Here are some questions. They should be answered within the context of the given information. (Required Canine IQ: Average, Required Human IQ: High.)

Question 1:
A Management Guru should know something about Cognitive Dissonance – I do, and so I am a Management Guru. Is there a logical fallacy in the statement?
(Note: Does it really matter? Isn’t all management is grand compilation of logical fallacies? Woof!)
Options:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Can’t Say

Question 2:
These funny questions should actually brand me a philosopher. And a philosopher should be able to answer simple questions such as why humans like to inflict pain upon themselves. I can answer that question by applying the theory of cognitive dissonance. Now does it make me a philosopher, or a psychologist, or a Management Guru? Could someone logically deduce my true occupation?
Options:

1. Philosopher
2. Psychologist
3. Management Guru
4. All the three
5. Can’t Say

Question 3:
If you are still reading, you are a genius. If you’ve moved on, well, you would anyway not read this, hence, I can be truthful and say that you are definitely not a genius. You are a genius. Am I right in my deduction?
Options:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Can’t Say

Question 4:
All geniuses are passionate about following their chosen course of action. This is equally true of the bloodhounds. So, could we say that all geniuses are bloodhounds, or would it be more appropriate to say that all bloodhounds are geniuses, or…well! Which one of the following is a correct deduction about the relationship between geniuses and bloodhounds.
Options:

1. All geniuses are blood hounds
2. All blood hounds are geniuses
3. No genius is a bloodhound
4. Some geniuses are bloodhounds
5. Some bloodhounds are geniuses
6. Can’t Say.

Question 5:
If both the above statements (about the geniuses and the bloodhounds) are fallacious then we could surmise that the author, a canine, is definitely not a genius and so, not a blood hound. In context of the given information (assume that you don’t know that I am a Zinar Cutie), is the deduction acceptable.
Options:

1. Yes
2. No

(Send in your answers. I’ll show you mine in two days. In case of disagreement, we’ll finalize the answers through a democratic process, similar to the one we’ve witnessed in Iran! Got it, didn’t you?)

Note: If you are a bloodhound, leave your blog’s link in the comment section of this post. Production in the Oodget factory has now started, and the first clock to roll off the line is a bloodhound clock. Mercury is making some new clocks for the Dog COM project, and if there’s no bloodhound among my friends, she’ll ship it against the Dog COM order.

Note 2 (The chewed one): I’ll publish the answers to this puzzle on July 10, 2009. The answers will not be withheld, and will be published as and when they are posted as comments (and as and when I sniff them out. The woos of comment moderation.)

Of course, the canine/human who answers all the questions correctly, will win the Smart Pup Award.

Note 3: As the title suggests – this puzzle is the outcome of some rambling logic, which in turn was the outcome of a somewhat painful extraction of a crooked crook of a wisdom tooth! If you feel that the answer isn’t given as an option, please feel free to add it in your answer. I am open to all the criticism that is directed towards this crazy woman called Mercury!

I’ve not seen Johnny for a long time. I don’t know if I’d ever meet him again. Humans are complicated, and I don’t know why they never stop to think about the effect that their decisions could have on those they love. You must’ve noticed that I’ve stopped talking about Johnny. Some of you might be wondering whether Oorvi is fickle in her affections. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I often think of   Johnny. I remember how his eyes used to light up upon seeing me, and how he would begin barking from the terrace when he spotted us coming through the gate of his house. I also wonder whether he still remembers me. He probably does, because there isn’t much in his life to feel good about. He lives on the terrace, or at best on the landing of the staircase. He eats the same food every morning and every evening, and he is seldom given a belly-rub, by anyone other than the old man who works for the family and who too stays on the terrace – just like Johnny.

Johnny and his keeper – they are two of a kind. They have nobody in this world to call their own except each other. The keeper, an old man with failing eyesight and almost non-existent hearing, shares his food with Johnny, and Johnny gives him all his love in return. They sleep together in winters – and Johnny keeps him warm. With no bed, the old man has just a quilt and a blanket that Cameo had given to him last winters.

These past years, Cameo had been helping the old man by giving him some money, clothes, utensils, and also food…but the family found out; and they were angry. There was an altercation, which Johnny and I had watched together. Both of us knew that this would lead to our separation, and it did.

