Operation 'Relocate Ram'

That's 'ram' as in rhymes with Sam, not Ram of Ramayana fame.

Here's what ensued, in chronologically arranged pics :

Confused? Flabbergasted? Can't believe your eyes? Ha ha. Allow me to explain:
1. Latta poses with Ram #1, a ram.
2. Basheer and Bagh Singh position themselves good-naturedly on wall separating our lawn from neighbours'. They are going to 'receive and deposit' the package, viz. a ram.
3. Latta hoists Ram #1 onto shoulder in one fluid motion and prepares to hand him over to the Wall People.
4. Package (ram) is secured and comforted by Wall-Peeps. "This too shall pass," they say.

In the next unphotographed sequence, Latta jumps over in to the adjoining lawn, and receives Ram #1 in similar fluid motion as while giving. Ram #1 is let loose to eat, sleep and swing as desired unto the end of his days....

Same sequence of events follows for Ram #2, who unfortunately did not receive any footage.

Please note that none of the animals used in this stunt were injured in any way, nor were they photographed without permission. They were embarrassed, yes; they were shown dramatically what the phrase, "There's always a first time" meant; they were thoroughly nonplussed by all the hoisting-gitching.
But were they hurt, injured, put through agony and such? No. We village peeps like animals, you see. Pre- and/or post-humously.

Here's the back story.
We had brought home a couple of rams prior to Eid. They were supposed to graze and live the last few days of their lives happily munching on neighbour's grassy lawn and flowers. Said lawn even had an awning-ed wrought iron garden swing, of the kind seen in romantic Hindi fillum scenes (or at least appearing in b/g in all the rich peeps' houses). Something like this.So anyway. If the rams were in any doubt they were going to live the high life (before they were eventually brought to their heroic end as juicy kebabs-see end of post), the swing should have settled the matter.
[To pre-empt you asking, "Hey! Why should the rams feed off your neighbours' lawn and not yours?!!! WTF?", let me add that our neighbours had long months past quit Jammu and moved to Delhi, entrusting to us their gate and house keys in exchange for a solemn oath of protecting it against intruders, burglars, trespassers and natural disasters. We promised confidently on all points save the last, and they, looking at the thing reasonably, understood.
Gate keys being in our possession, we were eyewitness to the miraculously lush growth of grass and the proliferation of wild flowers in their lawn like a NatGeo documentary on the monsoons. In the absence of hours of daily gardening, Jammu lawns tend to outdo themselves and aim for jungle-like hauteur. Such was the case with this lawn. It was tooooo much. The flora had to be restricted. Enter: fauna, viz. the rams.]

Now. Herein lay the problem. Neighbour's gate keys had gone on a tour of the city in the left front pocket of our houseboy, who wasn't going to be back for a while. The rams had arrived and were anxious to get started. They smelt the berserk grass. They smelt the wildly insane flowers. The saw the huge padlock on the gate. They noticed the high wall separating our property from the neighbours'. They bleated something derisive about the "Good fences make good neighbours" ideology. In short, it was a tragic scene.
Suddenly, the indefatigable practical good sense that lies in all sons of the soil came to the fore in the person of my father, and his right and left hand men, the good lads of Breswana. These were farmer-folk, animal peeps, and more importantly, physically strong lads.

POST-SCRIPT:
Had barbecue party a few days later on Eid. Fun. Also, delicious.


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That's all folks.

So long, Mumbai....

For the anon, at least. Because the Long Black Veil is back in Bangalore having travelled hither on New Year's Eve and having had a fascinating New Year's while asleep on board the Chalukya Express.
Good to be back home and all that but one would have hoped in better circs. What the heck, this is Life. (Something Heath Ledger can't say anymore..... Haaahhahhahaaaa...! I mean, oops , sorry.) One question though: Why must it always be a naked-and-face-down-death for these types? Why? Why not fully dressed and lying prone or even in a cute foetal curl?
As an aside, I was no closer to Heath Ledger than I was to Benazir, and no doubt the late former has done far less wrongs to people in general than the late latter. But yet, my heart chafes for her dhamaakedaar exit and feels unmoved by his stereotypical-sudden-celebrity-type death.

