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Mooshy

Yes...he's still here.
In a move that either proves our love-deep connection to the little guy, or attests to an innate lunacy, we are considering the steps that we'll have to take in order to acquire a passport for him; allowing him to travel to Iran and then America with us.
He's been twice to the vet in an effort at curing his ick-factor (a project that seems to be taking effect), has already learned to 'sit,' and is doing his very-best-I'm-sure to learn to be house-trained (who knew such a cute little package could produce such a variable of nasty by-products!).

Anyone know any sure fire ways to train a puppy not to eat every wire, shoe, and loose object that happens to be lying about?
Tell me, please....

Bangalore, India

So we named him....

The truth is, we couldn't leave him outside.
He's too damn cute, and is now sleeping curled up in a black pashmina atop a pile of old clothes tucked between the subwoofer and the entertainment center, tummy freshly de-wormed and full of home cooked chicken courtesy of Hamid. Dog toys and prescription meds awaiting his open eyes in hopes that we can coax a bit more of that precious puppy energy back to life and his hair back to lustre (if it ever had any to begin with, living the way he was amidst the garbage of an otherwise empty lot).

We are hopelessly in love with this mangy little creature and for the sake of sanity aren't looking past the seven days the vet at the godsend of an animal shelter (CUPA - Compassion Unlimited Plus Action; a rescue shelter/animal hospital started in 1991 by a British woman, aged 85 at the time) required before he's old enough for a vaccination.

Originally the idea was to take him to the shelter and leave him there (a verified no-kill facility, the only one of it's kind in Bangalore - ignored as a social service by the government and run strictly on donations).
Hamid pretends he doesn't see any possibilities here, and yet is insisting on training doggy etiquette into him.

All I know is my immediate concern is getting him healthy; beyond that remains to be seen.
It would be nice to find him a warm and friendly permanent home here in Bangalore, but I've seen what happens to puppies and dogs their owners have grown tired of and I really don't trust that allowing CUPA to adopt him out will guarantee his future happiness unless he could become one of the many permanent residents at the shelter.

We brought him into our house last night and scoured the web for a local facility that might help us assuage our need to handle the puppy proactively. We found CUPA.

We arrived at the center this morning via autorickshaw, puppy carefully wrapped in his shawl and deposited comfortably in the carriage of a cloth shoulder bag ensconced within my arms. Walking in it was evident that the shelter does maintain a no-kill policy, with dogs of every shape, size, and malformity adorning the floors and the outside area (which turns out to be quite a substantial piece of property). We handed over the two huge bags of dog food we had brought with us as a donation and were invited back to 'Room 12' where the puppy would be washed and treated for whatever ailed him (besides abandonment). We learned that he is just two months old, and as yet is too young for a vaccination, making him susceptible to the sicknesses carried by the many dogs taken in at the shelter for treatment every day. With this in mind we decided against leaving him there, for now, and instead took a prescription for his skin problem, got him a solid bath (which left him looking quite naked in some spots) and promised in earnest to return to the shelter to volunteer our time.

Room 12 was full of donated kennels and cages housing puppies aged from just two weeks to five months. Some had been in surgery and were healing, bandaged and sleepy. All of them were excited to see us and desperate for attention. The older dogs roamed the entire facility freely, many of them deemed permanent residents due to their suffered abuse, injuries, and special needs.

We spent about an hour at CUPA, getting to know a few of the staff and learning more about how we might help.
Like any animal shelter without government funding they are in desperate need of cash, food, medical supplies, blankets and towels, and a multitude of other things required to care for the animals.

CUPA not only provides rescue, shelter, and free neuter/spay services for dogs and cats, but aids birds, rabbits, and even large farm animals (we saw oxen and a sheep with her lamb in one of the outdoor courtyards.) The center also works tirelessly to educate the public about elephant mistreatment as many temples keep the huge creatures as symbols of a congregation's prosperity - keeping the animals in small rooms that provide little in the way of exercise or even fresh air.

We were so heartened to have found this sanctuary for the many creatures that are otherwise relegated to roaming the streets of Bangalore in search of survival.

I find it very sad and a little ironic that it was Gandhi who said "You can judge the compassion of a culture by the way it treats it's animals..." and yet CUPA is literally the only facility operating with genuine compassion for animals in this area.