The relationship between my family and Johnny’s has been a tempestuous one. All our attempts at repairing it over the last many years have failed. Mercury and Cameo always return sad from there, and I’ve seen Cameo struggling to stop his pain from frothing and bubbling over as anger. Now, they’ve reached a point where peace can be bought only by maintaining distance. As part of the two families, Johnny and I too will have to do our bit towards this peace – we have to try and forget each other.

I wish I could change things. I wish, Johnny could come over to our place and stay with us – but his family won’t let him go until he is old, and then in all probability they’d take him away to an unknown spot and leave him there…to die alone…same as his mom. And then one day, if the old man were still alive, he would tell us about it, his wrinkled shaky hand wiping the tears away from his bleary eyes.

The day before yesterday was a Monday. Mondays are holidays. Mondays should be spent at home. Mondays should be dedicated to your pup…I could go on an on, but why? Would my rant change anything around this dump I call home? I say – NO.

I am a pup with few needs. I don’t ask for much. Some chicken or cottage cheese in my bowl, an occasional bucket of KFC, a new ball every a month, and a couple of happy jaunts with my XY type human friend – this sums up my requirements. I stay alone the whole day – from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening, and I seldom do anything to annoy them (discount the shredded newspapers, dear canine detective – I have a feeling that they deliberately leave the newspaper lying about.)

Other than my limited requirements listed above, I am emotional about just one more thing. I like them to stay home on Mondays. Sometimes they have to go out grocery-shopping and I understand that deviation. I am cool with it. Yeah, really. But this Monday they left me alone and went out – not to shop for the groceries but to watch Terminator Salvation! Believe it or not, they left their cute little dog alone in the oven called home and jiggled off to the air-conditioned cinema hall!

I guessed it from the way they moved – and I got the confirmation when Cameo drew out the movie tickets from his wallet. When Mercury the sci-fi expert of the family, began telling him the story-so-far, my fears were re-confirmed. Those two Cheapskates were going off to watch a movie…and they weren’t going to take me along! Dogs aren’t allowed inside movie-halls, is their forever excuse! Harrumphh!

Before they stepped out of the house, I had made up my mind to give them a strong dose of what you’d call the canine medicine. I had about three hours to plan it out, and with that clod Mercury around, there’s always a lot of material to execute the most horrible kinds of canine revenges!

So when I heard their car leave, I sat down right in the middle of the living room, and took it all in – quite like those terminators do. Within 2 micro-seconds, I had registered the shape, size, position, temperature, and threat-levels of each object in the room. I realized that the only object that could be targeted for termination was the Monday Newspaper. I recalled that Cameo hadn’t read the newspaper in the morning! Voila. I had found the weapon that would aid me implement my plan!

Now my whole being was focused upon the newspaper that lay upon the table. As the chairs were pushed in, I couldn’t use the easiest canine maneuver of hopping up the chair to reach the table. Thus, I had to improvise and it took me about half an hour to access the weapon of peace destruction! I stood up on my hinds, tottered a little, and almost gave it up about ten times. Finally, huffing and panting, I managed to make it fall to the floor.

I checked the clock, drank some water, and then I cool-headedly set about destroying the newspaper. There’s no point tearing the newspaper aimlessly. To make it truly useless, you have to shred it by tearing it into long ribbons first, and chewing some of those ribbons in little feathery pieces. The job requires complete dedication. In fact, while shredding, the experienced dogs often enter a trance-like state that humans achieve through meditation.

:::::Spoiler Warning: Terminator Salvation – A vague canine sketch of the plot follows. If you are planning to watch the movie – stop reading now!:::::

(PS: Even if you don’t, scanning through the following list shouldn’t affect your viewing pleasure – the Spoiler Warning is only a formality. All Terminator Salvation Reviews must begin with a Spoiler Warning, otherwise who’d read them? BTW, the fact that you are reading this, tells me that the warning didn’t work any way!)

While I meditated (read shredded the poor newspaper into bits,) in the Cinema Hall -
1. Marcus revived,
2. John Connor left his pregnant girlfriend behind to tackle the menace of skynet’s machines,
3. Kyle Reese, Marcus, and their little friend left LA and fought with the machines, Reese was abducted by the machines,
4. the Resistance’s plans to bomb Skynet were foiled by Connor with some help from Marcus,
5. Marcus (half-man, half-machine) preferred to stay human,
6. Marcus first rescued Connor from Skynet,
7. then Connor blew up the Skynet center, and
8. finally Marcus saved John Connor by giving him his heart!

