Posts 91 to 100 of 107

My: Home | Channels | Media | Blog | Favorites | Messages | Signed in as SmilingDolph... (G) Sign Out
Jump!
networks videos people upload
Go!

RSS
Lynnisms
stray thoughts about stray subjects
WOMEN ON TOP [ edit ]
January 20 2006 (04:17:00) ( 3 views )


(Published in man's World, April, 2004)


Women in charge make good fodder for many kinds of mills, not just the rumour kind. Fodder for soap opera, news channels, business journals, history books, pulp fiction. Every year I receive at least two requests from journalists to answer questions about the glass ceiling, the kitchen-cabin balance, the advantages of being a woman in a man’s world (is there such a thing then?), the softer side of management that I supposedly embody, emotional intelligence, the list goes on.

Give me a break. Most of these calls are from women writing for men. Seventy percent of the readership of the enlightened publications they represent is male. On and off, some saucy male journalist will throw in a piece about what it’s like having a female boss. I ask you…don’t you guys want to know what it’s like having male subordinates?

Let me break a few of your fondly heald beliefs
"Boys don't cry"

Don’t they just? For every male manager who has told you that he does not know how to handle a weeping female colleague, (which is rubbish because men have been putting up with weepy women since the Ice Ages), let me tell you that handling a sobbing male is a whole lot worse. Guilt, grief, compassion, confusion, anger, angst, disbelief, disgust, all fighting to be suppressed and exploded at the same time within the space of twenty odd seconds. So far, the best response I can muster is to place a box of tissues before the bereft gentleman and make a diplomatic exit from my own room. Usually, they are gone, the men not the tissues, before I make a hesitant return.

Lesson No 1. Both boys and men cry.

Lesson No 2. The effect of a weeping man on a woman in charge is exactly the opposite of that of a weeping woman on a man in charge. Figure that one out yourself.

Lesson No 3. Men still carry handkerchieves in their trouser pockets.

“Men don’t gossip”

In fifteen years of being boss to some four hundred men and women, divided equally (advertising is thankfully gender insensitive), I have got at least 500% more juicy bits of malicious gossip from the guys than from the gals. Plus the embellishments are meaner, funnier, more imaginative, and far more destructive, both in motive and in practice. I have found my women subordinates sometimes cattish, but mostly silly and ineffective in the stories they choose to spread, while the men select their target and the tales with a great deal of care. Garnished with just the right amount of mystery and wit to take the guilt out of listening.

A woman’s favourite topic of pointless conversation will usually have something to do with another woman, especially if they are competing for the attention of a common person (read friend, foe or boss). A man’s favourite topic of pointless conversation is seldom pointless, and never restricted by mundane demographic discriminators like gender, hierarchy, age, model of car driven, number of spouses, length of expense account, and so on. A management trainee can be the focus of as much as locker room ribaldry, I have been told, as the Chairman. I recall with remorse the number of car rides and inflight conversations that have been peppered with useless information about marital escapades, voucher fudging, foreign trips, and exchange of favours. All of which mysteriously turn out to be very useful only a few weeks later!

Oh no, sentences beginning with “have you heard about…..” are not just the prerogative of Ray Romano’s mom. These days, many of my office mornings start with a timid knock on my door, followed by a mile-wide grin, and the inevitable, “Guess what!” Sometimes he is kind enough to stub out his cigarette.

“Girls just wanna have fun”

This you can expect to hear from a woman manager – that second for second, heartbeat for heartbeat, action for action, thought for thought, a woman worker is at least six times more hardworking than her male counterpart. And by the law of averages, she is also more efficient. If I have to get a rushed job out, I prefer to entrust it to a woman colleague given a choice.

Call it the overcompensation factor if you will, I like to call it genetics. There is plenty of biological evidence to support the fact that women think and process information faster than men, and are in fact quicker ‘on the draw’ even physically. Alas, they also crack more easily under pressure, so while the work does get done, the actual presentation of it just might get jacked. Thus, seizing the opportunity, the stoic waiting-in-the wings male colleague usually lunges to the rescue. By the law of averages, he is therefore more effective.

