Full Moon or Baby Moon?

As I sit here trying to organize my brain cells into some order of wakefulness I am taken back to the time I spent in Berlin where I was purposefully awake. I remember sitting at the window of the hostel we stayed in Die Fabrik, and looking out of the window that opened in the quiet backyard. I could see the moon in all its glory, shining through the curtains and I thought to myself that the moon in Berlin looks just like the moon in India...what a coincidence!!! On a more serious note, a full moon conveys such starkly different meanings to different peoples. In India, the full moon is good, auspicious and is celebrated. In most western cultures the full moon, mythologically meant the werewolves were probably waking up in some part of Dracula land or that the lunatics were about to get more lunatic. The word 'Luna' latin for moon, itself is the root of the word lunatic. But why did anyone think/come up with the thought that the full moon, one of the most beautiful celestial bodies, could be the source of madness? I think they were kinda crazy themselves and just wanted to hang it on poor moon. I am rambling now and this is what happens when you don't sleep for 8 hours a day. In fact this is what happens when you sleep for 4 hours or less a day - you become mildly lunatic - full moon or no full moon!

 

Cricket, Cricket

Cricket, Cricket on the wall,
Who's the stupidest of them all?

I have a scientific temprament so I say, " Chemistry Stinks, Biology Sucks"....now eat your heart out!

Shoot The Dog?

“Tell that to the parents of the children who were killed by the dogs”

So say people if you so much as broach the topic of Bangalore mass canine genocide.

Emotion is the antithesis of reason, of clear thought and logic. Classic right-brain, left-brain manifestation.

People, we are NOT saying that one shouldn’t do ANYTHING about the stray dogs. Do something we must!Because 2 small children dying is no small matter. But is killing them all in the worst possible manner!! is that the solution? Are we imagining this eradication will ensure there will be no dogs left anymore? Would that solve the problem? What IS the problem? Stray Dogs? Unattended children playing in the streets (or irresponsible parents in other words) or mismanagement of a city? Or intolerance for other life forms? Or lack of education about canines? Who is the problem? Us or Them?

And, hey.....because I love dogs and am a voice for them (no matter how small, it still counts) it doesn’t mean I don’t like people or children! How does one follow from the other? Why is not having any sympathy for the parents of the children who died a necessary condition for being against the killings?

The issue is NOT Dogs Vs Children here. Read it.
The issue is NOT to kill the dogs indiscriminately and certainly NOT the way the Bengaluru municipality is doing it. We are still human beings – a higher intelligence animal – capable of logical thought, empathy and what is called ‘humane – ness’. Should a sorry incident so cloud us with emotion that we exile logic?

Would killing all dogs be the answer? Is that what would bring Manjunath back? Will it be solace enough to his parents?

That’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and all this against an animal! We have picked up a really worthy adversary – the dog – who has no voice to come to his rescue, who cannot plead his case like Surendra Koli can. But Koli would never be clubbed to death or his arms pulled apart or die in another inhuman manner – because he is a human being and he deserves ‘dignity’ even in the manner he is punished. Dogs don’t. They can't give an alibi, they can't hire a lawyer and they can't proffer proof for momentary insanity. Koli can and he will be probably ( and hopefully) sent to his death with dignity that is reserved for a human being. Dogs are just a bother.

Killing Me Softly

Bangalore, India's silicone valley has a new mission - kill stray dogs...all of them...healthy, unhealthy, friendly, unfriendly, male, female, tiny puppies....especially the tiny puppeis - they are the worst!

Bangalore is killing them softly...in a cold, calculated manner, without attaching any ugly emotions to it...thus spake the municipal commissioner.

Bangalore is killing them by strangulation, by pulling apart their limbs, necks and torsos - while they are still alive.

Bangalore is killing them because it doesn't know what else to do with them.

DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEM?

India's think tank (of sorts, if you want to call sorry little programmers that) is clueless about what to do with their best friend??? They are the problem solvers - good enough to have 'Bangalored' a large (rather angry) chunk of the U.S. Of A. and it is stymied by stray dog population???

How about some good ol' 'adoption'? or simply neutering them? or getting every colony to take care of its resident strays? How about another solution from India's brightest brains sitting in their plush offices and swank homes?

It's not just Banaglore...it is all of us, everywhere.

We domesticated the wolf, inbred it, gene altered it, changed its behaviour to become a helping hand for us. We played God. Then God and nature took over and empowered the dogs to start breeding at will - as any other species is going to do - dogs went forth and multiplied.

Now we were troubled!!! We wanted only so many and no more!! So what did we do? We left them to fend for themselves, often at 'unauthorized meat shop' throw outs....we sometimes made friends with them and fed them a couple of chapatis but mostly we hated them. We hated them for having slipped out of our control. We hated them because they made us feel less like Gods. We hated them because they made us feel inadequate for not knowing how to deal with them.

So what did we do next? We started considering them a threat to us and began to kill them (Bangalore, the ever 'softy' calls it Euthanasia - take a look at your local pound and you'll know what their brand of Euthanasia is)

Well, in all, it actually seems like the perfect solution.

You domesticate them, take them out of their natural environment, transplant them into a new one and then take that away too. Then when you can't manage them, you kill them - softly - like bangalore is doing it. Remember, this is for the larger good.

Now, there is a thought racing through my mind....

India's population is bursting at the seams. We don't have enough food to feed every mouth, we don't have enough clothes to keep them all covered, we don't have enough houses to keep them safe from the elements. That is a huge 'stray' population bouncing off the walls in India. They could become a menace - some already are! Talk about dogs killing children, sad as that is....we have humans (eow) not far behind - Nithari's Koli, Pandher & Co. are case in point.

So how about killing a few stray people too? Let's round them up, beat them silly or pelt stones at them, better still let's kick them in their hungry stomachs so that they start bleeding at the mouth. We are still at 'softly' on the 'murder continuum'. Let's pack them up a couple of hundred in one small van - maybe some of them would die just out of suffocation and heat. But let's not forget that we oughta be soft about this. We are solving a problem here - no ugly emotions, please.This is 'Euthanasia', not murder.

There!!! I have the solution to India's population problem!!! Let's kill them all .....softly.

trouble ahoy! pix too pretty for blogspot to risk displaying....need to find another way!