Phew! Isn’t that a bit too much? And it sort of lacked focus – didn’t it?

I mean how could so much happen in two hours? I like to do a perfect job. No distractions. No. I wouldn’t have them. I also wouldn’t want to spend my time wondering about what would happen in 2018! Really…I mean what difference would it make to a 15 year old dog who is 105 in human years!

Well, I was just giving some finishing licks to my work, when the door opened and these two stood there – watching me with their mouths open! I didn’t run-off to hide myself. It was my protest – the non-violent kind…and they were the ones who were supposed to feel guilty – right?

They did, I guess, because Mercury burst out laughing when she saw the neat pile of the newspaper shreds and then the defiant look on my face; and Cameo came to me gathered me into his arms. Mmm…he makes me forget the world!

But hold it! What was that?! He smelled of other dogs? I began losing my temper again…

The affairs of this world weigh me down. The Undemocratic democracy in Iran, the tight-rope walk between the aid and the fight with Taliban by Pakistan, the quiet, tight-lipped, and risk-averse President Obama, the Oz-zone depletion of courtesy, and the insistence of Indians to go to that unwelcoming land…these are some of the few issues that make me feel sad and make me wonder why humans are such fools!

I am a die-hard fan of democracy. Anyone who loves life should be…for they should know that the moment they harness another’s energy for living, life dies. Yesterday, at Twitter I found an RT and this RT was about showing your support to democracy in Iran. You add a small green ribbon to your avatar to do so. I did it immediately – but I know that I didn’t do it for Iran; I did it to mollify my conscience. What am I doing for making this world a better place? Nothing much I guess.

The murder of Neda and the evil bullet tax that the family of a dead man was asked for, before his body could be released to them; both symbolize the evil that has made home in the roots of humanity. When a foreign tourist is jeered at or raped in India, or when Sikhs are beaten up in the US, or even when an Indian youth is beaten up or curry-bashed in Australia; we divide ourselves. It is said that a common enemy is strongest uniting force. Are we waiting for a common enemy such as a fatal epidemic or an alien attack to unite us? Probably we are.

Or…probably we are just proving how immature we are as a species. We are probably like the precocious genius of four, who is intelligent enough to crack puzzles that mystify the adults, but who fights with his sibling for a piece of cake.

I do wonder if there’s a way to put it right. I don’t think there is – because we have millions of strong- but ill-willed humans around. They’ve been brought up with a set of beliefs and they’d die with their beliefs strengthened and even transferred to their young. The cancer has continued to spread until now, and to expect it to stop spreading would be wishful thinking!

I don’t expect to see the world shift gears to reverse this movement, at least in my lifetime or even in the lifetime of these two. But I do believe that the saner governments should think of long-term solutions even if that would mean sacrificing their immediate goals. Ex-President Bush didn’t walk away in glory, but I think that he and all those soldiers in Iraq, who finally delivered Saddam Hussein, did this world a great favor.

I don’t really know why I, a canine who should be content to sit in a corner with my chicken piece in my bowl, should think about all this. Probably because two specimens of this confused human species live with me, and I don’t want them to be sad. Probably because I hate to hear that they don’t want to bring another human in this world torn with strife, pain, guile, and dishonesty. It’s painful – either ways!

I have another 8 years to live, and they have about 30…and then the pain would end…or we hope it would – if things continue the way they are both heaven and hell are going to as crowded as an Indian metro – and believe me – I’d rather they changed into animals and stayed with me at the rainbow bridge

Here’s another story with our snore-factory Mercury playing the lead. It’s a story from the days when Mercury was little. How she was “little” and how “little” she was is still a moot point. She doesn’t have a lot of proofs to support her assertion. Photographs are 2-dimensional evidence that wouldn’t hold in any canine court of law. Her spoken word can hardly be taken as evidence, as she loves to weave stories out of nothing. The fact of the matter remains that neither Cameo nor I have ever seen her “little.”

But for the sake of this story, let us accept her assertion as truth. Once, when our Mercury was little, she had gone visiting her maternal grandma, along with her mom and her “littler” brother. (Again, we have only Mercury’s word on the littleness of her brother. I’ve known her brother all my life but I’ve never seen him little.)