Onto more relevant things, then. Some snapshots of Mumbai where I was jobbing-living-commuting for all of Dec 2007.



Here is the wonderful place I called home, basking in yellow light. At least it is the top right corner of said home.



It was a homely home and I was living with two-and-a-half insane nuts; lovely ladies called Shobhanaaahaahaaahaa and Sushmaaahaahahaaahaaa and a little bit of Aveheeheheheeeeee, who left Mumbai for the colder pastures of Delhi (hence accounting for only one-half). Other uninvited tenants were Jerry (a visiting mouse whom Sushi insisted on calling a RAT, in caps only because she was terrified of him), and an occasional pigeon couple who were trying to nest on the neatly folded rugs by the window in our inner sanctum, the Big Room. Pigeon-housing estate plans were repeatedly thwarted by us, the human elements in the house, with frequent episodes of "Aha! Scat! Scram!" followed by threatening hand gestures and a hurried fluttering of wings fading into the distance. Jerry's visits probably continue unabated since he proved to be a versatile and cunning athlete who confidently dodged various missiles we directed at him. When I say 'we' I of course mean 'I' because Sushi never yet did direct anything at him except mortified looks.

There are a few adorable kantri naais living in the housing complex I called my homely home. The most famous of the lot is a brat we called Fu#@#$! (Rhymes perfectly with 'sucker'.) Because that's what he was and continues to be. F has a need to act like a dumbass at any given moment in time. He is the silliest, most adorable lout one can find in the canine world. He is also a massive pig and lamely bullies the other dogs in his 'gang' into not eating if he can help it. Especially one little boy called, ironically, Piggy. Ironical because Piggy hardly ever gets to eat anything once F is done mowing through the fooderies. Lookit F@#$^!! having a go at Shobs here.

Shobhie and I used to go out to high-end eating joints like the nukkad-vaala-chaat guy or the patli galli ka joooss vaala, in between bouts of street shopping for chappals and spaghetti straps. Here is a very weight-lossed Shobs enjoying her carrot juice.
Shobhie was also very useful at the end of a hard day at work for regaling one with tales of adventure, excitement and human-animal drama from her work place, a pet grooming salon in Bandra. I won't be too specific about it because folks will the say I'm advertising my buddies' business unscrupulously. All I'll say is it's a wonderful, service-oriented professional setup behind Hawaiian Shack on 16th Road, Bandra (W), and that it's called Tailwaggers Pet Salon. Hah. Write me for detailed map, to scale.




Here is a pic of me and two other good friends near Linking Road. My, but we had a fine time that night.





Next. This here is my good buddy-cat Miz Elf N Stun, whom I discovered skinny, scrawny, on-the-verge-of-death outside Elphinstone Station in Mumbai one fine morning, as I was shielding my fragile self from the harsh Mumbai winter [hahahaaaa] sun in the romantic setting of a shared-cab-queue... Elf N Stun was lying weak and mewling pathetically in between a naariyal-paani-waalah bhai-saahib and a phool-vaali-ladies-log. A history chequered with King Bonzo, Fab Fuko and Jackass Joey has melted my heart unconditionally towards felines. I was sure disheartened to see this Felix-the-Cat lookalike in such Dire Straits. So, hoping that Elf N Stun would make it through one more day, I packed a whopping lunch for her the following morning. There she was, even more skeletal than Kate Moss on Atkin's, almost gone but not quite. I whooped (silently, because there were other humans present and they would not understand, nay, not them). Elf gorged on the fudd-items I gave her with a gusto that made me admire her. Pic on top right is Elf on Day 1. Pic on top left is Elf at the end of week. It was the same every day since then, when she would tuck into super-sized meals that far outmeasured a normal fully-grown-cat portion. In a very little bit, young Elf had some meat on her bones and I thought all would be well. Except I am here now, and who knows what's up with her?

