K9 friendship :-)

This is one of my best kept secrets :-)

When I was an undergrad student, I used to walk my way from the bus stop to home - a distance of about 4.5 km. Not for some exercise but simply because it was a picturesque walk through the fields and woods where I grew up as a child.

There was this little pup - a stray dog - who would sit near a tree and a mound of sand. She knew me coming there everyday, so she didn't mind me at all.

Those days, my mother used to pack a tiffin box with lunch for me. One day, I hadn’t eaten my lunch at all in the college and ate in a restaurant with friends. I gave my lunch to this little dog because my mother wasn’t a big fan of me eating outside.

She ate the lunch with relish. The next day, she was there and she wagged her tail in expectation. I didn’t expect that, I just petted her and walked home.

But from next day, I started telling my mom I needed some more lunch. She was super glad and like most Indian mothers, obliged. So every evening for the next 2 years and 9 months, I shared my lunch with this dog.

Then I left for my graduate studies. She’s there even today, but not the young pup I once fed. And she recognizes me even today and runs to me wagging her tail, when I go there. She’s made some new friends and is healthy.

That’s a friend if ever there was one :-)

Jallikkattu and Tamil culture?

100 years ago Tamils wore no shirts. Today we do. 100 years ago Tamil ladies never wore blouses and both sexes were bare chested. Today we say that's obscenity. 1000 years ago there were neither rapes nor false cooked up complaints of rapes. Today we have. 60 years ago Bharatanaatyam was considered a Taboo. Today not learning it in Mylapore is a Taboo!!!!

Tamil culture seems to change every 5 years. Is Jallikkattu that important?

How many of these people who defend Jallikkattu can write a proper sentence in Tamil? How many of them can speak good Tamil devoid of English?

We won't protect Tamil literature. We won't take the good etiquette of our ancestors. Merely hanging onto Jallikkattu is not a big deal.

Today India indulges in symbol worship than worshipping the spirit of things. Tamil culture does not need Jallikkattu to survive. It needs more Tamils to learn Tamil and pass it on to the mext generation.

Kambu, cholam, varagu etc disappeared from our diet. We took to Pastas and noodles and rice.... that's a greater threat than losing Jallikkattu.

For that matter, Jallikkattu is not a very Tamil thing either. It's imported from North, to speak the language of the divisive fools. Krishna had to tame bulls to marry one of his wives.

I am not saying ban jallikkattu. But just saying that if we are so bothered about Tamil culture, there are higher and bigger issues to tackle than raging bulls.

The same is happening in Kerala also. My ancestors used coconut oil for cooking everyday. Today the doctors (read oil company lobby) keep screaming that it's bad. I've never seen a physically active Malayalee die of heart attack because he used coconut oil.

How many of these modern people who protest against the ban and are up in arms to protect culture can actually cook even puttu/olan/vathakozhambu at home?

They fought for entry to Sabarimala. How many of them, I wonder, even light a sandhyaadheepam at home?

Funny, are the ways of our people.

So my point is, if each of us takes care to learn family traditions and hand it down to our kids and let them know why it's important, culture will take care of itself. Some aspects will be weeded out if irrelevant. That's the way natural selection works.