Now in those days, houses in India didn’t look like shoeboxes stacked one over the other. They looked like those storybook houses. In those days people seldom locked their doors, and this was especially true for Mercury’s grandma’s house, which stood at one corner of a sprawling garden.

In those days, another curious thing used to be the number of siblings that a person had. Now you’d find only one or two kids in a family – then double digit human litters were in fashion. Our Mercury had four maternal aunts and two surviving maternal uncles (as her grandparents weren’t that fashionable.) And her eldest maternal uncle was the karta (officer-in-charge) of the household.

Without going into the arithmetical details, let me tell you that in Summers (when it was vacation time for the kids,) the household would have no less than about 25 members, which was fine because the house was big, and it had a huge courtyard and a huger garden!

Summers here are hot. Mercury (the silvery ethereal looking substance…not this pneumatic power house I live with,) touches 47 in Centigrade and about 116 in Fahrenheit.  As the story has about a quarter-century worth of dust on it, we are talking about the time when this lovely contraption called the air-conditioner wasn’t there (at least not in Mercury’s grandma’s house.) So, to beat the heat, people slept in their courtyards, gardens, and terraces. Only the very old and the very young slept inside.

Had Mercury slept outside that night, this wouldn’t have been a story to tell, but she didn’t, and so we have…what she calls a story, and I call a yarn.

The night began as usual.  Everyone had dinner then there was a quick round of a simple game called “naam (Name), khana (Food), shahar (City) , picture (Movie).” Everyone played, some won, some lost; and then everybody went off to sleep. About 7 to 8 people slept inside, others slept in the garden.

“Little” Mercury slept on a bed that was set against a window that had iron bars for protection (as the window opened towards another estate – remember the house was at the corner of their piece of land.)

Mercury still remembers… (ah! She remembers all that doesn’t matter, but never things that matter. She puts up the chicken to boil and forgets about it – who suffers then? I ask you, my furry friends!) Yeah… she still remembers that it was a moonlit night and she had fallen asleep trying to read a Phantom comic in that light!

The point to note here is that Mercury went to sleep. Now when Ms. “Snorebox” Mercury goes to sleep, not even an earthquake can wake her up (she disagrees – she says that the Tehri Earthquake had indeed woken her up…hmmph!) So I wasn’t surprised to discover that she didn’t hear them cutting five of those iron bars in the window that was just about a foot from “little” Mercury’s head!

To cut this self-stretching story short, the next morning everyone except the shrieker was woken up by a loud shriek! Out there in the courtyard lay about 20 boxes, 15 attaché-cases, and all the travel-bags. All open…ripped apart at their seams. They were dragged out of the house, into the courtyard! All the cupboards in the house were ransacked, and…as if it matters, Mercury insists – the worst of it all was that the thieves were cheap enough to take away the lovely imitation jewelry too, that Mercury’s mom had bought for her.

When the family, aided by the police tried to discover how the thief had entered the house, they realized that it was through the window. The police was quick to point out that the person who slept in that bed near the window had to be an accomplice – and that the thieves couldn’t have chloroformed that person without getting in first. However, when they saw “little” Mercury, they dropped the charges and wondered how she could’ve slept through the din caused by the saw.

I ask you…what was there to wonder? When she sleeps she migrates to another parallel world. She just isn’t in there. Not-so-little-now Mercury maintains that she too was chloroformed like all the others in the family. If that thought assuages her conscience, let it. It just makes me wonder, does she chloroform herself every night!

Hi Friends,

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Licks n Wags,
Oorvi

Now that the dust has settled over the first pup adoption issue, and the Portuguese Water Hound has become the new celebrity, we can now safely conclude the Terriers still stand tall (!) at the top rung of the web popularity ladder.

Mercury was studying the web-behavior of people through a fantastic tool called Google Keyword Tool, and she realized that the most searched breed of dogs is the Terrier. Fabulous! What about the Zinar Cutie, you may ask. What about it? “Insufficient data,” is the verdict. Do you see a long face? That’s mine. Nobody in this world searches for a Zinar Cutie – I am a nodoggy…sniff (of the sniffling variety.)