“More than a woman”

Going by a sample of eight woman friends who are bosses, two of them in HR, let me now make an uncharacteristically sexist comment, and may I never be condemned for this. We all find it easier to get along with our male subordinates. This could have something to do with an “opposites attract” hypothesis, or perhaps a statistical argument that on any given day there are more male than female colleagues to rub shoulders with, or that quite simply, men bring less personal baggage and more official camaraderie to the table. Men are much more ready to make compromises, sadly sometimes with their ethics too – this has no personal bias, check all the legal and official statistics on this one to bear me out.

Having said all this, mostly in jest, and just a little in judgement, every one is fun to work with, warts and all, irrespective of the God given appendages they come with. It would however be a waste of these precious pages if I did not use them to send out a heartfelt message on behalf of all my fellow women bosses to all the men who have worked with us, still do, or someday might. If we ever say something you don’t particularly want to hear, please please don’t cry.


(0) Comments | Post Comment
Taking help [ edit ]
January 09 2006 (07:52:00) ( 2 views )


Nothing my own words can say this week, so I will let the lyrics of Billy Joel's Stranger say it for me.

"Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves
When everyone has gone
Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on

Well we all fall in love
But we disregard the danger
Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell
Why were you so surprised
That you never saw the stranger
Did you ever let your lover see
The stranger in yourself?

Don't be afraid to try again
Everyone goes south
Every now and then
You've done it, why can't
Someone else?
You should know by now
You've been there yourself

Once I used to believe
I was such a great romancer
Then I came home to a woman
That I could not recognize
When I pressed her for a reason
She refused to even answer
It was then I felt the stranger
Kick me right between the eyes

Well we all fall in love
But we disregard the danger
Though we share so many secrets
There are some we never tell
Why were you so surprised
That you never saw the stranger
Did you ever let your lover see
The stranger in yourself?

Don't be afraid to try again
Everyone goes south
Every now and then
You've done it why can't
Someone else?
You should know by now
You've been there yourself

You may never understand
How the stranger is inspired
But he isn't always evil
And he is not always wrong
Though you drown in good intentions
You will never quench the fire
You'll give in to your desire
When the stranger comes along."
(0) Comments | Post Comment
TRANSFORMING TAM IN THE YEAR OF THE DOG [ edit ]
January 04 2006 (08:17:00) ( 2 views )


(published as a year ender special for a week on Indiantelevision.com from January 3, 2006 onwards)


There can be no two ways about it. Our current television audience measurement system must transform itself radically, or go. In 2006, the Chinese year of the dog, I predict that the definition of television audiences itself will change – its measurement therefore must change too.

The term ‘audience’ is a passive one way thing. It conjures up images of ‘lying back and thinking of England’, while the man in the box dishes it out. ‘Viewership’ is no different. It implies that the only sense one uses while interacting with one’s television set is that of eyesight.

Digital TV and DTH will add sound and light and interactivity to the idiot box, making it as intelligent as our laptops and PDA’s. Viewers have already piled on to the SMS response bandwagon in billions. Actively engaging oneself with the medium, finding the channels and programs that one identifies with – these are not just confined to the urban top end. Just as cellular technology gave us the ability to deliver reach in surprising quantities at one end, coupled with unforeseen quality in value added services at the other end, simply by enabling different types of receivers depending on what you can afford, so too will DTH do the same to television.

When audiences lie passive, one needs to use an active system to measure them. The peoplemeter we have been using till now does just that. A sample respondent has to punch a button before his viewership starts getting recorded and punch himself off when he stops viewing. When audiences turn active, the measurement system has to become passive – it has to have the ability to measure without interference. That’s the first and important change. Canada has already moved into the portable peoplemeter system, and the successful Houston experiment will soon see the whole of the US questioning the longevity of the sweeps-cum-Nielsen meter approach.

The line between consumers as audiences and consumers as consumers will also blur, as television networks find themselves partnering advertisers more and more closely to deliver both content and consumers to each other. The Media Research User’s Council has set up a special committee to look at measurement. This committee calls itself the Television Consumer Assessment Committee, recognizing that there will be no such thing as an audience in the near future. There will be only people who consume goods and services including television programming and interactive content.

This will lead to a third and very important change. Till now, India is one of the few countries where the measurement currency is advertising agency supported. Undoubtedly, this has had its roots in the historical support given to the TAM service by lead advertisers and agencies. The service has therefore built its strengths, skills and expertise in areas that would appeal to this community, developing and investing in tools and training systems largely geared to making better media planning decisions.