I really don't know what we will decide to do with this little guy...I cried when Hamid halfheartedly suggested we leave him at the shelter.
We named him 'Mooshy.' It means 'mouse' in Persian and as you can see, fits him perfectly.

Can we keep it, pleeeeeeeease?

Late last night I awoke to the sounds of someone closing and locking the front door of our house. Too groggy and unable to see clearly without my contact lenses I called briefly for Hamid before curling up into my feather pillow and falling back to sleep.
But within a few minutes I was awake and very aware that something was missing - namely, my husband.
It's normal for Hamid to be awake at all hours, but out of the question for him to leave the house at four in the morning so I sat up, puzzled, and yawned, curious and slightly suspicious.
Immediately, I opened the door to the balcony, hoping to spy my husband and understand what on earth he could be doing, venturing into the silent street, barely lit by multicolored holiday lights strung up at our neighbor's house.
The sound of the lock unhinging echoed loudly into the cavernous darkness beyond. Perplexed, I could see nothing from where I stood and turned back to close and lock the door behind me. As I reached up to push the squeaky metal latch into place I heard Hamid calling me from within the blanket of Indian night. He was moving toward me. I could not see him, but I could hear his chappals sliding against the stony ground beneath his feet.
He shuffled up to within a few meters of our house, apparently dressed in his pajamas and wandering around outside like some kind of insomniac.
He whispered "Look, look!" but I still couldn't see anything.
After slipping my contacts into unwilling eyes, I blinked back sleepy tears and returned to the balcony to see my darling crouched down in front of a tiny bouncing puppy. Hamid moved closer so I could see his surprise more clearly, puppy following happily along behind him.
"Bring it here!" I cried.
"Tess...." Hamid weighs the consequences of this request, sharing his trepidation with me in his tone.
"Bring it here!" I repeated, anxious.
"Tess....it's dirty."
"I don't care, bring it here, bring it here, bring it here!" I'm desperate to see this little fat puffball up close and personal, even if it means I have to go out into the street, but I'd rather have the dog in the house where I can feed him and give him water, maybe a bath...maybe work out a way to keep it.
If I can get it in the house then the likelihood of that happening is greater.
We've been through this before.

There are always puppies, tiny, sweet, perfect little whining things running around the neighborhoods. All of them hungry, dirty, and stray. There are no services installed in India for the management of the canine population and so the dogs breed, and starve. We wonder at them individually; how long will that one live, which ones will be reigning the street in six months. I've learned not to get too attached to them, but my immediate reaction is always the same - an innate desire to keep them.

It's a habit - I did the same thing in Grenada, Spain with the black and white cat that followed me all around the Alhambra and jumped into my lap, digging his claws into my thighs, drooling and purring the second I sat down. It took me half an hour to come to the conclusion that no, I couldn't take him back to the apartment in Barcelona with me, and no, I couldn't probably manage all of my luggage and a pet carrier come time to go, not to mention the fare for the animal to fly and sit in quarantine.
It takes some time, but eventually, heartbroken, I get to the point of understanding and say goodbye.

Then there was the desperately sick little kitten, rescued from the greasy seeping gutter of a Moroccan bazaar only to die in my hands minutes later (although not before she bit me, sending my friend Alana into a panick over the possibility of rabies in the rat and garbage infested north African city of Tanger.) and another healthier kitten encountered on a busy streetcorner in Bombay that begged for my attention until I begged Hamid to let me take it back to the hotel.

One day during my first few weeks in Bangalore, while waiting to cross MG Road I noticed a tiny four week old black puppy sprawled out on the pavement in the baking sun, too skinny and weak to lift his head. I watched in horror as people walked past him, stepped over him - unconcerned. Within five minutes he was nestled and sleeping inside my Dior shopper, leaking fleas and God-knows-what-else all over the sweater shrug I had wrapped him in. He accompanied me that day to a meeting at an outdoor coffee shop where I fed him milk and small bites of chicken.
I named him (Padeshah = 'little king' in Persian) and bought everything I needed to keep him clean, happy, healthy, and alive.
I carried him like a baby nearly everywhere I went, to the great displeasure of my landlord, Hari Krupa.
In an effort at winning the man's approval I asked him where I could find a veterinarian, hoping to get whatever shots were necessary. Hari not only offered me directions to a nearby animal doctor, but a ride there the following morning. The next day, with Padeshah wrapped in a soft red blanked, I sat in the car for the short ride, pleased with myself for having found an ally in Hari after all.
Hari spoke to the vet in Kannada and left with a smile. The vet gave the squirming dog a few injections, hydrated him with some fluids intravenously, billed me, and sent us both home telling me the dog should 'walk around a bit to get everything in his system.'
I had yet another appointment to keep so I set out a dish of water and kissed my little one goodbye.
Two hours later I returned home to find the dog in the middle of the floor, dead.
It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life, finding him like that, having clearly suffered alone until the end, and I called Hari to cry obscenities at him, accusing him of instructing the vet to euthanize the puppy.
I loved that dog and would have kept him, but the universe had decided otherwise, and that was that.