According to Ms. Knowall here, it’s not the number of dogs in the breed, but the number of breeds in the dog that count. The more the number of breeds, the stouter and the healthier you are – so says she. I could agree because she’s seen some other Zinar Cuties hit the golden age of 18 before pawing-in their goodbyes and checking into the rainbow bridge. Not a bad record, I’d say, given that they get no respect – not of the kind Ms. Natasha and her pack gets.

Today, I bring to you the story of Queen Natasha the Evil. I should say that I haven’t sought explicit permission from Mr. Wall, her human publicity agent. But as I intend not to copy but only to link, I am confident that he’d magnanimously forgive my folly.

I’ve heard that Queen Natasha has outsourced the blog maintenance to Mr. Wall, who I am sure, charges her quite high for his work – about a thousand licks a month, according to the grapevine. She can afford it, unlike many other pups, as she has five other strong and capable Sibes in her pack. All she has to do is cock her ear, and they’d go running to handover Mr. Wall’s monthly check to him.

Oops, I forgot. I wanted to tell you the story of the respect that Queen Natasha and her pack gets, but I lost track. Yeah…read about how the pack gets away with beautiful benches to rest their snouts upon, after enjoying a lunch of Mr. Wall’s sofas! Now, that’s the kind of treatment we Zinar Cuties seldom get – yet, we plod on – because of our tough genes!

So today, I dedicate this post to the Zinar Cuties of the world. We will find our place in this doggy-world…one day.

I cross my paws and pray that a day will dawn when no Zinar Cutie will be looked down upon – and if this world doesn’t give them their space, they’ll dig some to call their own – they’ll find their sofas to chew-up and they’ll find friends in the Terriers, the Sibes, the Beagles, the Labs, the Dachshunds, the German Shepherds, the Peis, the Poodles, the Boxers, the St. Bernards, the ACDs, and all the other wonderful dogs of this world!

Amen!

I am back!

Mercury’s food-in-bowl project that had shadowed my blogging efforts, ended yesterday. Now she’s free to work on “our project.” Yesterday evening she dusted off the many layers of dust that had settled on her red and blue notebooks, and scribbled into both. Then she called me and asked me to add my pugmark to a funny sort of line with branches sticking out everywhere. (The manager-type canines would recognize it as a fishbone sans the fish – and so terribly unappealing to a dog.) What’s important for us though, is that there was a date at the tail of the fishbone, and it read October 15, 2009. That I guess is the launch date for our “project of canine proportions.”

I did have a heart-to-heart with this assistant-o-mine, and I am compelled to produce the transcript of our conversation, so that my friends are not left in the dark.

The Sensible Canine:
So…now you are going to devote all your energy to the Canine Project?

The Mercurial Mercury:
Of course! I just asked for you to signoff the plan…didn’t I?

The Sensible Canine:
Good. Does it mean that you would be working in the Oodget factory too?

The Mercurial Mercury:
Definitely. I’ve already collated the list of the dog clock requests.

The Sensible Canine:
Does it mean we could see something roll off the assembly line this week?

The Mercurial Mercury:
Sure.

The Sensible Canine:
Good. BTW, does this also mean that you’d stop working on the Food-in-the-bowl projects completely?

The Mercurial Mercury:
You know that can’t happen…unless this fantastic canine project becomes successful. If it does than both Cameo and I would be doing something we love for those we love…

The Sensible Canine:
Who are they?

The Mercurial Mercury:
I thought you knew. Dogs and Dog-lovers, and also other Pets and Pet-lovers!

The Sensible Canine:
How can I help?

The Mercurial Mercury:
You can help by providing poses for my sketches, by teaching me about what goes on in a dog’s mind, by staying connected with your friends for they could inspire and guide us!

At this point, I gave Mercury a long, really slurpy lick! She looks cute (I know cute stands for “ugly but lovable,”) when she talks like that…real cute – her eyes become dreamy and her smile stretches from one ear to the other, going around her head twice!

So, dear friends…we are in for loads of fun. Mercury’s now ours, not in bits n pieces (yuck!) but completely (wow!)

The first new dog clock shall be unveiled shortly (with a few days – we’ll get the exact date today.)

Now, something important – keep your human friends safe. There’s this pandemic called H1N1 – I would recommend that you don’t worry your human friends too much – try to keep them happy so that they don’t feel like going out much.

(BTW, Cameo is in on our plan…and so unless something strikes at us out of the blue, there’s no reason why we’ll lose Mercury to her impossible schedule again.)

