My book…at long last

For any reader of this blog the labyrinthine process of my book and before it my Ph.D. research are likely known. I am sorry if I have bored you and do not intend making this a long post. Both of them are now in the public domain and both have links on their respective sites.

Please check for the doctoral research announcement here.

And here (at last) my book, though I cannot but share its cover with you who see this post

This cover, chosen by me, depicts structures and insurmountable barriers that have been created on the path of anyone who seeks to recover from mental health issues! No the cover is not sad, the reality it depicts is sad.

But I do not want anyone to think that just because there are these huge barriers, which are so invisible, that it is not easy to even recognize them- people do not recover. There are people who recover all the time and that is the beauty about this book. It not only talks about barriers but also about those who develop a capacity to circumvent or overcome these barriers. Great going for those with that much agency.

Renewal 2022

I just changed the header image, something I don’t easily. It’s stability marks the stability of my life and its engagements and it remains stable for years. I do not recall when I changed it last but if I go back into the previous posts on this blog perhaps it would become clearer.

The image I currently uploaded was taken a few days ago in my garden. I took it with my mobile phone.

This is an accidental click because it is not feasible to capture a ray of sun this way, at least not for me. I was trying from a peculiar location to get as many flowers in one frame as it would capture.

This picture can be interpreted in several ways, least of all it is a picture of renewal- mine, the earth’s, and my home, including my decision to not give it up yet, even though time and again I want to give up this house and move into a much smaller one whose maintenance is not so challenging. This is the way the garden looked about a week ago. Even at present a majority of these are growing outside though the weather has radically changed in the last week. The spell of coolness is over and summer is already upon us, fans are on, sweat is appearing.

Interestingly in my garden some flowers come on their own in a cyclical fashion, year after year from seeds the plant disperses on its own- poppy and nasturtiums are the topmost variety for that. This picture also includes three other ways of propagation- we have planted some plants here from the seed stage by making them into seedlings and then growing them in a much smaller pot before repotting into the earth directly. Some have arrived as saplings about three inch tall in a bundle together. And the third is plants which come in packets as ready to repot smaller plants but they are mature plants already. So the methods of propagation are diverse and spread over the months of July, August, September, October and November, and thereafter the nurturing begins.

In the final days of the past month I managed to keep my commitment to my editorial team at Routledge and submitted the final version of the book manuscript as per commitment. After the little time of keeping with them, a month at most, they will send it to their corresponding team in UK where the final editorial and copy-editing will happen. It was a year long process for me to find the publisher and then finish the work, and took 16 months in all after my Ph.D. from start to finish to get the book off my chest- my PhD work in psychosis/recovery. Once published the global edition will publish first and go to all around the world and then comes the South Asian edition, two or three months onward. It seems I may get one copy in November at the earliest and the rest will be able to get their copies only around January or February 2023. Phew! What a tiresome process.

Renewal is when we return to the base and plant new seeds or when we have risen from the ground and rebuilt ourselves. In this spring a lot has happened, a lot which is definitive, meaningful and affirmative. I found a mentor I was looking for to get my work off the ground, a lady who is a very experienced person in the disability sector, well respected, deeply compassionate and extremely supportive. It is a blessing to have a person like her to mentor my work at this juncture- the work of institution creating. She has an organization of her own which recently celebrated its 37th year though she is now more diversified and plays other roles than running it on a day-to-day basis. Being with someone who has been there, done that makes a lot of sense now. And what better than a woman.

Two sides of the upcoming institute are already functioning- the music school and the counseling center and this is the year to consolidate both, take them wider and start creating the next work of the research centers. Naturally enough I have to let go of the music school personally but that can only occur if we have enough students and I can then engage someone else for the teaching who is at least as learned about it as the best can be. I am keeping my fingers crossed for that.

This truly is the time of renewal and putting the past to bed, planting new seeds or digging up the earth to bolster existing saplings, water, hoeing and removing the weeds around them. The garden of my soul is beginning to show color and Mother Nature is generous enough to echo my labours back to me. Birds are singing outside from all direction- life is just beginning as The Hansadhwani Institute starts taking shape on the ground, having remained in a cryogenic state for years and then in a smaller incubator for a few years, at least from 2017 onward. Now the baby is standing on its baby feet and legs. Onward from here…

Cockatiels or bird story 2

I have always been fond of birds, perhaps everyone is. When I used to pass by these pet shops that kept birds outside I felt very bad for the birds and wanted to rescue them. But soon I figured that a majority of those birds would not survive in the open terrain due to predators or lack of food gathering capacity. I always thought about whether it was a good idea to bring birds in as pets.