These experiences and others run through my head as I watch Hamid carry his fluffy white-faced mixed-breed friend up the stairs and into the house.
We feed him, play with him, consider bathing him (this is where the possibility of keeping him becomes a struggle) and realize all in the same breath that it's just impossible.
For this one baby dog there are a million others all over India and there is nothing we can do to ease the pain of that knowledge.
Hamid takes him back outside where the dirty little beast cries pathetically for an hour before moving on.
We've fed puppies outside our house before, literally loved them and kept them alive with butcher's meat and multivitamins, and they all eventually and mysteriously disappear (likely at the hand of Rajju, the houseman charged with keeping the grounds clean.)
It's pointless, this heartache. But I can't help it.
Tonight I will cook rice and chicken for our newest acquaintance and hope for the best.

Happy Diwali!

It's Diwali time in India. Again. Yay.
If you didn't quite grasp the latent sarcasm in that statement, let me clarify:

Diwali is an Indian Hindu holiday (also celebrated by Sikhs and Jains) that is technically tomorrow, but each year stretches itself in both directions by at least two days.
The decorations and sentiments behind the holiday celebration are lovely: In Hindu, Diwali is an occasion to honor Rama's victory over Ravana; Truth's victory over Evil - from the mythical story of Rama and Sita, as well as a celebration of the victory of Lord Vishnu (in his 8th incarnation as Krishna) as he destroyed the demon Narkasura (one of the Hindu bad guys - charged with stealing women and making everyone generally miserable).
For Hindus, the stories and the holiday are a reminder that good can triumph over and even be born of evil. It is a time to give thanks for the bounty of food, to pray pujas to Hindu gods and goddesses (devas and devis), and celebrate life with friends and family.

During Diwali the sounds of happy people visiting eachother for dinner feasts and gift giving fills the streets; children laugh and play together late into the night, drawing elaborate designs in colored chalk on the ground outside their homes and lighting small oil candles called 'diyas' in hopes of health, wealth, wisdom, peace, courage, and fame.
But interspersed with all of this familial sweetness are the extraordinarily loud bangs that pierce the air and startle me to jumpy gasps 24 hours a day. I've lived through three of these seasons - the first spent in Auroville, farther south near Pondicherry where from inside my little jungle home I sat, terrified for a split second, as I heard what I thought for certain was the start of some local civil uprising. I had no idea the bombs I was hearing were actually firecrackers. These are no small crackers either, these are Indian-style m-80's, cherry bombs the size of oranges, and bottle rockets as long as my arm.

Fireworks are for sale on every major shopping street during the season - with apparently no age requirement to buy them or parental supervision legally imposed in lighting them up, I imagine the emergency rooms are booked solid right about now.

Just two more days to go and then we'll be happily back to the comparable peace and quiet of our busy Bangalore street.

And those are some big eyes

While our Hindu neighbors are celebrating their own holiday, I'm acclimating a week-in to my first Ramadan - quite late to the game as it technically started last month and ends any day now, I'm operating on the principle offered in many Qu'ranic teachings that any days missed during the month of fasting can be made up at the end. When it started I was sort-of indisposed (as women will be once a month) and during that time one is not expected to fast. If a person is travelling, injured, or sick they also, are not expected to fast but should make up the days at the end. (From the Qu'ran: "Specific days (are designated for fasting); if one is ill or traveling, an equal number of other days may be substituted. Those who can fast, but with great difficulty, may substitute feeding one poor person for each day of breaking the fast. If one volunteers (more righteous works), it is better. But fasting is the best for you, if you only knew.")

