Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
I slept through my 0430 am alarm and only got out of bed when the 515 alarm went off. My first thought was panic, but then I realized it was a WFH day. I sat up. Clearing my mind to bring the day into focus, to think of the plan I had made for the day. The rains. The “biggest, baddest, rains in the history of rains in the region’. The subsequent floods. The drama around the floods. Then I got out of bed. Picked the device, the watch, off to brush my teeth and start the day.
The floods have taken up a part of my mind because of how it’s affected the delivery systems. Oman, UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi have all faced different ends of this storm and are also grappling with the chaos left behind. The visuals. The stories. The loss. The devastation. The hope. The incidents of the many Samaritans who have stepped in to assist or help a fellow human go above and beyond. Their stories were lost in this ‘intellectual’ discussion on whether it was a result of ‘cloud seeding’ or if it was natural. I’m watching how the government is just focused on handling the issue at hand rather than trying to refute or corroborate the stories in the world media. As an Indian who has lived through a few monsoons in Mumbai and even more in Bangalore, floods are a regular occurrence. But, in a region where rains are a rarity, flood-inducing rains are a mirage that everyone hopes for but never witness. So, this situation is alien, and they are working at solving the issue the only way they know how, by putting their back into it. I think, if this repeats a year later, they will have a better way to deal with it. And maybe without the numerous political pravarchans on the ideal way to handle floods. The world media circus brings to mind the quote:
“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”
With the coffee in hand, I got onto the messages to see if there were any new developments when I saw the video of a maid walking a beagle and repeatedly beating it with its leash and is covering and whimpering on the pavement. It was obviously on a walk, with said maid. And this set off a discussion as old as domestication. Should you adopt dogs? Or should you buy them? Should they be walked by the owner? Should they be walked by the maid? The ideal way to raise a dog. The highlight of this debate was when someone made the statement that ‘dogs are like children’ and that’s when I got into this conversation. I’ve had dogs. I have dogs. And I have kids. And I have taken care of seniors in the home. And “Dogs are not like children”. I repeat, “Dogs cannot be compared to kids”. They are two different things. Do. Not. Compare. Them. Kids will grow up and get on with their lives. Dogs will remain pups in your care until the day they move on. Kids will talk back. Kids will develop different interests. Kids will have to go out into the world and learn to live on their own. Dogs will remain with you till their last breath. And any topic on dogs as pets invariably gets into the discussion of breeding and at the end of that spectrum – puppy mills. A topic I care deeply about.
At the risk of being repetitive: I will state, “Adopt. Don’t. Shop”. About the topic of breeders, as I understand it, every breed has been produced selectively for specific reasons in specific climates. The Indies are super. They are localized, acclimatized to the region, and will thrive. Even on their own. But I don’t think it would be right to assume that the pure breeds will be as easily adaptable. They each have their peculiarities and will react to stimuli in ways dictated by their evolution. While I agree on the topic of puppy mills and identifying and shutting them down, I don’t know if the same should be done for breeders in general. I owned a mongrel. Her mother was a mongrel. She bred with a Labrador and produced my dog, who I bred with a Labrador and got the pups. Of the seven in that litter, only 2 were full-colored Labradors, the rest, looked like versions of the mum, Tara. Blaze – the black Lab and Butch – the yellow lab. And I loved the result of these mongrels, every one of them. If there was no breeder with the pure Labrador to breed them with, they would have been indie combinations, adorable, because they belonged to Tara.
Two thoughts. Completely random. Completely unrelated. Yet, fighting for time to be mulled over, to be considered, to be taken to the end of the thought process, to a logical conclusion that may be accepted universally. Well, that’s me. Thinking of random things, when I really should be thinking of the recipe I would like to follow to make that biryani later today!
Just a little more 