This unfortunately is a business model without a future. With the revenue models of media agencies already under threat, how can one expect this group of users to continue to fund and invest in this service and its growth? The megabucks have got to come from the networks – the creators and distributors of television signals. The megabucks will only come from this latter group if the service provides them answers to far more difficult marketing and consumer behaviour questions than a simple currency can provide. A currency based on a sample that does not even adequately cover India by a long shot.

The networks will not want fancy media planning software. They will want to know that even as the Indian sky gets clogged with more and more channels each getting less and less share, the system and the sample are robust enough to capture it all, in all its intricacies, with reliability and stability. They will want to know what makes television consumers come to a place and stay there. They will want expressions, not impressions.

And guess what? So will the advertiser and his media agency.

Happy New Year, TAM! It’s high time you got yourself a new collar.

























(0) Comments | Post Comment
THE YEAR OF THE DOG [ edit ]
January 02 2006 (06:06:00) ( 2 views )


(Published in Impact dated February 3, 2006,and in DNA Adzip on February 22, 2006)


There’s a pug living in the building next door. I see him occasionally when I take Gemma for her walk. He is usually flopped down on his belly at the edge of the road, panting heavily, while a Maharashtrian maid stands indifferently by his side. Another victim of the pug craze that has caught our city by storm, and perhaps several others too.

A muscular brachycephalic dog prone to fungal infections that develop quickly in the extra folds of skin on his face especially in this humid Mumbai climate, coupled with respiratory disorders, this breed sold for Rs 5000 a pup two years before Chico Hutch made his debut. Now they go for ten times that amount. Within a few years, there will be several faddy homes in Mumbai who will not know what to do with their pooches who will no longer be fashionable but will most certainly be ill and uncared for, left to the whims of maids and drivers.

In the Chinese year of the dog, perhaps the pug story will help remind all of us in advertising and communication about the power we wield, sometimes innocently and ignorantly.

We have the power to launch the face that will launch a thousand chips. We have the power to differentiate the essentially undifferentiated. We have the power to make the ordinary seem extra-ordinary and the impossible seem possible. We have the power to make the devil look clean and the angel look dirty. To make consumers believe that dirt is good, and fair is better.

Few professions can command this exceptional ability to add immeasurable value strictly on the basis of the intangible. We work on human frailties and longings and glorify them. We legitimize greed in KBC, prying in Sansani, belittling in Idol. Our sting can be more poisonous than the viper’s and, by a strange logic all our own, arguably more likely to bring about social change than straight journalism.

If only we used more of this power in the upliftment of the underdog. Public service communication was once something the agencies did out of genuine caring, today they are done in a haste to win awards. It was ‘Mile sur mera tumhara’ that put Piyush Pandey on the fast track to creative superstardom – the first tentative step that stirred a billion souls. There hasn’t been anything as innovative and far reaching as that since, not from him, nor from our industry.

Frankly, there is no real need to even use social communication, we can begin with the work we do for our bread and butter - the brands that we work on. Aamir Khan depicted the essential Indian in several ethnic forms for the Coca Cola campaign. Somewhere in them lay an opportunity to promote something far more than some villagers drinking Coke. If ‘sar utha ke piyo’ is now the theme, then why get back to a normal Aamir Khan to do that?

So coming back to the point of this article, may I use the pages of this prestigious magazine to put a thought into the astute minds of all our creative directors? Maybe especially Piyush?

Why a pug? Why not our friendly neighbourhood Indian pie dog? He has become the butt of so much malice in the past year – demands to kill him and wipe him out pepper the newspapers, cases have been filed, heard and discharged. Few realize that he is a true symbol of the underdog. Look past his form – and see in him all that he stands for. Undesirable (like slum dwellers), voiceless (like battered wives), spreads disease (like commercial sex workers), abused and misused (like poor children).

And then look again. Strong and handsome, when clean. Loyal to a fault. Fiercely protective of those he loves. Playful and fun to hang around with, a born comedian. Not fussy about his food habits. Intelligent enough to outwit some really smart humans. Resilient and doesn’t get sick easily, heals quickly when he does.

If you want to say ‘daag achha hai’, he can say it for you – gladly! If you want to say ‘express yourself’, oh you bet he can. ‘Be my lover, bubbly!’? Piece of cake. ‘Feel like God’? – he already does.

