Angel's Without a Halo!

We humans can unsee what was seen, unhear what was heard. But there are a few who don’t. They are the closest angels to you. The world comes together in helping them.

This story had to be said long ago. 

Story 1:

On a regular day in college when we were discussing about veganism and a lot of other things about animals, my friend mentioned to me about this ill treated Saint Bernard in some place on his way to college. I asked him to click some pictures and then completely unheard what he said. It was only weeks later he reminded me about the dog and this time I hated myself for forgetting someone who so needed help from me. The dog was definitely in need. I asked him to send pictures at any cost that day and it broke my heart to see a dog like that.

Gombe, the way he was heartlessly chained in metal

A small leash. Smaller than his own height. It didn’t even let him lie down when he wanted to. Covered with cow dung and files. I knew only one thing that could be done. That night, I posted the pictures, location and mentioned my lack of knowledge about the whole issue and requested for suggestions on a Dog Lovers group.

I woke up the next day to some beautiful souls. Comments poured in from a number of people with various suggestions and a few members went a step ahead in going to the location and talking to the people who had chained the dog. Happened that they had named her Gombe (meant “Doll” in Kannada). She was a doll but not a happy one. The few members who visited the place discovered that the lady who owned the dog was a breeder and misused the dog. She was warned a number of times to stop. The warnings seemed invain. She continued to chain Gombe outside and nothing changed about what was happening. She looked sick and starved.

Series of discussions followed on the group and a lot of them didn’t know each other. But the want to help Gombe kept everyone together and the group of Angels managed to get gombe out of that cruel house. She was moved to a rescue shelter near Bannerghatta road and later into the wonderful home of an adult dog rescuer and lived happily ever after. She was given the name “Mai” and became a part of the family. :’) and the rest was history.

Gombe at the rescue shelter. She stayed here for about a week

Mai at her home where she is loved!

Story 2:

This tiny looking old lady showed up in front of my home sometime during the beginning of this year. She looked lost/abandoned and very scared of humans. She ran when i gave her food and ran harder when i tried to talk to her. She ran and her little bump shaked with her. My uncle surely said, “she is pregnant”. I unsaw that and she showed up herself a week later and this time hungry. I gave her biscuits and she didn’t like them. She was trying to cross the road and almost got hit by an auto. It was nobody’s fault. She was a little brown Dashuand and sinked with the street lights with no difficulty and it wasn’t easy to guess that she was there. That’s when I realised she was not safe on road. 

The first time Mugsy posed with me!

This group came to the rescue again. I posted her picture and asked for help and mentioned how she is not even letting me touch her. I sat on the road with her for 3 hours and made sure she didn’t get on road until help arrived. At 11pm my family lost it. They knew I had my marketing paper the next day. My brother sat with me on road too and kept giving her different food ranging from glucose biscuits to dog food like drools and pedigree. My neighbour, who was studying veterinary came to talk to her to. But she liked no one. Probably the effect of the bad humans in her life in the past. We sat there while discussions happened on the group about who could come and help her at this time. We also named her Mugsy.(The brown dog in the FB messenger stickers).

The day Mugsy was leaving... while we waited for Rajesh to pick her up..

 It happened that the angel received the message little late. But however, he stayed 4 kilometres away from my home. He came at 11.45pm and we ran with little Mugsy and he finally managed to tie her up to a pole. Then the real magic happened. She ate food that I could least think of. She ate curd rice. Our angel had to rush to a different rescue and promised to come and pick her up the next day. He did so and Mugsy passed a number of beautiful hands to reach the home of a rescuer who even witnessed delivery of her babies. The rest is history. Mugsy became Misty in her new, happier home and she is living happily under a safe shelter. 

Misty and her babies with Rajesh

The strong urge to give up on social media breaks little harder every time something so beautiful happens. Facebook is worth the diversions.

The details that remained untalked about:

Group: Bombat Dagwz

Angels without an Halo: My Family, Ranjith, Rekha, Apoorva, Sushma, Rajesh, Rashmi, Namratha, Keertish, Rajesh’s Friends, Sandeep, Vasudev Murthy sir, Sumanth, Debbie, Gargi and the whole member family of Bombat Dagwz and every other unsung super hero in real life.

PS: My apologies if I’ve missed anybody’s name. You know you are making this world a beautiful place. You are the kind of people the world needs.

PPS: Carry a bottle of water and a water bowl. After your street friend eats biscuits/bun, give him/her water… they need it more than anything else this summer. 

Happy Animal Loving! :)

My Journey into the beautiful world of Theatre

I can recall childhood memories where I could deliver huge monologues of old Telugu movies. Friends and relatives who came home would be behind my back and made sure I recited them those lines. They all thought it was cute. As and when I grew up, the cuteness was probably gone. Nobody asked me to recite dialogues and I eventually forgot what I did as a child.

