining; their lives swathed in layers and flavours of sophistication.
 Then there is a country that has legalized marijuana. Public can buy it without a prescription. More than 60 percent tax, I believe. Black market black market black market boom!

And then there are the asylum seekers, legal and illegal immigrants having strange futile adventures on sea, through forests, deserts.....

Terrorism, war, injury broken heads, destroyed homes, deaths and constant strife in certain parts of the world

The diligent hard working Japanese are battling a typhoon, while football fame and fall is being documented in detail.
All kinds of marginalized people are clamouring to be heard, and accidents are destroying the fabric of several lives into tatters

And there's me! middle class with comfort and indulgence being two parts of my middle name. Cloistered in the security provided by an uber traditional life and feeling guilty as hell!!

The Black Magic called Politics

When the Prime minister gives a speech you can stop channel surfing. Because every broadcast is going to be the same. Today when he inaugurated the new train to Kashmir and started giving a speech, I checked this for one more time. It was the exact same broadcast. CNBC was showing a weather report. Twice the report went mute, and a smiling

news reader announced that there was a technical glitch and we might as well listen to the Prime Minister's speech. You might have noticed that I have not mentioned his name. Well, it's not required in my country, because every medium , the newspaper, the radio and the television is singing it out in rapture.

Reminds me of a comment made by a friend, the editor of a respected daily. He said that if anyone seemed to be in the news a great deal, something was definitely wrong with him.

These are magical days

My school teachers were convinced that I was an excellent writer. I won prizes in story telling, essay writing and was always a topper in language tests. Teachers in college sometimes pinned my answer sheets on a board for other students to read.
I was sure that I would be a great writer one day. But a couple of attempts to get published did not work, and I stopped trying. Once a reporter friend of a friend, who saw some lovelorn poetry of mine in my diary tore the pages ou,t and had them published in the Times of India. She said readers wrote appreciative letters.

As luck would have it, I got the opportunity to write reports on classical music performances for a reputed newspaper. There at the concerts, I was amazed to see how some people, who were knowledgeable about the intricacies of notes and variations, became stiff if I asked them to help me out, when I was unable to attend a concert. They were connoisseurs of music, who knew when a certain piece had first been played, who popularized it, how it has undergone subtle changes over the years, and many such gems of information that would have added weight to my article. But when you asked them to tell you about it for the newspaper they would freeze and say inane things in a rigid manner. And I became popular in that small circle of music lovers as a writer, although I was not thoroughly knowledgeable about it as I should ideally be.

Now comes the part when I have decided to write for money. For the first time in my life I have started getting loads of negative feedback. Some magazines found my writing to be too simple. Some felt my style did not suit their blog. And today, a student of mine, for whose blog I wrote something said that the essay I sent her had 'too many grammar mistakes' and 'language problems'.. Every day is new and inspiring, it seems.

Illogical Insomnia

Illogical insomnia

I used to worry about not being able to sleep much, till I read the story of this guy, who was crouching on a spot witnessing an air raid, watching bombs being tossed all around him, all through the night. The next day onwards he stopped sleeping. The fascinating part of the story however, is that he used his working hours so well that he got innumerable degrees, carried on several businesses and became very rich.

Unable to sleep, I thought......... let me type something on my blog. May be one thing will lead to another and then I can also do stuff like the above mentioned guy did, and make a mark.

When the magic goes POOF

These are difficult times.

Life abounds in luxury, and luxury can be bought. Everyone dreams of such luxury, and therefore long for the money to buy luxury. A man works hard, creatively, frenetically and carefully to accrue money, and no sooner does he taste success, and earns money, than he is instantly surrounded by sellers of short trips to heaven: the drug pushers.

All the rich, particularly the artistic, use a lot of drugs. Our icons! The shadows of whom, captured in film reels in multi colour, we so love to love.

It looks like the human potential never had so much opportunity to reach its full potential and also never destroyed itself as much as it does today, mindless of reaching that potential. Therefore man loses himself before he becomes the best version of himself.

The main reason is that our vision is blocked by luxury, and the childish longing to be high and happy always.

Looks like we just take trips inwards constantly indulging ourselves and never get to rise as high as we should. What could be so awesome about drugs that, the million pleasures of life are forgotten? 