Use the pie and ditch the pug, Piyush. He needs you. And you know what? You need him too.




(0) Comments | Post Comment
Sasha [ edit ]
December 28 2005 (07:54:00) ( 2 views )


Sasha was adopted as a baby by a childless well-to-do couple. They regarded her as a gift from God. By her third birthday, it became clear that she was a special child. Her mental age would never go beyond eight or nine, though physically she was normal and healthy. Before her sixth birthday, her adoptive mother went into severe depresssion and took her own life.

Sasha's father coped with the tragic loss of his wife, and the burden of bringing up a special girl on his own, with the help of his mother, for several years. Gradually a friendship with a former colleague, who was going through a divorce she didn't want, grew into a romance. He proposed marriage. Both Sasha and he could do with the stability of a woman in the home. His former colleague had her resevations. Coping with a personal loss of her own, she loved him but wasn't sure if she had it in her either emotionally or physically to take on the responsibility of a special child that wasn't even her own.

Four years later she made up her mind and said yes. They were married two years ago. Sasha is now thirteen and has had her first period. She calls her new mother Mama, and Mama is teaching her all about the birds and the bees. Mama's initiation into motherhood skipped all the stages from sonographies to nappies to playschool. Hell, she doesn't even know what a normal PTA meeting is like. She interacts with counsellors and pediatricians instead.

Last night Sasha and her parents came to dinner along with other friends of mine and their kids. The house was like a playground with seniors, adults and children cracking jokes, singing songs, throwing soft toys about, teasing the dogs, eating and drinking heartily. Age, specie or sex no bar, intellect absolutely no bar. Mama was the happiest and most relaxed that I have seen her in a long long time. She has been my best friend for over twenty years, a former colleague too, who has seen me through all my ups and downs, major successes and glaring failures, standing beside me like a rock. I too have tried to be there for her, all through the stormy years, and now it looks like her ship has finally found anchor. Her former husband had gone off to America to chase a dream, one that he never found or shared with her. Who would have thought that her own rainbow was right there all the while in the form of a once-colleague's special little girl?
(0) Comments | Post Comment
Of packing and unpacking books [ edit ]
December 16 2005 (07:53:00) ( 2 views )


A couple of months ago, my family happened upon the uneasy task of moving home after thirty years. Some things can be left to the packers - crockery, furniture, electronic equipment. Some things you just need to have a go at yourself. Somehow, wading through old clothes, throwing away the ones that have no prospect of a future, putting aside those that will go to the dry cleaners and then to charity, and rediscovering that t-shirt you loved and lost (Amadeus and crow) leaves you with an overall-tired-but-clean-and-happy feeling.

The books ofcourse are another thing altogether. They suffer from all the qualities that spell 'tough work' from the word go. Too many in number (our collection definitely runs into thousands and thousands), too weighty by far, too dusty and too smelly. And yet....

....I loved it. Or what I was allowed to enjoy of it. It's one of those family sayings, "Keep her away from the books". I spring clean my book shelves every six months, squatting on the floor among a heap of them, sorting out the ones that will go to Goa, those that will go into storage, or into my great great grandfather's revolving book case, and so on. What would take a normal average adult an hour takes me about five. I simply cannot dust and put aside a book without scanning through it, it is just not an option.

So, many of my books were hurriedly thrown into cartons by my parents and the packers while I was away at work. But.... they left the ones in my great great grandfather's rosewood writing desk cabinets to me.

Aha! What a heavenly experience. First of all the smells. A heady mixture of the sour scent of old paper, mothballs, pungent antique wood, insect leftovers, ink and glue. Then the textures. Old books and newspapers have a certain soft roughness to them that our grandchildren, weaned on a diet of keyboards and styluses (styli?), will never know. And finally the words and pictures. A 200 year old book of quotations, my dad's collection of the Stars of the Silver screen cigarette cards, my great aunt's anthologies of travels around the world, ancient encylcopedias, my grandfather's stamp collection, my mother's 'my first baby book', cuttings of all my brother's writings in newspapers from the age of seven onwards, and my tennis exploits, an old family Bible, cookery books, books I had seen before, books I look at each time with new eyes.