But I think theatre was meant to happen to me. 2 years ago, we had something called “Drama day” At Lakshya’s Udaan Home (The NGO I use to work for, then). The kids learnt little 10 minute skits with a social message in them and then they had to face a competition with kids from other organisations. It was fun. We volunteers and caretakers managed to train the kids and put up a small show which was big in terms of kids enthusiasm. The kids had no clue that their trainers didn’t know any theatre/drama themselves. They performed, we were proud, we gave away medals, we danced, we had a good “Drama Day”!

The beatiful performances put up by kids!

For me, it didn’t end there. Maybe that little kid in me who recited monologues wanted to do more. 

Around last year this time, I decided I wanted to learn acting.

That’s when Facebook helped me and Evam’s first rush workshop paved my way towards it.

When we happily Graduated from Evam's First Rush workshop!

 We put up our first show on November 1st 2015 at Atta Galatta. It was intense in terms of practise. Theatre made a “Not at all morning person”, A “very morning person”.

There is nothing like rehearsing in the early hours of morning. 

Theatre made me a new person. I became a person of Art. 

The journey has been beautiful ever since!

And I am so glad I took that decision.

When I was a tied up lobster

When I had to decide between the smart looking guy and the smart thinking guy! 

When i was asked out in style! :P

The people who have been a part of this journey will always be remembered, loved and thanked. 

Happy World Theatre Day!

God wants you to be high!

There is an intention behind it all...
There is an intention behind all the people you meet,
And every conversation you make..

The conversations are louder than this line,
The people are brighter than this day,
Why else, If not for this high of a kind?
God knew you needed it now!

In his little own ways didn't he already say it?
God wants you to be high!

There is an intention behind it all...
There is an intention behind each road you've touched,
And every journey you've made..

Those clouds will be filled with the best drops,
The roads will be filled with the fog of your favourite kind,
Why else, If not for this high of a kind?
God knew you needed it now!

In his little own ways didn't he already say it?
God wants you to be nothing but high!

Pledged it, Lived it!

As soon as everybody gathered in the playground for an assembly under the scorching sun, The Principal took over the mic. That wasn't a very good news. He would either paste us for something  or announce new rules for the new year.

But when he started talking about the importance of green, it striked to us that it was, "The World Environment day"

The day we were all supposed to talk and discuss about the importance of keeping our environment clean and all of that.
But this year they started a new formality. The formality of taking an oath.

The oath read something close to this...
"being a citizen of this country,  I take a pledge that I will not litter, dirty or spoil my environment. I will, to the best of my ability protect the trees around me and save our planet"

The principal read this and we all re-sounded him with our hand up. That took a few minutes and ouch, that hurt.

This was 7 years ago and i proudly say that I have kept up with my pledge!

Photo courtesy:
memecenter.com, google.com

A sealed packet of Air!

Who knew that one day air could be sealed and sold?

What is he charging for? For, capturing air? To recover machine maintenance cost? Or for his other fixed expenses? 

Maybe, a proportion for all of it. But he is charging for capturing some possibly fresh, hopefully clean and omnipresent AIR!

For what? No! I am not here to tell you that.

We all buy a number of gadgets on a number of E-commerce sites and we know what difference that packet of air could do!

But go back by a few 100 decades!

Could be - Take whatever you want from wherever you want and do whatever you want with it! There is no gap between demand and supply whatsoever!

Could have changed to – Barter System – Take this from me and give that from yours. Because… Boss! Everything can’t be for free.

Is – Trade – Let me give you this at that cost and you could decide the cost at which you could sell that. Ofcourse…. Too much demand and too little supply.

Evolution it is! This is over a lot of years and beyond imagination. Now, keep that sealed packet of air (No! I Do not mean a packet of lays) in front of the guy in first scene and how do you think he would react?

Before you continue reading, think about his reaction.

This is what I could imagine.

Being the curious ones that we humans are, he picks it up and takes a closer look at it. Finds it funny but not at all appetizing and hence, decides not to eat. But since there was just one, it was more like a souvenir and he decided to preserve it.

With time, he died and entered The Earth and after passing a number of generations, now just an empty packet entered the earth too. 100’s of years later, that is now… someone were digging the ground and found this semi-decomposed polythene cover.

No! Not a lot of us know that polythene and plastic takes over a few 100 years to de-compose.

You litter and leave but that stays and hurts the planet for the next 100 decades to come!

Do not litter! There are better ways in which you could be Immortal.

The Joy in being "A Dustbin"

(Around 12 year ago when I was a school kid)

I aimed at a stone on the road and spat the chewing gum from my mouth straight onto it. Like most of those aims, my chewing gum landed short of my imagined destination. I looked down with disappointment and ‘raaaap’ went a strike on my head.