Then. Boo visited while I was in Mumbai. She stayed over a couple of nights, she praised the homely home (yay!), we travelled by the locals, we had meals at Mondy's, we saw John and Bips at Hard Rock Cafe at a metre's distance from our noses. And of course Rocky S. Bips followed us surreptitiously to the ladies' room and somehow made it appear like she was there before us. Haw haw. Lookit Boo and her pedestrian ways outside Hard Rock. This ('PEDESTRIAN') is actually what the sign says. There has been no Photoshopping to delete the expected 'S' at the end of the sign. It is in all senses, a 'singular' signboard. Haw haw. So very witty.

Boo's Bips joke: "Bips hasn't changed at all after all these years. She never spoke to us then and she still doesn't now...."
[Followed by barking mad, juvenile giggles from the two of us for an embarrassingly long time BECAUSE IT WAS SO BLEDDY FENNY!] Anyway...

These were glimpses of my time in Mumbai city. Applause is appreciated. I am tired and will end post abruptly. Like, now.

What's the gory morning story?

Please read, ponder, feel shitty and spread awareness about the horrible Japanese whaling industry resurgence as posted on the Animals in the Media blog, and the related post by CatsJellicle on her blog.
(Here's a not-so-fun activity. Run a Google Images search for 'whaling'. Observe the results. Barf.)
I'm telling you, this place gets stinkier by the day.
More on Japanese whaling and Greenpeace and SeaShepherd's protest activities on this page. A short Whaling Video created by Josh Taylor for Greenpeace drives the fact home.
"Extinction is forever."

All the pretty horses

Erm. When I said in my previous post that 'cats win hands down', I of course meant that it was a very close thing.

What in the world...

Ugh. More bad news. Here's BBC's report on Volganeft, the Russian tanker that spilled its guts into the Black Sea along with 2,000 metric tonnes of fuel oil. Making it a Blacker Sea. The people who know say the mess "could take years to clean up."
Just what we needed - another environmental disaster.
Coincidentally, I was cussing under my breath just last night when watching a TV program [on Discovery or Animal Planet, I'm not sure] about the Galapagos Islands, with special focus on the unique indigenous marine iguanas found there. A few years ago, an oil spill in the San Cristobal area had reduced the population of marine iguanas on Santa Fe Island by a whopping 62%, because the oil affected the algae that the iguana fed on. Or that's what they said on the program.
The New Scientist website report said the algae was okay, it was the fermentation bacteria in the iguana's hindguts [Yes. Hindguts.] that were affected so they couldn't digest the algae etc.
Anyway. It's not nice to know.

Many years ago when I was in middle school in Dubai, I remember there was a 'big oil spill' which affected the Gulf, and it was all over the news which is the only reason it stuck in my childish memory. I was quite disturbed by the dead bodies of oil-blackened seagulls washing up ashore [not my favourite bird by any means, but...] and I read up a lot on the subject and felt even back then that human beings can be quite shit. (After which ruminations I would go back to my gripping games of Hopscotch, Poison-Medicine or Four-Square.) Our schools organised programs to go help clean up beaches, there were special presentations and seminars on the environment in general and the effect of such disasters on wildlife etc. That was probably the first time I thought about such things seriously. I think it was the visual of the dead birds that affected me most.
I hardly remember anything specific about the incident but searches on the internet and my brilliant deduction techniques [my approximate age at the time of said spill plus Google search], lead me to understand it was the Persian Gulf oil spill of 1991, only the biggest oil spill of all time. Phew. An environmental warfare technique used by Iraq where over 2 million barrels of oil were deliberately released to prevent US Marine forces from landing in Kuwait. Fantastic.