The logic of remembering failures

Forget your failures...move on. This is not just advice I dish out in counselling sessions, but something I have done instinctively to preserve myself from feeling sad. As an extension of this attitude, for many years I attempted things that were easy, and in which I could make a mark for myself without difficulty. So my resume, especially my presentation of it would look as if I am more successful and fulfilled than my peers, especially those who are making a lot more money than I do.
In my mid forties, I have started thinking about making and saving money. So I have started to attempt all kinds of things, and the silver coat of permanent victory is wearing thin. Facing failure, my logic tells me not to move on but to analyse it; to keep reminding myself of the reasons for failure, and to keep working excellently, because the times I didn't, I failed. I lost not only the opportunity to make money, but the rare occasions wherein I could have worked with the best minds, with achievers who gain greater fulfilment by aspiring high and capturing what they aimed for.

Summer is here

Properly summer now
Sultry, airless, scorching hot summer. As we put it in tamil, "the heat is breaking open our skulls"
But I don't feel like complaining, because in 2013, for the first time in my life I experienced that confusion called COLD SEASON.
As a citizen of a hot city, where people joke about how there are only two seasons in South India: hot and very hot, I got to endure cold in Gurgaon. It was so unpleasant, and I complained so much, (although I lived through it without much damage), that I do not yet feel like complaining about the sun, whose appearance I waited for with great eagerness

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27ryBUd6Tg

Is India going to become like many other countries in South East Asia? The new Indian Prime minister is recognized as a Hindu leader. This is definitely a step back from India's secular ideals. We are now more like countries with religious identities, like Malaysia, Afghanistan (Islamic government), and Pakistan and Myanmar (military rule) The unique Indian identity, the Indian experience of tolerating every variant of every religion is in danger.
My worst fears are that this victory is going to harden the narrow minds of the winners and that they would make life difficult for minorities and lower castes. They could do this not just by making decisions that are favourable to the elite upper castes, but also by celebrating and promoting the majority religion, thereby kindling feelings of superiority and inferiority and  widen the gap between the different religions in the country. Unfortunately social inequality will

become greater, I fear.

It rained intermittently in May in 2012; and that turned out to be a dry year. The same thing is happening now in three of the states, which are important to me, where different members of my family live: Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Haryana. These states are far apart and it's raining in all three of them, not on the same days, but on different days in the same week.
As they would put it in the earlier centuries, doubts of cloud darken my brow, when I wonder if the monsoons would fail this year too!!!!

Story of how we adopted zelda
Hema first looked on line for homes that gave pets for adoption, and discovered 'red paws' on face book. Someone there directed us to Sai ashram in Chattarpur.

On an impulse,when she returned from office, we booked a cab to Chattarpur. The bright city lights grew few and far between, and then there were none, as we cut into a narrow lane. Till then we had been mouthing a hundred doggie names, to find out which sounded best.
Sandy
Minnie
Tina
Zelda
Xena
Shea
Nellie
We kept on at it, thinking up funny tamil names, punjabi names and so on, till we realized we had been travelling for quite some time along the narrow lane bordered by high walls of posh farms on both sides. By now it was eight and pitch dark.Then the vehicle stopped at the end of the road, where what looked like a forest extended beyond a house. From inside the cab we could see around thirty dogs get up from the open  unfenced area around the house, and watch the car, some of them moving towards it.
We waited in the car, and called the contact, who was inside the building. He came with a big stick and we gathered the courage to follow him.
It was a moment of sheer joy to enter the building and walk into a room full of dogs, all trying to get your attention. Many of them just licked toes, some of them tried to touch hands and one huge dog even managed to lick my face. We walked from room to room, and saw that many of them were abandoned pets, high bred and fantastic looking, of all sizes and there were also several suffering from serious illnesses, such as paralysis, stroke and mutilation.
Heroic is how you describe the task taken on by the people there. There are three hundred dogs in that building and they are fed twice a day. We saw a vet giving injections, and a couple of young men were assisting him.
We saw a couple of newly brought pups that were barely a month old, but were ferocious in spite of being nearly starved to death. Then they showed us a three month old puppy, whose face had been bitten by a bigger dog, and who had tick fever.
We had to do something, in the face of all the service being done there. So we picked her up and signed some papers, and took her to the cab. We first called her Tina, but the weakling, whose hind legs were too tired to let her sit on them, and who was lying down all the time, started chasing monkeys from our balcony early next morning, we knew she was no Tina.She is ZELDA. Been with us for ten days. Finished a course of venal injections, and getting stronger, although quite slowly.
That's how we got Zelda.