Angel Angel

Jispa is so besotted by Angel (my brother’s dog) that she invented a new game Angel Angel. She has taught this to everyone at her school and her other friends outside school. They play angel angel all the time. Where ever they meet, whenever they meet. Its quite a craze. Obviously it means jumping around, crawling around and getting horribly dirty everywhere. The mothers are a bit tired with all this crawling and barking. These are obviously the mothers of the core gang that Jispa has. In fact they have seriously considered banning Angel Angel. I am serious. And it’s not the mothers who are to blame here. It can get quite irritating looking at the kids panting like dogs all the time. Why would they want to play dog, god alone knows but yes in the game there are masters and there are the dogs. And it is privileged to be the dog. And I guess because Jispa can run around like a dog better than others, she kind of becomes the pivot of the game. She looks like Mowgli roaming around the house. The same tiny wire frame doing all kinds of mind numbing twists and turns.
Yesterday they were playing Angel Angel with a twist. Angel had super powers that she could transfer to her masters. Whatever!

Just then one mother told me of an ad by Surf excel and that it reminded her of Jispa . We searched the net and we all saw it. Yup.. that’s her allright. They peeped into my house and got the inspiration I guess. When we all did see the ad, Jasmine and we were worried that this was akin to showing the monkey where the razor was kept

what does angel know

While the house work is on we are staying at our brother’s place. The highlight of the stay is obviously his dog Angel. Its great fun to come home and get greeted by Angel. She is so loving and adorable. I do need to thank Angel for helping overcome some mind block. Getting kissed by a dog is one. Especially if you consider that a dog kiss is actually a dog lick. I take my lips in and put my face close to her when I come home. Awesome. In the morning its also fun to get greeted by Angel as she comes out from my brother’s room. Jispa and I await her.
Quetsion of the day was posed to me today morning by Jispa as she was playing with Angel. “Does a dog know it is a dog?” Err….. “Ask her”. “PAPA!”… “ok… ok.. I don’t know” I answer. Then she goes “does a dog know she is running, sitting, rolling over. does she know?”.
Actually I haven’t a clue. It is a good question Jispa, is all I can think of. I have no clue if a dog knows she is a dog. I guess the domesticated ones kind of live human lives but I sure know that many humans don’t know they live a dog’s life.

oooooo angel eyes...

My brother and his wife suddenly announced one day that they brought home a puppy. They named him something. After a few weeks when they went to the vet they realized that they had got the naming all wrong. He was a she. Oops. Let rename her Angel. An angel she is. What was that word again… portentous…? Yes. The most amazing dog in the world. An absolutely beautiful dog with the least amount of attitude. She genuinely loves having her friends around. There is a lot you can do with her and you can play with her as you like. While she was growing up I loved running with her. I dare say I don’t race her anymore. She is sleek and fast. The only thing is that she does not like other dogs too much. She has a limited circle of friends.
She is the one who initiated Jispa in and more importantly Jasmine into dogs. Earlier jasmine used to run away from any living creature. Especially dogs that … lick!! Yuccckkkk. I couldn’t care less. Jispa didn’t know whom to follow. Slowly she realized through her kaki that dogs have a cute side to them. Jasmine now realized the futility of avoiding the dreaded licking. I love getting licked on the nose by Angel. Jispa almost gets knocked over by her when Angel jumps and reaches for Jispa’s nose.
But it is a beautiful relationship they share. Angel has beautifully contributed to Jispa’s growing up. I guess thanks to her, Jispa is less aversive to dogs and more importantly other animals as well. The power of a sibling in your child’s growth?

There are not many dogs that I know of that allow me to do this to them. She is truly part of teh family
And if she had a theme song I would put my buck on ‘angel eyes’

mark it

Ever since I started using the pencil on the books I am enjoying underlining interesting stuff and marking out the important sentences. Its good fun but does not account for a pretty book. But at least it’s easier to refer to later. At least that’s the theory. So I underline, mark out, circle words that I need to refer to etc etc… here is one book that I am currently reading and this is what the pages end up looking like. If you see the underlines are quite shabby and are not done with straight lines. That’s not because my hand is shaky (possibly from too much booze) but because those are lines marked out in a train. Dodok dodok, dodok dodok. The lines will also follow similar rhythms.
Next to the book is my satchel. It’s a Mao bag that a friend of mine brought for me from Chine. It reminds people of their school bags I guess. It is definately the same material as my school bag was earlier on. I love it for some reason and its been my handy companion for some time. Useful to put in a book or two along with the pencil!