All the cartons were shipped off to Goa, where people presume I have the space to keep them. I have very few books now left with me in Mumbai, but it's only a matter of time when my monthly additions with change that situation. The revolving book case has also kindly been sent to Goa, while the cabinets of the writing desk are now used to stash away Dad's Scotch... and all the wine made by my mother in the 70's and 80's that we discovered in the clean up. Since this desk lives with me in my Mumbai bedroom, it's a bit of a waste for a teetotaller book lover - having the wine and the whisky, but not the books.

Unpacking the cartons in Goa is ofcourse an experience that's all mine. It's a tough job indeed, one that leaves me exhausted after each sitting. Lugging a fully filled carton of books, slicing and scissoring through the packing, lifting out the books and dusting each one - all this I hate. Sifting and sorting and scanning I love. Sometimes I find myself sitting among them, leaning back against a tallish pile that is capable of taking my weight, and actually reading a full book start to finish. Torda is quiet in the evenings, after the hustle of the hospital is over, and all the animals have turned in for the night. With only the kitten sisters for company past sundown, it's easy to lose track of time.

So far I have unpacked only four cartons, and slid many of the books into their appointed places in the revolving bookcase. There are at least fourteen more to go. The kitten sisters will be fully grown by the time I'm done.
(0) Comments | Post Comment
Noel [ edit ]
December 06 2005 (10:00:00) ( 2 views )


I spotted Noel on a sapling cart this Sunday morning. Among coxcombs and roses, he was the only Christmas tree teetering close to the edge at one corner of the cart. I liked him instantly because he is well shaped, with six good rows of symmetrical branches, none damaged. Noella was wider and taller when I bought her but had only four rows. The cart seller wanted Rs 300, I negotiated him down to Rs 150, not really wanting to buy the plant even though I liked it. I continued on my way, and when I returned an hour later, he was still there, waiting. So I got him for 'boni'- first sale of the day price.

My mother is already feeling Christmasy - trees do that. She decided that this one was a boy since my tree in Goa is a girl,and gave him the unimaginative title of Noel. He has already been washed down and placed in his 'spot', and after a few weeks, we will put an acorn crib beneath him, and decorate some of his branches, but not too much. I don't much go for the overdone tinsel effect.

And after epiphany I will take him to Goa and settle him down next to Noella. Where they will live happily ever after.
(0) Comments | Post Comment
Thank you, Russel [ edit ]
December 02 2005 (06:49:00) ( 2 views )


The weekend was more interesting than usual. It began with a call to help an injured cow that had been hit by a car on the NH 17 at the top of the hill. Deby and Dinella trudged up with all their equipment but couldn't even manage to restrain her. She had a three month old calf by her side, a broken forelimb, and a prominent swelling on the side of her stomach. So Dr Rathod was summoned as well, and as expected, he expertly put together a splint, and washed her down with a bucket of water. By the next morning, she and her calf had moved on.

The veterinary parade returned to the hospital by noon to discover that Mr Russel Viper was curled up nonchalantly outside the surgery door, in the nook between the bottom step and the large laterite rock. He has been visiting my aunt's plot next door every night for the past few nights, hissing his loud and ominous russell viper hiss. Such a beautiful creature with large black diamonds set against a bright yellow body, and as deadly dangerous as he is beautiful.

Tony and the gang went to work sending all the dogs and cats up the hill into the shelters. When we were visited last year by a cobra and her mate, Candy attacked the female and was rewarded with a bite on the mouth. A long night of antivenom drip did save her life but she was never the same and passed away suddenly ten months later. We didn't want the same thing to happen with a viper, since death is much more quick. Besides, cobras are gentle creatures who will not attacked unprovoked, but a viper is a callous as a wild boar.

Dr Rathod sent for the Green Cross. Fortunately, Arnold was in the vicinity. It took him exactly five seconds to bag the snake, and put it aside, for release later into some other forest. Deby ofcourse rebuked him - are you the guys releasing all your rescued snakes into our forest??

On his way out, Arnold met Lucky at her usual sitting spot. The emaciated abandoned Great Dane has now put on some weight and can stand on all fours for a short while. Arnold immediately contacted a friend who offered to adopt her and give her all the special care she will need to recover fully. Lucky found a good home by that evening.