I'm not really 'expected' to do anything but am doing my best to experience a wide range of Muslim events, rites, and rituals during my first year within Islam.

The idea is that a person will wake up at the early morning, perhaps eat and drink something, pray, and then not eat or drink anything again until the late afternoon prayers have been completed. Sex and smoking are also on the no-list during this time. I've quit smoking, and the rest is none of your business.
Participation in Ramadan is considered an expression of personal fortitude and is a month of self regulation.
I'm not quite on that page of waking up at four a.m. (and unfortunately I don't yet know the prayers) but I am fasting from the time I wake up until the time of the evening assan, and I'm hungry!

I'm hungry, but not going to die (remembering the UNICEF lunch days in Catholic grade school intended to keep us mindful of all the empty stomachs in the world with a single cup of chicken noodle soup for lunch instead of our wonder bread tuna fish frito lay chocolate pudding with an apple lunches...or whatever. Sometimes my mom would pack Twinkies and Funyuns, my favorite combination.)

When I started observing Ramadan, each day I was really struggling after a few hours, especially if I'd woken up earlier than usual but not early enough to be able to eat. Still, I waited, and waited - asking Hamid every hour and then some what time it was, waiting to hear the faint sound of voices carrying the evening prayer song to us from the nearby mosque.
But now, when the day has passed and I finally order dinner, I'm more relaxed with my meal and taste it with much more zeal than were it any other normal day when I might eat three or more times. And now that my body has adjusted to the process I find that I have more energy, less internal issues, and a clearer mind. I am more in tune with my self, my thoughts, and the world around me - rather than dulling it all with the constant intake and stimulation of food. I see it as a sort of active meditation. And while the Qu'ran doesn't prescribe fasting with any specific medical benefits in mind, they are certainly there.

The only really difficult part now is to stop obsessing over what I want to eat in the evening and then trying to keep the 'eyes bigger than the stomach' thing to a minimum.

Rock the vote - global

Another souvenir received: my Persian identity card complete with black scarfed head shot and my birthdate listed in the year 1352 by the Iranian calendar.
Intimidating in it's official Islamic Republic red government jacket and stamp - and yet liberating, giving me the right to vote, to get a driver's license, to own property, to start a business, and even run for Parliament in Iran (if I was so inclined and could master the art of diplomacy in Farsi).

The identity card provides my citizen number, a list of my family members (currently limited to Hamid with space for more babies than I can imagine producing in a single lifetime), and a card to record any issues I vote on.

Now I am American and Persian. No small feat considering the current state of affairs.

While we were visiting the Iranian Consulate we submitted the papers necessary to acquire my Persian passport. If that is issued, then and only then will I be allowed to enter the country again.
There are no more visas for American tourists, at least not right now, which is too bad really - I hear Iran is gorgeous this time of year.

Autorickshaws of the sky

We finally realized we were getting nowhere trying to acquire this one piece of paper we needed from the local police office for Hamid's visa application to the States. Every official had the same air of indifference as we were sent from one office to the next - the whole process winding us up in a hopeless maze. Nearly a month later we still have nothing to show for it, are tired of begging and bribing for any attention to the matter, and in a fit of desperation called the U.S. Consulate to announce our defeat.
U.S. government to the rescue: they seemed to take it in stride and told us to go ahead and present what we did have. And so we're on our way...almost.
We still need one last paper from Iran, but that will be a piece of cake, although it does mean flying yet again to Hyderabad where the Iranian Consulate is located.
In anticipation, I've packed my scarf, booked our hotel, and purchased our flight.

Airline travel inside India is extremely affordable - my favorite airline to fly is Kingfisher; their planes are new and look like little toys sitting shiny on the runway, their service is wonderful, and their food is suprisingly delicious. One time they even gave Hamid a perfect little metal replica of the airplane we were flying on when the stewardess noticed his quietly coveting eyes follow her to the seat of a child who was being gifted the same.
My least favorite airline is Air Deccan; their planes are old (rickety in the sky like an autorickshaw on a badly paved road), their service virtually nonexistent, and their food is prepackaged bleached-bread snacks and powdered coffee mix sold at exhorbitant prices on board the plane.
Given a choice, it seems natural to opt for Kingfisher to get us where we need to go. Except for one thing - the price of the ticket.
Kingfisher may get you there in a gleaming new red and white plane and feed you delectable Indian goodies along the way, but they charge for it. A round trip ticket with Air Deccan for the one and a half hours each way between Bangalore and Hyderabad costs the same, or less, as a one way ticket with Kingfisher.
In any case, the price of a flight is worth not taking the bus.