And in recent days, I read up on tigers worldwide actually going extinct in the near future. Seriously. Alarmingly. Not the usual "Yeah, yeah, they're going extinct. We've been hearing that for ages now," that we used to hear in the same vein as "Yeah, yeah, Metallica's coming to Bangalore this year for sure."
Some factoids:
"At the turn of the century, the world had approximately 100,000 tigers. Now it is estimated there are only 3,000 to 7,000 left in the wild. In the last 50 years, three subspecies have vanished, and a fourth, the South China tiger, is on the brink of extinction. More than half the
tigers that survive in the wild are in the Indian subcontinent, persisting in threatened habitats. If the trend continues, our magnificent tiger may disappear completely from the face of the Earth."
In India alone, the tiger population has decreased by 50% in only the last 5 years. There are just 1300-1500 tigers left in the wild in India.

This is devastating. Till last year I used to feel horses were the most beautiful creatures in the world. Then I discovered cats. My feline initiation leaves me no doubt that cats win hands down. And tigers especially. Rrrrrrr.

Bangalore friends.....

Three insanely cute poochie babies up for adoption, as messaged in by a Shama. They're about a month old.
Please go to the Adopt-A-Stray blog for all details.
There are many more adorables you can read about over here. Keep dropping in on the site once in a while and spread the word among your Bangalore friends. And then, adopt ho! Much appreciated.

Bye, boys. See you later.

"My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell."
-Emily Dickinson

The day after Eid after an unusual silence from Boomsa when I called her to chit-chat and find out were she had been during the festivities, she gave me the news. Li'l Joey was gone. The street dogs got him. And Boo didn't want to tell me over Eid. For which I am grateful.

Be at peace, Jo darling. You were much loved and didn't you know it. I had brought you truckloads of food and would have loved to see you shovel your way through it.
Here's Jo when he just came home with Boomsa as a baby.

This was the Monday immediately after Eid. 15th October, 2007. I went over to Boo's house to hang out with her and take solace in Hot-Cross-Bonz. Who I was SO GLAD TO SEE because it had been a while.
(I have no shame in admitting that I felt far more strongly for Bonzo than Jo-Cat, obviously because I hardly knew the little darling. I had met him a few times for a few hours and he was endearing as dammit, but Bonz is my firstborn and he's been with Boo and I since way back when. There's no comparison.) So the sudden news of Joey's death put things in jarring perspective. I drank Bonz in that day. He was being a babe as usual. He gave me all the attitude he had saved up especially to throw my way, he turned his back on me, he walked away in utter disdain several times, used me as a scratching post at will and had me begging for more. As usual. He is, of course the only man who's ever made me beg for his affections. We watched TV where Bonz was especially enthralled by a pet show. On puppies, even.Bonzo loved the sheer khorma I had made for Eid. He pigged out on a lot of it. A LOT. He was fattened, I was flattered. It worked well for the both of us. While in the kitchen Bonzo amused me by wondering about a certain black ant that was working his way towards somewhere under the fridge. Here's a video. Please note his darling meowing: "What IS this thing?" and his utter disbelief when Ant escapes.