In 2017 the doubts ended and birds came- a double set of cockatiels. All my dogs were still around and in the earliest pictures Raga was to be seen showing curiosity about the new life around.

In this picture she was so curious about the birds but she had no strength in her legs to get up and stand against their cage. She would just see from a distance and then drag herself away slowly, my poor darling. This was the last six months of her life- Raga, the German Shepherd.

IN writing this post, I suddenly go back in time and I am reminded of so much that has already gone into the historical dimensions of my life. To whom do my dogs or birds matter if not me. They made me the richer for their presences and antics.

In this photo the birds and dogs are interacting with one another, out of curiosity and uncertainty. Raga was surprised to see something so small so close to her, yet not afraid of her presence. She herself appears so curious though by this time she had already become unable to walk and needed support walking.

So two things happened to this set of birds. First of all whenever they laid eggs there was no way the eggs could be hatched because I had no idea how to make it feasible for them to. And the second thing was in a couple of years their numbers were reduced to two.

The first to die one day opened its cage door and got cut within a few minutes due to the ceiling fan. He lay their dead not far from the cage- it was such a sad scene for me to witness many years ago. The second one was killed by the little rascal Flow- my dachshund, when he accidentally managed to get into the bathroom occupied by the cockatiels. The poor little bird was sitting on the floor and Flow pushed his way in.

Anyhow over time, every year on several occasions there was a clutch of eggs and they would not be able to hatch but keep rolling in the wired cage and become useless. I tried all possible ways to make them viable, from grass, hay to paper, cloth and whatnot. But the mother bird would never manage to sit on the eggs and hatch them. Finally I decided to train the birds and by reading on the internet I got a breeding box. Now the problem was that the birds were only accustomed to living in their cage and the box was too big to get into their cage. So i decided to put the cage inside the bathroom, got the bathroom door changed from a wooden to a glass one so that the birds would be visible and they would not get cut- off from the home. So though this is written at a certain pace today but all of it happened over time, in no hurry.

After several years of wasted eggs and now the breeding box on top of the cage inside the bathroom a time came when the mother bird got into the habit of getting out of the cage and climbing up to the box. I saw it happen and was very enthused with it. Soon the mother would demand to be taken to the box if I left the cage outside the bathroom.

In the last winter I sensed she had another clutch but I could not tell. I just saw she was not to be seen much in the cage and the single bird would sit there alone. And then I opened the door of the breeding box and she tried to peck at me. I had no idea what was going on, and whether there were eggs inside or how many. One day when I got close to the cage and the box I heard little birdie sounds, like hatchlings doing choo choo choo choo. I bolstered myself and with my phone put my hand at the door of the breeding box and quickly clicked a few pictures. And only upon seeing the picture I could get a clearer view of what was going on inside.

• 

  This little birdie discusses with her mother whether it is safe to peep outside

• 

  So it is four after all

• 

  First day in the sun, the little birds are stunned with what is going on

• 

  Dogs are curious about what is going on here and birds are frightened with the sudden light, warmth and exposure

• 

  Really too inquisitive about life downstairs 🙂 and wondering what all the parents are eating

Until such time as I saw the picture I had little clue of the numbers. Anyhow once they came out in the sun, things started to get better and we got them out a little more. That is when I figured one was disabled. I do not know if birds can be disabled too, but this one could not stand on its legs, so it was always down on its belly. I was upset to see that because that meant her underside would remain wet and there was no way she would get up to drink water or anything. I would offer her water a couple of times a day once I figured this out and even dry her lest she remained wet underneath, for it was only sitting on her belly all the while.

This is a family picture of all the cockatiels in their “bathroom” aviary, a washroom not used for anything except for housing them.

Anyways, the time when I write this the little chick who was disabled is no more alive. She died one day right in its cage. I used to cover the cage with a blanket and kept a lot of tree branches inside to ensure the birds do not sit on plastic pipes- they are not good for their feet I am told. So whenever a branch is cut in my home I look for suitable perches for them. Yet the day I am referring to when I opened the blanket I saw the other birds were shying away from her and she just lay there lifeless. That was the end of her short life. Left me heavy-hearted for many days.

