Fashion Ka Jalwa

They are out on the streets; they are in your homes; they are inside airports; they have organisations fighting for their rights; they have special clothes and toys designed for them. And in some uber-affluent places, they have even hotels exclusively for them. It's very evident that a dog is man's best friend for a good reason. If my best friend fed me, clothed me, pampered me, and picked up after me, i would stay loyal to him forever too. And if you read sarcasm into this, it's not driven by any kind of hostility towards dogs. Canines and i have had an understanding for the last two decades. I don't mess around with them and they don't mess around with me. However, what boggles my mind is people's obsession with making dogs more like humans. Recently, a good friend of mine took her dog, Pebble, to a dog show. Pebble, whom she loves and treats like a sibling, participated in a number of 'athletic' events. He won gold medals in two events he had no idea he was in and lost the coveted crown due to one tiny mistake: he flinched and let out a bark when the judge examined his genitals.

Now, i'm not quite sure how beauty pageants for humans operate across the world. But if winning involves staying still while the judge gropes you, i'd much rather not know. Despite finding my views about mankind's perverted dog obsession abhorrent, my friend did agree that her dog was very confused as to what was happening around him. He merely did as he had been trained to do. As i was pondering this, i saw something on TV that shed some light on the situation. It was a talent hunt for children, where kids as young as seven or eight were dressed up in ridiculous outfits and tonnes of make-up. They hopped around and did what they had been trained to do while their owners sorry, parents sat in the crowd smiling proudly. It was then i realised that using other creatures to gain fame and money for ourselves is part of human nature. There was no reason for me to feel awkward about it. What i had to do was embrace this trait. And that's why i have signed up my pet snail for the 100-metre dash in the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

Paisa Paisa Karti hai....

I was heading towards my flat about a week ago, and got the strange feeling that someone was following me. I kept going, blaming my paranoia on last night's X-files rerun. Suddenly, a strong "Sir" from behind stopped me in my tracks. It took me a few moments to recognize the speaker as the obsequious waiter who works at a restaurant one frequents. Without a preamble, he made a semi-demand, "Please give me 100 rupees." I eloquently responded, after a three-second shocked pause, "What?" He identified himself as the waiter from the particular restaurant as he thought that was the cause for my surprise. I decided to go with "Why?" the next time. He responded that he was going on vacation. The more disturbing element wasn't the fact that he was treating me like his holiday fund but the creepy smile on his face that refused to fade. I attempted to extricate myself from this awkward situation by promising to pay him the money next time i visited the restaurant. But, he proved to be someone who staunchly believed in the adage 'try, try until you succeed'. With that smile on his face getting wider, he said, in the same polite tone, "I want the money now, sir." I wondered for an instant if this was actually the world's mildest daylight robbery in progress. I reiterated my previous statement, finding no other way out, turned around and sped forward to my destination without waiting for a response.

That incident called to mind another experience when a professional mendicant approached me and demanded 50 bucks. The episode had left me nonplussed. I had always assumed that there was a 10-rupee cut-off limit when it came to alms. This man, however, had no intention of adhering to the unwritten laws of begging; he was a revolutionary of sorts. I refused to part with my money both times. It wasn't the traditional 'he's healthy, let him earn his money' justification for me; it was more the 'I'm so broke i can't spare a penny' truth that prevented me from helping them out monetarily. Every one of us have, at one point or the other, swallowed our pride and asked for money from our friends or family. It's an agonising feeling refusing to give money to someone in need. Money is, indeed, the root cause of terrible social awkwardness.

Chillax :)

Winter makes blimps out of people. If you step out onto the streets of Delhi, you'll see that everyone's walking around like they're in fat suits. When a person puts on three to four layers of sweaters, a pair of thick woollen gloves and a cap pulled so far down his face that he's at a risk of asphyxiating himself, you can't really blame him for looking like Eddie Murphy from The Nutty Professor. This is my first winter in Delhi and my teeth have done a lot more chattering this year than it ever did in Mussoorie. Experience definitely is not a useful weapon in your arsenal when it comes to combating Delhi winters. More often than not, multiple layers of clothing end up not achieving the desired effect. A couple of days ago while travelling by auto, my exposed face got such a ruthless dose of biting cold that i was, for the first time in my life, able to empathise with refrigerated meat. The auto driver, whose black eyes were the only thing revealed to the outer world, were fixed on me as if to suggest that i was dumber than a lobotomised chipmunk.

I encountered, however, more daring winter-rebels on the streets: the homeless people of Delhi clad in their usual torn T-shirts and pants begging for alms. Sure, their working conditions and hours weren't as bad as what some of the A-list Bollywood actors have to deal with 'oh shooting in Switzerland was so tiring. I had to wake up at 4 a.m. from my luxurious trailer and parrot lines for a few hours for a measly sum of Rs 50 lakh' but it was an unenviable sight nevertheless. I have created a list for the benefit of those lacking the skills to combat the piercing cold after barely surviving this merciless Delhi winters. First, when you get a cup of coffee or tea don't drink it. Instead, move it all over the exposed parts of your body in an effort to thaw them. Second, if you're travelling by auto, always have two naive friends with you and seat yourself in between them. Third, always sleep with your shoes on, preferably large cowboy boots. Four, if you have a big furry dog or an oddly hairy relative, hug him like there's no tomorrow. And finally, move to the Caribbean islands.