So all's well that ends well. We don't want any more vipers visiting us, but if they bring along some good samaritans in their wake, then it's not so bad.
(0) Comments | Post Comment
Of letters of resignation [ edit ]
November 24 2005 (09:26:00) ( 3 views )


My artist friend broke the mould. Instead of the standard A4 letter paper with four paragraphs of hypocritical thank-you’s, miss-you’s, it’s-been- great-but-the-future-beckons, and will-always-remember-you’s, he sent in a gold leafed leather bound monogrammed book, with a single entry on the first page,

“The End of a Chapter”.

Then he packed up his bags and left.

If I must receive a resignation letter, I wish the writer would at least make it interesting for me. Something to remember the bloke by, since everything else one would rather forget. Whatever the stated reasons for leaving, and whatever else is said and done as is expected to be said and done, in the final analysis, there is really only one fact. He, or she, left.

June and November are the months. Promotions and increments are given out in April. The disappointed scour the market in May, and the resignations follow in June. It’s so easy to predict who will stay and who will go, and to engineer the whole process. The November post Diwali bonus goodbyes, however, are different – these have the ability to make you sad and reflective. You learn who your fair weather friends were. The ones who hung around just till the money hit the savings bank account.

It’s been more than ten years since I penned a resignation letter of my own, replete with all the expected banalities that, as always, didn’t mean a thing. So unlike me. I may walk out of here someday, just like I walked in. With nothing in writing. I must be the only employee of this great agency who has never signed the compulsory employment agreement.

As I explained to my boss, the Chairman, if it’s written in my heart, that should be good enough for you. And the day it’s erased from my heart, you will know without me having to tell you.

But perhaps I will leave behind a nice symbol, just like Neville did. Or die in this job, whichever comes first. But no resignation letter. Never.








(0) Comments | Post Comment
144/9, Torda [ edit ]
November 15 2005 (08:22:00) ( 2 views )


Ultimately, it’s all about witchcraft and wizadry. Hogwarts cannot have a monopoly on magic. I won’t allow it.

It starts with a nondescript, non-used but fully functioning brass bell, set inside a 4 by 4 hollow square in the front of the left compound wall that was meant to house the giant red dolphin.

(The dolphin being the then mascot of the Goa SPCA, much maligned by all our trustees.

- Benny – “of all the creatures you could have shown as a symbol, why on earth a dolphin, why not dogs and cats and horses and the common cow?”

- Lt Col Nageshkar –“ people think we are fish mongers – when our three wheeler animal carrier passes by with the red dolphin painted on it, they think we are transporting fish” (this one must make my priestly ancestors roll in their polished marble graves – having looked down for centuries at the ‘fisherfolk’ – if you’ve encountered the cacophonous quarrelsome locals of Calangute and Baga, you will sympathise)

- Bharat –“are you sure red is a good colour for a) a hospital, b) a dolphin?”

- Ashley – “it makes us look like a tourist hotel”)

The dolphin that was delivered hours before the inauguration was a flat uninspiring piece of badly cut and poorly painted red steel, so I sent Clem off to buy a bell – “We have to put something in that square – can’t leave it empty, might as well be a bell – it can stand for anything you like, I don’t care, just fill up the square.”

People sometimes clang on the bell for fun. Sometimes to call the vets down the hill. The bell is where the magic begins.

It moves on to Leopoldina. A badam tree sapling we planted on Foundation day, October 4, 2000. Named after a local twenty something senorita who looked longingly at Clem, the Man from the Big City – during the mass. Everyone says hello to everyone in a village that houses 900 people, if that. “Hello, I’m Lynn, this is Clem, what’s your name?” “Leopoldina”. Clem does a double take. Turns out that was Annabelle’s code name when she lived in America while they were dating. Our baby tree is officially named Leopoldina. A clutch of elves live inside her.

(When the construction papers finally got approved we realized that we had miscalculated the whole project by three metres, since that’s how much forward it would have to move up, to make way for potential ‘road widening’. No way I would let Leopoldina and the corner stone be moved, even though they were technically quite out of place. So everything had to make its way around her, the pathway, the vehicles going up and down, the cashew tree above her that now looks down at her with angry frowns since she has grown right up to his lower branches. We celebrate her temerity every year on her birthday, she continues to cast her cheeky spell.)

It moves further up to the office block, that houses the administration, the OPD, and the angels dressed up as vets, nurses and general dogsbodies. Everything is spic and span, including Tixi and Toxi, the two teak trees who rise up from the Torda earth, right through the administration rooms, into the front verandah of my own home above. From time to time, the insects dance around them, and the toadstools pop out at night. In autumn, I turn into a sweeper of falling blossoms and leaves as they shed their clothes faster than an American stripper.

