First blog entry from Asha

This is my first entry, I have promised Sock our dog an impromptu aside on this first blog, she has been our main observer these past many years, she has watched and listened curled up in her comfortable easy chair, in a sense Sock is our chronicler of events, our conscience and critic.
Why am I becoming a blogger? Who will read my blog? Anyone out there find this interesting let me know please so I can make the next entry .I am at a party and everyone is speaking, mouths moving ears tuned out, I watch the news, NDTV has set up a panel of a cross section of Mumbai's elite to offer an opinion/solution/critical analysis on terrorism, everyone is speaking no one listens, I can't hear sitting 6 feet away from the TV, there are too many voices and the message is lost. There is so much babble, the sound of the next attack if there is one, fingers crossed there will be no more, will be drowned out in these deafening human sounds. And what was Shashi Thooror doing, mainly silent, in the midst of this starry gathering. Please let us not silence such serious voices, they have something important to say and we need to hear it.

Sock from the Easy Chair

I am a sort of a white scruffy dog , so they tell me, every time I open my mouth to speak, I am ordered to shut up, so I am joining the blog brigade messaging from my easy chair. In return, I have agreed to fewer walks and snacks between meals. I have observed humans eat less often when they are working. I call my humans the Combine or mam and sir. There have been other dogs in this household, the golden Duchess and the black beauty Syra. They are both gone now to the great beyond.

How did I arrive here , ten years back I left home a puppy, to roam the world become a free spirit, nobody wanted me anyway because I was a mutt. Food was plentiful , this was before the financial meltdown, garbage dumpsters had more food than kitchens . Then suddenly, it was not so good , too many new people arrived in the neighbourhood, adults threw stones at me, young kids were merciless in their pursuit of causing me bodily harm. Finally, I was tired of it all , oftentimes the stones found their target. I was wounded, my stomach hurt, eyes felt strange and I yearned for a safe haven.

One day I saw this lady being led by a dog, a little fluffy golden thing wearing a frilly dress and even from a distance I could tell it was one well fed la di da dog. Instinctively, I felt this could be my human. I was uneasy for a moment, what if the lady makes me wear a dress and the dog in front of her was far too clean and naturally there would be visits to the vet before I was allowed into the family home, still anything was better then a dog's death on the streets of Sharjah . Apart from that, the human looked like a reasonable sort, so maybe, if the house had a dress code, I could occasionally agree to wear a discreet Tshirt.

So I stalked them and later followed them through the open gate of a villa. I figured a human who allows a dog in the lead , has to be a sucker for animal happiness. And I was right, the little golden fluff answering to the name of Duchess gave me an attitude, but I stuck around. As I sat some distance from a party in progress of several young people, amongst them a nephew, who like me had also left home but was sensibly lodged with the aunt, was contemplating a future union with one of the young ones. In a spirit of family solidarity, I barked him a warning, signaling it was not the right choice, but no one listens to me.

I later met the other half of the household, a nice looking British man with kind smiling eyes , who I understood from the gossipy youngsters to be junior to the woman. A toy boy I thought, what an interesting household. Subsequently, I discovered, he was less toy and more boy. But more of that later.

On the third day I was invited in, and there was this easy chair parked right near the front door. I jumped in and it has been mine ever since. From here I have observed many of the human dramas that have unfolded around me.

So why do I need to blog, well here's the thing, I am not a whiney dog, but the Combine does not always get it right either for me or themselves. It has been a good life so far, maybe a little too much of the baths, the vet and the deworming tablets I think and, having to distance myself from the garbage dumps. And I also want to know why mam being a lawyer and all , had not fought to get more rights for dogs, so landlords will not evict us from buildings, and the state could mandate that parents teach their children to respect all species. I mean if we are going to populate intergalactic space someday we need to learn to get along with other species. If we cannot accept non-humans who have been on this planet forever, it seems to me space would be a tricky venture . Mam gets hassled on the streets every time she walks me. I can defend her with a well aimed bite at an offending ankle but she says there are laws against such acts.
So may be all that money spent on trying to find aliens in space could go to Darfur or greening of the environment and learning to live with respect for the rights of all.

I know a lot of things, I watch the TV every day, The other day President elect Mr. Barack Obama called himself a mutt in front of maybe half a billion TV viewers across the globe. Mr. President-elect do you really know how mutts like me get treated by the human race, for one we are passed over for the pedigree types. Nobody wants to bring us home. So Mr. President- elect you might say a few nice things about us so people will listen and be rid of prejudice against mixed types, and maybe even outlaw words like mongrel.

Time for a nap now.