Gulab jamun

There are enough delivery services in our neighborhood that we rarely have to go anywhere to get anything at all, but it can end up being a lot of work getting what we need anyway, considering the language and accent barriers.
After such a long time here what was once just my immitation of the local accent in English has become a natural way of speaking for me and I can communicate rather well on some topics. Unfortunately, ordering groceries is not one of them.

We do alot of business with City Market, our source for everything from incense to soy milk, produce to junk food. They know us as 'Lakshmi Mansion, F-1." I think we must be their worst nightmare when it comes to orders phoned in. I never knew it could be so difficult to explain that I want a light bulb.
The other night I ordered roasted kajju (cashews) 50 grams, one Lipton iced tea in a can for Hamid, gulab jamun (what I thought would be rose incense), and a pack of 30 white emergency candles.
There is no emergency, we just like to burn them.

Frequently, no matter how many times we repeat our order we receive something so far flung from what it is we expected that we have to send it back. They've sent oil instead of apples, soap instead of rice - you get the idea. Once in a while the shop is just too busy in this rapidly growing neighborhood to keep the orders straight and once in a while the mixup is due to my feeble attempts at impressing them with a bit of Hindi or Kannada.

As it turns out, gulab jamun was not rose incense - not even close.
It was an intriguing box with a glass jar inside full of tan golf ball sized round things suspended in light syrupy stuff - apparently something to eat. I decided, out of curiosity (edged with a slight embarassment at my own linguistic mistake) and in honor and memory of trips with friends to Uwajimaya in Seattle to buy and taste nameless wonderfully packaged foreign goodies, to open the jar and pluck out and taste one of the offerings.
It was, at least for the moment, the most delicious thing I've ever eaten.
Tasting something like a maple syrup soaked donut hole, gulab jamun is a wonderfully edible Indian delicacy.
Made of curded and fried milk and soaked in rosewater syrup, the roundy sugary things are my most recent accidental favorite.

Meow

My mom is an angel - we just received a packaged delivery of a few goodies from the States, not the least of which was a big huge box of Alaskan smoked salmon from their recent cruise up to the snowy north.
It was so good, we ate it like cats.

La, la, la I can't hear you...

Every once in a while I read this type of predictable journalistic knee-jerk reaction against blogging - self defense I call it.
It's fine - whatever people think, whoever people are...because I write this for myself, mostly - and with the notion that it lasts longer than the paper pieces I always end up tossing because I move around so much. Sometimes there is a little bit of drama - 'the agony and the ecstasy' of life - in my writing, and I most definitely misuse and abuse semicolons on a regular basis - but that's just because I write the way I would talk and there are all kinds of pauses in there that are better noted with a semicolon than a comma or a dash even if the rules of language say otherwise.
Either way, I just can't get to the viable 'why' behind this article - published by an assumed professional journalist - it's ironic that the author wants to call railing on about how annoying bloggers and their opinions are news:
"They are interesting people. They think that they have something to say. They want to be read and heard and seen. But their aspiration is blocked by the obnoxious monster called the Editor and their high-voltage facts mixed with slam-dunk fiction, with a lot of typos and commas and semi-colons in wrong places, go down a drain called the Editorial Process. So they turn to blogging and take refuge under a series of posts on a web page in the form of a diary, with hypertext links to other such diaries. The bloggers love to attack those they hate: from McDonald's to Starbucks to Karl Marx to Mandal to Germaine Greer to the colleague at the next work station. Blogs are an online stream of consciousness written by people who believe that they are under orders from someone to change the world. "

I find these pieces and their real-journalist authors a bit sad - as any dying breed will tend to be, particularly for those of us who sympathize with the underdog.
This backlash against the impromptu Op-Ed that is any blog on any given day is a symptom of the cancer that creeps up on those who do (or did?) get paid to write what they think.