The front wall of the administration building that faces the road was painted over in aquatic blue by two young Warli tribals shipped in by Clem on a bus the night before the inauguration. Animal rescue and treatment scenes depicted by them show a nurse chasing after a bird with a needle and syringe that’s taller than her, among other such expressions of their typical triangular art.

(The addition of over two hundred plants of varying lineage, taken from Mumbai in the Grand Rescue of all Things Living at Gym View for over Twenty Years, (the said Gym View now having been razed to the ground to make way for a dazzling display of diamond gotten wealth) have somewhat hidden the Warli contribution and added a semblance of civilization to the place’s jungle appeal. Palms, ferns and cordelias rub shoulders with jackfruit, cashew and goti, and all blend together beautifully. The only rule being that there are no rules – grow where you grow best and feel happy, darling, ain’t no posh garden manicurists here.)

Up a long laterite flight of steps hugging the right compound wall, past my impossibly sloping backyard, back of my house but front of the shelter. We are now at the fourth floor by city standards, but at the ground floor of my house. At Torda, logic has a magic of its own.

Here lives Noella, nestling among jackfruit, mango, papaya and lemon, all waiting to grow up and bear fruit – hopefully, not long now. I carried her from Mumbai to Goa on my lap in a plane, her graceful young branches tied closely together to keep her trademark spiky Christmas tree leaves from getting hurt. Every year, she sprouts a new row of hexagonally symmetrical branches. This Christmas, her third new row has just starting reaching out to the other trees around her, and the fairies will skip past each row as always when the clock strikes twelve on December 25th, so that a magical star can come down to settle on her forehead.

By now, you are breathless. When you look up, you think, “Oh my God, how much further?” If you have a scruffy little pup by your side, he’s having a party. Hop, skip and jump, here I come. Hey cat, wait till I get you. That’s right. You have just reached the gates to the shelter, where Gingy awaits you with a haughty little meow. Her sisters are sunning themselves on the surgery roof, flat on their backs, paws kneading the air dreamily – you can see them as you go past the roof. Yes you do go past the roof, this is 144/9, Torda, remember?

Before you turn left at the little nookish entrance to the kitchen block, you are greeted by pups of assorted weight and colour, and if she’s not feeling too sleepy, Shalu will step up to say a polite hello too, while Philu will shake her bum ecstatically.

(Philu was named after the girl at the PFA shelter who sentenced her to death. Those were the days when other NGO’s sent us animals to work on since our own vehicle was on down time. Philu, the dog not the girl, had ‘untreatable’ mange. Dr Rathod set to work on his secret potion, made from exotic ingredients available at the local tinto. He calls it the Golden Lotion. Golden Lotion saved Philu from an untimely death, and sowed the seeds of an anti-euthanasia policy that I seft-righteously drew up. Mange is common in salty sandy Goa, and Golden Lotion has now become a household name in Torda – so what if there are only 300 houses?)

If it’s feeding time, they will all ignore you, pointedly. So will the staff. It’s not easy spooning rice and chicken broth into bowls, with cats hovering by the raw fish at your elbow, and pups scraping at your calves. Lucky will not budge however. She can barely stand. An emaciated Great Dane with a genetic hip disorder, she was left here by the Youth Congress General Secretary. Big man, in service of mankind, in abandonment of dogkind. She sits stretched fully across a strategically positioned step. You realise that the winding steps above were made only for the feeble, the rest of us must learn to take the slope of the hill in our stride and our rubber chappals.

The sloping roofed tubular maroon shelters now loom up before us. The inmates are quiet, dry-eyed, in obvious pain – some from the surgery, some from wounds, some from disease. They place their trust and hopes unflinchingly in the hands of the good Dr Rathod. He bows his head, and waves his wand, and they get up and walk.

(For those that don’t, further up the hill is a spot where magic touched my lips six years ago in a kiss that will stay unforgettable. Here lie the remains of Nixon, Jumbo, Bobby, Candy and many others who fought brave battles, played with the gypsies, and are still playing with them somewhere that is not 144/9 Torda, but as close to it as you can get. Ever.)
















(0) Comments | Post Comment
Showing 91 to 100 of 107
SmilingDolphin