Someone hit me!

 Fierce fully I turned back to face my older sister.  She had a very irritated look on her face and she looked straight into my eyes angrily. Before I could recover from all those scary looks, she screamed... “Sai... what did you just do?

I very promptly confessed that I spit out a gum and that I was trying to aim it at something. She closed her eyes for a moment as if to think something and said, “Didn’t you know that you should always wrap a gum in a piece of paper before throwing it?” and looked at me questioningly.

“Ummmm no... But why?” went my answer straight.

“Because a gum thrown just like that can get stuck to someone’s foot wear, body or even worse… imagine it on your hair?? I’m sure you don’t want that to happen. Next time you throw a gum; you will wrap it in a piece of paper and throw it. Alright?”

My sister who was just another girl around me looked a little too cool to me that moment. Whatever she spoke made sense. And because it came from an “elder sister” her words automatically made a little more meaning. Without another word I nodded to her and decided to take the word seriously. That was the last time I ever spat a chewing gum without wrapping it.

One good practice and one halo on my head. It made me feel good.

(Around 9 years ago when I was a high school kid)

After attending a wedding, the whole family was driving back home. I finished the last sip of water in my disposable glass and left the glass flying outside the window. Oh!  that ‘raaaap’ again and no marks for guessing who gave it.

I turned around to look at her with a puppy face. She was as angry and irritated with me. Being a high school kid, I was not needed to be told about the harms “plastic”/ “polythene” cause to us and to the environment and how important it is for us to keep our surroundings clean. This time I was not explained or told. That look made me understand. I raised my hand apologetically and promised her not to repeat that again. That was the last time I threw waste anywhere other than a dustbin.

Two good practices and two halo on my head.

But with the second practice I had to counter quite a few consequences. I picked up fights with relatives and friends for throwing waste on roads during trips. I had arguments. I had a couple of nicknames too. One of which was “dustbin”. This was because I had a separate compartment in my bag only for my friends and other members to put waste. They fondly called me that. We had a laugh over it. But eventually it all made sense to everyone. The same friends and relatives make it a point to carry an extra bag to drop waste in, during trips or atleast handover things to me when they don’t find a dustbin around. The change in them is what gives me more joy!

So bottom line… we all know the importance of keeping our surroundings clean and most importantly the harms of throwing polythene outside.  A result of which not only makes the surroundings dirty but pose a remarkable threat to our environment. If you are still one of them who don’t dispose waste properly, now is the time to change and add a halo! J

You made me a New Me! Thank You!

It was 7 in the morning when I woke up. As a routine, I always woke up late during college. But this day was different for some reason. I felt the movie of memories playing in my head and it struck me…

“Today is my last day in college!”

And this college is something to me. MCC made me brave. It thought me to speak up, stand for myself and thought me to have a straight face to anything.

MCC thought me to be a fearless woman.

From that shy girl who sat in the last bench to a girl who will go up to talk on stage any time.

From that girl who strived hard to score marks to a girl who kept her books aside and bunked classes.

From a girl who was bitterly confused in life, to a girl who has a career lined up.

From a girl who didn’t know something to a girl who knows a lot.

MCC has thought me and thought me the right way.

If MCC was phase I of my story. BMTT’s are phase II.

 If at all anybody was standing there in time of trouble, it was only these bunch of 25 girls. Not because we were best friends but because we 25 walked together and faced every problem together.

The small number made everyone a little skeptical about BMTT’s, but we were successful in proving them wrong. We were a perfect example for the line, “Happiness comes in small packages.”

You guys were the best, and I will miss you!

Phase III – Beautiful and the Best!

You guys ate when I was hungry and you guys ate even when I was not hungry.

You guys made this journey all the way more beautiful. MCC would never be fun without you “Seven”

Few things start to end and I wish this journey never ends, because the end of this journey simply means beginning of responsibility.

No more pocket money, no Nescafe, no tang, no short break eating with 6 hands on 3 boxes, no running around for attendance. Nothing at all!

But if I love MCC and remember it as a sweet memory throughout my life, it’s undoubtedly because of you Super Seven Angels!

Few of us are still sticking around and few aren’t. But you guys have definitely made a difference.

So, thank you!

I love you guys a ton and I will miss you all the most.

Phase IV- "The Responsible Prathima"

Everything here ends with a responsibility. I was given a responsibility too. The responsibility to host the second biggest fest of MCC – “Cross Currents”

You guys made this victory extremely special by sharing it along. With you all, I’ve learnt lot. So thank you.

I will miss the little dance we did when we got the main sponsor; I will miss the group hug after valedictory. I will miss the running, crying, laughing, and celebrating. I will miss is all.

With the pen rolling between my fingers... and with a lump in my throat…

I would just say one thing…. MCC!

A place for every girl to study!