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.