Question 1:

Mercury could’ve drawn caricatures of the three of you enjoying the tea( Jake and Just Harry)

She could’ve. But I don’t know why she won’t. She draws when driven by impulse – otherwise she always pleads a lack of time. That caricature was drawn in three phases – while making tea, while pressing clothes, and finally…while Cameo was reminding her that they needed to go to the bank and so she better stopped drawing and took bath – that bit was done with a towel on her shoulder and a foot in the bathroom. She drew it because drawing that caricature gave her some kind of satisfaction – her way of letting off steam…I presume.

These days she sleeps at 10 PM and gets up at 3:30…and in the mornings, when I squint my eyes open with some difficulty – I see her sitting in front of her computer – typing away. She’s working on a project that goes online in June – until then, I expect her to work about 14 hours a day…but after that, I promise – there’ll be a cartoon of the three of us – enjoying a well-earned siesta.

Question 2:

About the Look on the Husband’s Face (Essex and Deacon)

About the caricature – and the look on the face of the husband – ah well…isn’t it a common sight? Well, here it is – especially in the Defense Couples (the man works in the armed forces and the wife is usually a homemaker)– the wives are smarter – the guys lead a simple life – exercise, work, rest, exercise, play badminton, party, sleep; and when there’s a war – fight – they are focused – just like the guy in picture. They had defense couple written all over them (…and believe it or not…this Mercury of ours could’ve ended up marrying an army doctor, had her father managed to convince her. That woman could’ve been our Mercury – I tell you.)

Question 3:

What do I weigh? (Dewey Dewster)

17 kgs (this morning) and I measure about 20 inches at the withers. Now if you are wondering why I don’t follow any of the two systems properly – the root of this whole confusion lies in our unwanted historical affiliation with the British. When they left here, they left us their then used system of Yards/Feet/Inches and Pounds/Ounces.

So when Mercury’s parents were growing up, they grew us with the FPS system. But then the whole world shifted to the MKS or the metric system. (Almost – I guess the US didn’t) In India, however, the FPS system lingered on while talking about distances (the generation that was then dealing with real-estate was that of Mercury’s and Cameo’s parents – and they continued to measure their land in yards and feet.) We also continued to measure the height of individuals in feet and inches – so Mercury is five feet and three inches tall (?) – your calculations were right, Dewey.

By and by, we began using kilometers for measuring large distances, because the cars and other vehicles were fitted with metering devices that displayed the distance in kilometers and not miles, and cars became common in India, only when Mercury and Cameo were growing up. But even today, if you want to rent some space or buy land – the prices are quoted in Rupees per Square Feet/Square Yard. To increase the confusion, the measure for weight changed (the multinationals sold their products by weight and volume) so we had kilograms and liters.

Phew!
Question 4:

About The Tea and the Tea Stall (asked by most pups.)

Here’s a quick recipe of the tea that we drink.

For a two cups of tasty healthy tea:
Boil 1.25 cups of water. Add 0.75 cup of milk, and let the mixture simmer. At this stage, you may want to add some cardamom and a little ginger (grind and add.) However this step isn’t essential. Add a spoonful of tealeaves to the water-milk mixture, and let the mixture simmer until it turns pinkish brown. If you take a large whiff in every now and then, you’ll know when the tea is ready. Now use a strainer to pour the tea into the cups, and add sugar to taste. This is how Mercury prepares tea for the three of us, and this is also how the guy at the tea stall makes the tea.

Note that optional step of adding cardamom and ginger – you can change the ingredients – some people like to add a dash of pepper, some like to add tulsi (Tulsi is a tropical plant, so I doubt, you’d find it in the US.) But the whole point is – Tea rejuvenates.

Question 5:

Was the stall similar to the Mamak Stalls in Malaysia? (Kess)

Kess, your description of the Malaysian tea-stalls matches that of the Irani tea stalls that we have in Hyderabad. Those tea stalls are run by Muslims and they serve what is called – the Irani tea. That has a different taste because it’s prepared using a continuous process, and so the tea simmers for longer.

And thanks to Tuffy with a Tuffy n Fluffy tail for the wonderful award:-)

The day before was a Monday. Mondays are fine days. These two stay home for at least half the day, they cook what they call lunch, and sometimes, we all go out on a Fini Trip. Yesterday, all the three happened. What I enjoyed most was the Fini Trip, of course.

