Love; How to name it; A dog

A lazy Sunday found me up at my usual time. I wanted to start my day with music, as is my wont - preferably Carnatic Classical - but my MP3 player had other ideas. It chose Ilayaraja's How to name it? As the music wafted from the disorderly and somewhat untidy living room, I finished my brushing and splashed some water on my face to drive the last remnants of sleep away. That done, and fresh now, I opened the door to the balcony where the scene that unfolded brought tears to my eyes and simultaneously made me think of love. As the title of this post may have suggested, it involves a dog.

There was a fat lady who seemed to be bending down - with great effort, considering her bulk - to pick up something. As it turned out, she was petting a neighbourhood dog, one that stays with the people of the nearby slum, and which is prone to sudden bouts of barking for no apparent reason. There was a certain menacing look about this creature that always made me give it a wide berth when I passed it by. It was quite visibly an old dog, and had obviously seen better days. Yet, one could detect a certain dignity in its bearing that was quite unmistakable. It knew its place on earth, and was not ashamed of it; on the contrary, it was quite proud of who it was and where it was living its last days.

Coming back to the spectacle that I was keenly watching, the dog seemed quite animated and was thoroughly enjoying the outpouring of affection from the friendly woman. In all probability, such affectionate petting did not come its way every day, so it seemed to be grateful to find someone after all who loved it so much.

The woman seemed to be saying something to the animal even as she was stroking it. And then, it was time for her to leave, so she mounted her bike and with a few parting words, went on her way. Or so it seemed to me. Even as I continued to watch the dog in fascination, the lady came back and accosted the dog, which had not moved off yet, again. The dog looked back, and even though it seemed to understand that the lady was calling it, did not go back to her as I thought it would. It seemed as if it wanted to, but the physical effort proved to be too great for it to oblige the lady's wish. The lady seemed a trifle disappointed too, but went her way after asking it once more to come with her. The dog watched her leave, and then finally walked back painfully to its home.

I felt touched by the exchange of love between these two beings. On the surface, there was nothing to it: a simple case of a dog-lover finding a friendly dog and the dog responding in a way that only dogs can. But I found that this not-so-common scene struck some deep chord within me. I thought to myself, this is how all of God's creatures were supposed to live - in peace, love, and simplicity. Instead, look at what we humans have wrought: we love, but our expression of love is conditioned by what we read, what we see in movies and what we think society will approve of. In short, our love is not first-hand but is controlled by a nameless, faceless entity which is not quite there, but whose commands we obey nevertheless. And in extreme cases, there is no love at all, only conditioning.

I felt weighed down by these thoughts and it was only the uplifting music of Ilayaraja's How to name it? that helped me recover, though the music did make me shed some tears of happiness at the recollection of the mini-drama that I was privileged to watch. "A dog's life' is not all that bad, you know.

I believe

A long time ago, I read somewhere that happiness and sadness are merely different perspectives inspired by our current understanding of who we are and what we think will make us happy. Thus it is that the toy that made us ecstatic when we were toddlers does not even interest us when we were teenagers. With every passing event that makes me unhappy, I realize that they may perhaps be lessons reinforcing that very thought: that the whole of this life as we perceive it may be nothing more than a veil pulled over our eyes to prevent us from seeing the obvious truth (that's borrowed from The Matrix, but it's relevant here); that only when we are truly aware of our own selves can lasting happiness be ours. This realization fades in and out of my consciousness according as whether I'm happy or sad – when I’m happy, I’m usually unaware of it, though that's not always the case. When I am sad, however, such thoughts flit across my mind more often. Perhaps Kunti Devi was right – it’s only when we’re really despondent that we tend to think of God.

I deeply, strongly believe that the way our brains are wired, the families we are born into, the skills / abilities we are born with, and the friends we acquire over our lifetimes are all determined by the law of karma; that genetics and inheritance are but tools of this law which is universal in its application; that this law is inescapable whether or not you believe in it; that it's possible to transcend it only by a total realization of our true nature which is pure awareness; that we are all progressing towards such a state in our own individual ways. That whatever we do with our minds, we'll fall short of It.

Does that mean I'm a fatalist and an advocate of inaction? Hardly! You've got to do what you've got to do, even when things seem so pointless. Inaction is for the weak-minded and impotent, or those who chronically and endlessly wallow in self-pity.