If there is any comfort to be had here I draw it from the fact that at least I did whatever I could do best, and within my means. I do not know if I could have done better or more than this, without pushing myself to another extreme. And all of this was happening as I was furiously working in another avatar to finish my book manuscript.

The history of cockatiels and me goes only as far back as 2017 and also lost half by the time 2021 came. But the past year was a more successful year in terms of our success at raising the new lot- so we are now more than where we began- five cockatiels today, and counting. I am saying counting because the mother has laid more eggs and is once again back to the breeding box incubating them. But I think after this I will remove the breeding box and not let her lay any more of them, because it may not be good for her after all, for her children may want to connect with her longer. I am saying this in particular because one chick is such that it still implores the mother to be fed- and whenever I hear a particular pleading sound from the aviary I know the little rascal is busy asking for his mother to put the grain in his mouth…really a rascal I think. But I am always amused by it and touched to see the love of the mother bird for its baby.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Kingfisher: my bird story 1

Long years ago I encountered this bird, in Goa. I did not know then what the bird was, nor did anyone around me. But I was told that possibly it was a baby bird because it sat quietly on the roof, as visible here. But of course I had no way to know whether this was a baby or an adult except that I found the bird very beautiful and it stayed with me for years, as a reminder of how colourful birds are in Goa.

I often felt wistful that the birds in the North here are not as colourful as the birds in Goa or other parts of India close to the ocean. I thought, and still think, it had something to do with proximity to the ocean or possibly the rain and the greenery around, mountains and abundant water bodies. I am certain these would have an impact on the presence of bird species- of course what a silly thing to even say! So that was it – end of story captured in a series of photos of this bird, perhaps the one solitary time I saw it so close in Goa. Other than this it was always from a faraway distance I saw them flying.

And this brings me to the other part of life, now that I am back to the north of India for years and it is already over a year that the PhD got over. Perhaps I never wrote about the challenges I undertook trying to grow water lilies. I had to ensure that the water would not become a breeding ground for all sorts of mosquitoes and for that reason I put mollies, a small variety of fish, in. This is the first season of that experience and expectedly there are setbacks and losses- which are lessons in their own right. The first set of losses is the number of water filters I lost in the new ecosystem and then the heaters- which are essential for the cold, so that the fish are comfortable there. Every time me or Rajan (the gardener) have checked the water when the heater has been fine the water has been really pleasant- not hard at all, I mean not biting cold at all, but comfortable to the touch. I hope my fish are fine- they certainly seem to be thriving. From the time I put a few of them, less than ten, their numbers are quite big now. They easily seem about 90-100, there is no way to know. But several times in these past few months I saw little fish, a sign that the medium was ideal for their multiplication. Even recently, either in November or December when the winter was already here and the heater had been activated I saw a new shoal, of smallies swimming around.

A few fish, which seem less than five, the initial ones to inhabit the tank

The tank above captures the initial lot and the fact that I put in two electrical sockets at the time of starting this new tank on the assumption it is always better to have more plugs than less. Each of these stages has been an effort- including getting the electrician to put the connections and then the mason working outside my home to cover the plug points with a tile, that I had lying around to ensure they don’t get wet and nobody gets hurt due to electrical current. Though not visible in this picture this tank also has a green border plant growing around which I hope in time will grow so much that the black borders of the tank would get hidden by the green leaves. May be in a subsequent picture it would show.

Anyhow so this was the new ecosystem that I got going, in two locations! For the second location- on my terrace, I bought another colour of water lily, via Amazon. It was a strange choice for I have never ever in my life bought live plants online but the plants turned out to be quite nice finally…though it took time to take root , but here are some of its blossoms. It is noteworthy that none of the flowers came together, not once. So each of these is a different flower taken at a different time. And one is shot at the bud stage.

Looks like I lost my way talking about water lilies from the issue I began with! Silly me. As visible here the fish grew, the flowers also began to come and guess what in time- perhaps in November I saw this mister. I of course could not believe my eyes. S/he makes a strange sound- like a kit- kit, kat-kat, more like a chiklet sound…in case you missed please look at the iron bar, where s/he sits facing the pond.

Over to the kingfisher- read about the species here

It seems as though he is sitting meditating though s/he actually watches the fish in the little pond.