Apart from this video, I took several pictures and videos of Bonz on my phone. That's the last set I'll ever have. More's the pity. Bonzo was great onscreen.
Bonz and I played for hours that Monday. We hadn't done Socker for a while, which is our game of soccer played with rolled-up socks. In the absence of sock-rolls, I used soft chewy balls, his old buddy Party Pooh and other assorted throwies. Much fun and exercise later, Boo came home and we continued the games till late into the night. Hot Bonz demonstrated amazing theatrics while pursuing and clawing the ball etc.
I went home after Boo announced she would cancel gym plans and that this indoor exercise was far better than anything else. I nodded in agreement.
The next day, I went to Vellara Junction and procured excellent fun items: a mini-cricket set with 2 plastic bats and balls. And a Buzz Lightyear tennis/squash/badminton/what-have-you twin racket set. If we were going to play, we'd do it in style.
Tuesday the 16th was even more fun than the previous evening. Bonzo was in his element. He did a few nifty moves involving upending the potted palms. He played donkey in the middle, on the side, ahead and behind. He banged his head no less than 29 times against various doors, beds, sofas and chairs. In spite of us having moved a lot of the movable furniture around till we had a clear playing field inside the house.
I have no pictures of that last day with Bonz. I thought there was time enough for that. This was to be our daily workout regime, n'est pas? I said bye to Boo and Bonz at around 2130 pm and rode home to the boondocks.
17th October, Wednesday afternoon. I let myself in at Boo's house. I waited to hear the tinkle-tinkle of BonzoBells running up to disregard me and frisk me for food. Nothing. He wasn't home.
I twiddled my thumbs, read the newspaper, called up Boo to complain about Bonzo being a rowdy loafarr type, went out to the balcony several times to call out to him, practiced come-hither looks in front of the mirror, performed this act on the balcony and, in the end, resorted to the one medium all idiots use to while away time: I switched on the telly.
Boo came home in a while. We pretended to be casual about Bonzo's long absence. "I hate it when he does this." "Bugger's eaten his meals and taken off to paint the town red, eh?" "Hanging out with the boys, is he?"
Inside, we were both worried but we didn't say so.
I spent some more time with Boo waiting for Bonz and left for home feeling not-so-good.
And the next day, Thursday now, Boo called me early in the morning. Bonzo had not returned.
That day I searched the streets over and over. I called out to Bonz in lanes and alleys I'd never visited before. I spoke with many strangers, most of whom were really sweet. Some couldn't be bothered about missing cats. I even walked into someone's house because I heard mewing there. It turned out to be a very nice lady with 2 cats of her own. They were outdoor-access cats and much smaller than Bonz. I left her house feeling hopeful. Kids and security guards were especially concerned, I found.
Many times that day I came across people who were laughing at me because I happened to be crying. How anyone can do that is something Boo and I discussed later and came up with no answers to. I put up basic posters all around the neighborhood. Creeps started calling in to chat me up using Bonz as an excuse. One creepy 40-something b@#^%$% actually followed me around when I was putting up posters and started pestering me because he was Kashmiri and thrilled to bits I was as well. How does that work? "Hey, you lost a pet? Want to hear me lie about me seeing him and then ask you personal questions about your life?"
On the upside, the anger makes one forget about the grief for a while.
Friday morning: A security guard from a nearby apartment complex calls me and says he's seen Bonzo's body in a dump. There's no mistake because he saw the collar. Titla was a sweetheart and imediately drove me there. I showed the guard Bonzo's photos. He confirmed.

Titla and I waited for Boomsa to come home. Sushma returned soon as well. We sat together, the four of us that day, talking for hours, and it was a little comforting.
I got up to go home where no one is very big on cats, even my Bonz. My affection for Bonz and Jo was seen as an amusing aberration. Well, haw haw. I have only this as an insipid excuse to be grumpy and sad at home. Boo is in a far worse place. She has to come home to a new silence and this will take getting used to. Be strong, Boo.*Call me anytime and we'll go away.* Hug*
Friends who were unbelievably sweet and supportive over the next few days, I thank you.
Tits: You are my lifeline.
Jellicle, Soulmia, Pinkah, Ruth, Giggles: My love and gratitude.
Bob: You asked! ;-)

I love you, Bonz. And you, Joey.
And now, enough, no more.

All videos and pics of the boys will be up on my You Tube and Picasa pages soon. For their legions of fans.

HAAAAAAALP!

Hi all...... Two gorgeous little girls need loving homes. Either one loving home for the both of them together, or one loving home each, individually, separately etc. These are two of a threesome, newly born in a Pranjal's neighborhood.

Spread the word or come forward and take the little beauties home yourself. Just look at them.... Rrrr!

For more details, please go to Pranjal's blog [she's the kind soul who first sent out the SOS about the pups , and has adopted one already].
Also, please save this link in your Favorites/Bookmark it, and then keep checking in regularly to see if you can help. Most importantly, spread the word. Adopt a stray!