To all the dogs I've loved before

One thing I really really really want is for dogs to have souls. You know back when I was a kid and I would ask Sunday school teachers and general adults who were always assumed to be wiser, if animals, particularly dogs, have souls, the answer would always be 'Nay, human beings are the only creatures to be blessed thus with souls. Aye, t'is so.'

But this has never stopped me from wishing that dogs would have souls. For as long as I can remember. And who knows? Who can really tell right? Heaven might very well be teeming with beautiful dog souls. Damn, I even loved Lord Byron more just because he wrote that dog poem.

If I were to die and go to heaven, there's no one I'd look forward to meeting more than all the dogs I've had and loved in my life. Rover, Gus, Bozo... my eternally beloved friends. I feel guilty saying this when I think of the many also beloved relatives that have died. And I would love to meet them all. But oh, to scratch Gus' ears and smell him in all his divine doggy smell, to see his white and brown body running up to meet me...to romp around in the fields with Rover, and to fall asleep with Bozo's wet muzzle on my shoulders...

I saw this cartoon once somewhere, and it brought tears to my eyes. I found it easily enough ("dog in heaven cartoon" search term on Google). Now this one would be me and Rover, the dog I named after a dog in my lesson book when I was in Kindergarten. The dog that always followed me and my friends around whenever we went exploring the hills and streams nearby. My memories of him are so hazy now but I remember him rustling around in the bushes always :)

Gus who was the little runt of the litter that nobody thought would make it but who instead turned into a big, beautiful, healthy dog, always kind and gentle. They gave him to me for free because they thought he was too weak. All his siblings made the owner a lot of money I'm sure because they were German shorthaired pointers, a rarity in Mizoram at the time. My only pedigreed dog. Gus because of whom my green school uniform always looked a bit like they were interwoven with tiny white threads. Gus who was always scared of firecrackers.

And then the crazy, neurotic, yet the most loving and loyal dog I've ever known, Bozo. Bozo who couldn't care less about firecrackers.

I have no doubt that if allowed in, all of them would do heaven proud. All dogs would do heaven proud, most humans would not, I'm sure. And yet we dare to keep heaven only for ourselves! Just like Byron wrote

...The poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth--
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While Man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive Heaven.

(This one stolen from 9gag)

I really miss my dogs tonight.

And a few more

Me and my mom just had our bi-yearly checkup and hooray! everything's great! I can't explain enough the exhilaration you feel when your doctor after a thorough checkup writes on your file "No evidence of disease..." The only thing better is when he writes the same thing on your mom's file.

Me and my mom sees the same oncologist. He is a pretty fancy doctor, he is (or was) an advisor on the advisory board of physicians to the President of the United States of America (or something along those lines). He was on the Who's Who in America book some years back, and yet he doesn't have any airs, and I have no doubt he treats us any differently from his more affluent, wealthier patients, of which I know he's got plenty of. Which is more than you can say for some doctors back in Mizoram.

My mom initially was seeing some guy back home. I went with her once to see her doc. And this man, even though I was right there with my mom never even once acknowledged my presence in the room. He was curt and cold and terse (in my opinion) with my mom. I left the room seething, feeling small and belittled. So I told my mom "You're not going to see this guy again. You come to Hyderabad and see my doctor who is nice and normal." And we've stuck with this guy ever since.

And I'm sorry to say this but why do I have this feeling that the doctors and nurses out here are so much more nicer than the ones back home! Don't get me wrong. I know there are plenty of nice nurses/doctors back home too but I generally don't run into them. There was this one time I took my sick 1 year old nephew to the city hospital's casualty about a year back and more or less got my heart broken over how harsh the nurses handled him.

Enough about doctors! I've made a sudden decision to go back to Mizoram tomorrow for my grandfather's 'lung phun.' Can't wait to get out of this heat and be back at home where it's always nice and cool.

And people, celebrate your health! Celebrate the health of your loved ones. I myself, even despite the cancers still take it for granted all the time. But it is so wonderful. To be alive, for your mother to be alive, for the people you love to be alive and healthy. Diseased or not. Cheers everyone!

A few words

Hello much ignored blog and the entire blogosphere! I feel like I've just woken up from a long sleep. I guess I've been too intoxicated with the new year and my new freedom.

Now that I'm not working, I've sort of regressed to being a teenager all over again. Being the bad, irresponsible teenager I never got the luxury to be. Now for a brief period at least, I can be all that and more. I sit on my ass all day playing video games, and go out to dance all night, and take men home to play God of War with me. It's quite exhilarating!

Having said that, I do somehow miss working and being tired and busy, those times when you stress out so much over your quarterly targets that grey hair magically pops up on your head overnight.

And I can honestly say the 6 and a half years I spent with Google were the best years of my life. You know how people always say 'Ooh those college years were the best years' etc. Not me. I don't even miss college. Maybe I miss school a tiny bit...nah, not really. But Google is like my college years for me. I am thankful to God that he put that bit in in my life. And whatever comes in the future, I will think of my time in Google fondly always. I will always miss it.

I know almost everyone thinks leaving Google is a really stupid thing to do. I would probably think that too if I was someone from outside Google looking in. But sometimes you need to take some risks and make some changes, you just can't stay in the same place just because it's warm and safe and secure there.

When I left IBM to join Google, no one ever thought that was a wise decision. Back then, Google was famous for its search engine of course but people here didn't know much about Google as an employer. And to move across the country, alone, to a city where I knew absolutely no one. Even then, I had to listen to a lot of not-so-encouraging comments about how I take too many risks for a single woman, how people in the South were, how 'lowly' the Google job profile was.

But yet, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I would never have believed the wonder I was going to be exposed to if somebody had told me then.

And sometimes, things happen in your life that makes you look at life a bit differently. Your dreams change, your ambitions shift. What makes you happy changes, and with that, we have to search for new things. New situations that perhaps doesn't look right to others but it's the only thing that feels right for you.

So this is just me taking some risks, and keeping my fingers crossed that this path will lead me down some happy roads.