My long time blog friends know who Fini is. For the benefit of the new visitors, Fini is our car. I love going out in Fini, especially if we go early in the morning. In the afternoons you couldn’t drag me out of the house under the threat of making me fast for two days. Why? It’s simple. At 40 degree C (or about 100 F) I’d be transformed into a hotdog – and I mean literally – all you’d need would be some spinach – and you won’t be able to tell the difference. So, an early morning trip sounded good. As is usual, the moment Cameo asked me whether I wanted to go for a Fini trip, I went into frenzy – I leaped, barked, wagged my tail, wiggled my butt, and ran off to bring my leash to him.

In about a minute, the three of us were sitting in the Fini, I sat at the back while Mercury sat beside Cameo – that, of course is my favorite seat, but when she goes with us, I don’t get to sit in the front seat. I’ve stopped feeling bad about it – after all, there’s no point wasting your emotions on something that you can’t change. So off we went. We went past the houses and the park in our colony, and then past two crossings, then took a left turn to stop in front of a roadside tea stall.

There was a young man of about twenty, pouring tea for his patrons who sat on the wooden benches around his shop. Mercury and Cameo probably stop at this shop often, because he smiled at them and asked them if he should send two cups of tea to the car. Now that made me think. It meant that these two were having fun behind my tail! While I sat there letting this deception sink in, I realized that Cameo had a cardboard box in his hands. As you must know, all cardboard boxes in the house belong to me. They are mine to chew and to play with. How dare he pick up a cardboard box without my permission, and how dare he…

He called that young proprietor of the shop and gave him that box. “Here are some glasses, you may find them useful.” Glasses…what glasses. Then it dawned upon me. There was a set of small drinking glasses that had been lying unused for years – it must’ve been Mercury’s idea – to give it away – Give away the glasses if you want – who cares, but why should you give away the cardboard box…all cardboard boxes belong to me! I was angry and so I barked at them…all of them – the young man with beautiful eyes, Cameo, and Mercury – nutcases…all of them!

Then the boy sent two glasses of tea and three Matthis for them. Matthis are salted deep-fried cookies that Indians love as snacks (I guess that’s the nearest I can come to describing them – My culinary vocab is almost non-existent.) Completely unhealthy – all fat and carbohydrates, I tell you; but equally delicious. So we had matthis – all of us, and those two also had tea. I can’t imagine how they can have tea when it’s so hot – but Mercury says – “Chai ki Taaseer thandi hoti hai”, which translates to “tea has a cool after-effect”. Well. Who can argue with a person who spent a full month of her life dreaming to be lawyer?

Then they paid for the tea and the matthis. While Cameo was paying for the tea, another couple (about a decade older that these two) was getting into their car to leave. No…they hadn’t had tea at the tea stall – too high and mighty for it, I presume – and I presume this because of the look the lady had on her face as she looked at Cameo and Mercury. The look said it all – it said: Look at you – sitting in the car, wearing decent clothes, going on rides with a beautiful dog – but too cheap to go to a nice restaurant for tea. If you don’t agree with my interpretation, you can have your own. Here’s a caricature that Mercury made immediately after we reached home – and, it’s not an exaggeration, I assure you.

Woman Sneering at us from her car!

Now if you have the same question that this lady had, let me answer the question – of course, I couldn’t tell the lady this – but I can tell you all about it. There was a time in the lives of these two when their best moments were spent on a tea stall such as this one. When they’d save their bus-fare by walking the distance, so that they could go out and have tea on stalls such as these. That was the time when Cameo was studying at one of the best business schools of the country and Mercury at another, and their wardrobe had two threadbare shirts and a pair of shoes each. These tea stalls are symbolic of hope to many. These tea stalls don’t discriminate – they serve the same tea at the same rate to anyone who decides to go there. They are truly secular – They don’t mind if you go there with a hole in your shirt, and they don’t swoon if you go there with a diamond pin in your collar.

After we left the tea stall we drove around. The morning breeze sang in my ear – it sang the song of hope. If these two could pull through that – they can pull through anything…even this. The lady in that car may wonder why we’d go to a tea stall for an early morning cup of tea…but I should tell you that a cup of tea at a road-side tea-stall is more than a cup of tea – it’s a sip of life.