That’s Jispa and her sister Angel.

Forget who you are, see what you can be

I was always used to wonder why the Sri Lankans were having this war with the Tamilians or is it the other way around, I don’t know. It seems post independence the Sri Lankan majority largely ignored the Tamilians. The tilting point was when they made Sinhalese the only official language. This left the Tamilians with low job prospects and economic hardships. They took up arms. It takes two to tango.
Contrast this with Singapore. They had three languages at the time of independence Chinese, Malay and Tamil. In spite of a Chinese ethnic majority, the sincere efforts on the part of their premier Lee Kwan Yew to integrate all of them in to mainstream equally have seen Singapore through to their current state. I haven’t understood how we can create fights purely on ethnicity.

We have two cycles wowieeee….. My friend V-inu, upgraded his bike so he gave me his old one. This one is a 21 gear mountain bike. Pretty cool huh? Now Jispa and I can go cycling together. On Sunday morning we went for a ride in the Bhakti park garden. Very nice place for a morning ride. We got to see a few birds as well. The birds you get at Bhakti park that we have so far spotted are (in addition to sparrow and pigeons) – fish tailed drongo, magpie robin, sunbirds, pheasants crow (cookal), fan tail, koel (male and female), shikra, egrets, pariah kites (sometimes a brahminy kite flies above), common myna, red whiskered bulbuls, kingfishers, paddy bird and my favorite the Hoophoe. We also saw what I think is a water hen. We are not sure about that one. Outside in the nalla there is also the red wattled lapwing.
So going in the morning on a bicycle with Jispa is really good fun. She is able to keep pace. The 21 gears help when I go into a ridiculously low gear so as to slowly amble along with Jispa catching the sights. It’s not a place for speed cycling like which we did on Sunday around the compound wall. The gears do help keep pace with Jispa. I am looking forward to catching some time with her this way at least :)
I am an outdoors guy and I love to spend my time with my daughter playing outside cycling, walking trekking whatever. We figured that Angel (my brother’s pet dog and Jispa’s sister) goes for a walk every morning at seven, seven thirty. So today we landed at their house and woke them up at seven. This way Jispa gets 15 minutes with Angel in the garden everyday. Hopefully we can keep this going every morning. Brother dear - wakey wakey.

all fun zone - sports, pets and books

Sometimes I wonder how my blogs have lost a bit of their ‘zing’. Work pressure is so much at times. I had promised that I would start some activity. Well I started. I bought squash court shoes. Hope to start playing today evening. I kinda look forward to the game. This was something I wanted to do since childhood. Good exciting stuff. Hope my knee holds on and does not give way. I will be soo devastated not to play. I have spoken to the coach and he has asked to me to come in the evening, when there is some free time on the court. I have always believed that one has to play some game or the other. One can always learn from multiple games. Learning a game is important and learning it well is even more so. I hope the coach is a decent good guy who might be able to correct techniques before they get bad, unlike my cricket, which I think is impossible to really correct. This also reminds me that I must try and see if there are cricket nets in the morning on Saturday / Sundays. That should be good fun as well. What can a coach do to a 32 year old trying to learn to play better? Lets see. I am on a fitness spree… atleats thought wise. The actions should follow through boss.


My brother and his wife adopted a pup – Angel. She is dam sweet. I spent all evening playing with her yesterday. She is so amazing, so full of play. She is like a new kid in the family. My brother is acting like a dad. It’s fun to look at him. I am waiting for Angel to grow up and take her running in the park. As for yesterday, I think she played so much with me that she fell asleep while we were there it self. Thak gayi bechari khel khel ke. Pets are fun, especially if they are someone else’s. Just like kids!

For the record the book ‘understanding comics’ is easily amongst the top 10 books in my collection. Scott – you are good. Thank you. I am supremely enriched.
Now onto more such ‘serious’ comics. I am reading The Persepolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi. This kinda completes the triology. The first was the eight part series Buddha by Osamu Tezuka, the second was the two part Maus by Art Spiegleman. Understanding Comics then becomes a prequel kind of book to this trilogy consisting of 12 books.