I'm curious as to the why or how a blog could be threatening to someone who's made a living out of finding out what's going on in the world and making headlines out of whoever's trying to change it (for better or worse).
And no, there is no editor - and that's the point. No one to define what is marketable.

This journalist harps on about bloggers who have been invited (or want) to be paid for their writing and is equally annoyed with the media outlets willing to pay. But if you look at the extraordinary number of people who author blogs just for the sake of writing, doesn't that tell you that people will opine and create and complain and work through it all regardless of and oblivious to monetary compensation?
And how can a journalist, someone who does find profit in writing about the agony and ecstasy of it all as long as it sells advertising, fault a single soul for partaking of that? Because it's threatening to realize that huge numbers of consumers are turning to voices that sound like their own as an accesory source of media.

The thing is, like most who keep blogs, the only person I write for is myself and the only world I'm trying to change is my own. As to the semicolons - no apologies there either.

Chapter Two, Page One

Hamid and I have now been officially married for an entire year - today is our anniversary.
What is it supposed to be, the traditional gift, paper or something? Try haltered BCBG silk chiffon and Kenneth Cole fitted cotton.

Sadly, any plans we had to wear our imported goodies out tonight to celebrate are thwarted by the fact that I broke the littlest toe on my right foot the other day - and solidly in half, a most disturbing visual I can assure you. While it doesn't hurt at all (amazing considering I doctored it myself) I don't imagine it would look or feel particularly lovely in a pair of stilettos, and who wants to go out to celebrate their anniversary wearing chappals?

So, we're home for the day with the assumption that we will go out and do something fabulous as soon as is humanly possible.
The truth is, I don't really care one way or the other and am secretly happy to be so evidently wounded.
It means lots of attention and love from the one person on the planet I most crave - not such a bad way to spend the first day of my second year of marriage.

Nobody asked me

but I'm going to say what I think anyway.

I find lots of random searches in my cPanel that have brought apparently unhappy housewives to my blog.
The things they type in are sometimes sad, sometimes attrocious.
Last month there was "the+clutter+is+killing+our+marriage" and "husband+does+nothing."
The most recent was a pretty basic complaint, and as usual not something I've experienced in my marriage (which makes me expert in my opinion right?).
"what+to+do+when+your+husband+repeatedly+comes+home+late"

And I'm reading this and immediately I am so incredibly sad for her, wondering where this woman is in her life that she's searching Google for an answer to her husband's tardiness. In what relationship do you turn to a search engine for advice?
Where are her friends? Her family? Does she have no one to talk to?
More importantly, where exactly is her husband?
Did she at least try to speak with him about what's bothering her or is it one of those relationships where conversation is off limits or just pointless?
I'm plagued sometimes by a sense of failure at not having had any answers for these women - because what they might find in my blog about marriage or relationship can only make them feel worse for the comparison.
I'm in love, my husband is in love - we talk, we do everything together, we're friends.
I'm lucky.

I try to put myself in their shoes and I just can't imagine.
Thank God.

But here's the deal - if your husband is messy, if he's late all the time, if he's glued to the game every weekend, whatever it is - if he's not treating you like an absolute princess then it's time to talk.

And if you're the only one doing any talking, and you're turning to Google for answers...

As seen on TV

It's a holiday here, and I'm not sure which one (there are so many, it seems it's a holiday nearly every week and that's no exagerration) but the usual lengths of electric lights and garlands of jasmine flowers are strung up everywhere.
We took one of our regular evening walks up to Sanjaynagar, a main shopping street near our house, in search of fresh coconuts to drink and eat the yummy insides of but on the way were sidetracked by a live performance stage set up on the side of the road.
A very small man with the most womanish voice I've ever heard was standing with a microphone in front of a collection of drummers singing his heart out - so we stopped at one side to watch along with the small but dense crowd.
As soon as the singer noticed us he fully turned and, looking into our faces, continued his song with elaborate hand gestures meant to convey that the song was about some kind of partnership, a relationship, a marriage.
We stood smiling at him with our arms wrapped around eachother. In an instant we were the show, as everyone turned to give us their rapt attention while he sang.
It was a nice song, and even though I couldn't understand what he was saying I knew that he was wishing us well with his love song.

There was a small television crew there as well and it didn't take long for the cameraman to join the singer on stage - so he could catch us watching the performance.
Only in Bangalore are we more newsworthy than the actual event being filmed.