He kept coming like this for days and from yesterday onward every time I go towards the garden or am in the kitchen I hear his sound. So finally yesterday Rajan was putting vermi-compost in the plants and he also saw the kingfisher. The sound they make is very distinct too. Anyhow, so right in front of his eyes he swooped down and took off with a fish. I am quite happy and relieved in my own little way- for I have helped Mother Nature by offering food to one of her other children.

One may say this is not nice that the fish should be eaten, and it is cruelty that I am not protecting my fish. If we see this at an ecological level, not that I am operating at one, but the world is- and we are all part of a food chain, and wherever the chain can be restored the broken links will start healing. If I can play a minuscule role in Nature’s garden I am so grateful for the opportunity.

Oh, but talking of food chains, there is another being who is suitably attracted to the prospect of fish in the garden. Though in this picture, which was taken from above, and noticed by Rajan- the kitty sits on the ledge where the tomatoes grow, she knows where the dogs are and where the fish, or the birds and she still can enjoy the sun in a home with dogs- look at her guts and look at the dogs!

She blends with the colours but see her sitting at the base of the tomato plants.

At least one thing is for certain in my garden, that things which were not to happen are beginning to and birds I never thought I would see around here, are showing up. And just imagine, only a few weeks before the first sighting I had seen this bird in this temple that I went to, right here in Faridabad.

The Jharna temple has a rainwater spring which bubbles in the rainy season- where I first sighted the kingfisher

Life is full of surprises 🙂 but one still has to take the road oneself.

July 2016- August 2021

Today is a look back at the calendar once again. A time of great transitions and change, these five years. It is a relief I can see them hindsight today, now sitting in September 2021. But what a time. The biggest things happened in this span, all having the degree as the fulcrum. This fulcrum rotated my entire life on its axis. When I look back today by far these were the five most tough yet transformative years of my life. So what were the big things that happened?

I was accepted into the program in January-Feb 2016, and the birthday of 2016 was the first birthday of my life when I was not at home but at university- my 44th birthday. In July 2016 I was officially admitted to the PhD program, the date being 29th July, 2016. Less than four years later, on 6th July 2020 I submitted my thesis, 26th October 2020- earned the degree. This year I got the degree as well.

My degree came by post

Anyways this was a momentous occasion which occurred in silence. The degree came by post and I skipped my music class, it was a Wednesday. I was too excited even though I had earned it much earlier – but to see a PhD degree on your kitchen counter delivered by Blue Dart Courier is a strange thing and it was not so easy for me to sit down to learn a new raga with this there- so I went to my parents’ house who were fortunately right there and we had a little celebration, err…rr..rr whatever one can for a breakfast!

But what happened then?

The day I received my degree, was 4th August 2021. The timeline of the university had only recently expired- 28th July. This was the end of the time given by the university to finish the doctoral research. I earned it well before the time and in the five years I was given I finished both the thesis and the book, but the latter is another story.

In June this year I also signed a book contract, my second. The first was long years ago and I had messed it up then! It was a book about music something, but as soon as I signed the contract with a very respectable publishing house, two things happened for me, one being really bad and the other quite good. The bad thing was that I developed a lot of pain in my spine, the year was 2015 and I also lost interest in the idea, even though I myself had proposed it. The good thing that happened at the same time was my entry or imminent entry into PhD research which steered me away from music related issues, then.

Anyhow, coming back to the current issue. Once I finished the degree it was important for me to write the book, because the findings from my PhD seemed important, at least to me and the examiners of my thesis agreed with it. This work certainly was NOT done for a degree but to take the ideas wider, or else why did I burn my life away for five years without getting paid for any of it? The book was a logical part of my design. Until the book got over my PhD was not complete at least in my mind. The burnout I suffered last year soon after the PhD was a bit unsettling, naturally so. I could not imagine how I would return back to research in those circumstances. But that became a thing of the past soon, in less than two months as I got back into further research in counseling.

The book started to take shape

Even before I finished the PhD dissertation the book had been taking shape in my head, for years! I always kept thinking how I would take it further, how would I write about my findings, who would read it and how easy should the writing be, so that the ones I want reading get the message. On the one hand this suffering, on the other the challenge of finding the publisher, which is a harrowing process for anyone wanting to take their ideas wider, and quite scary too. In February this year I started the process of nailing down the publisher. Sadly enough the realization that my book could not but be anchored in research only hit me early on. There was no way I could make the book any “lighter” because its epistemology and arguments were important. I had to eschew any anxiety for popularity and look at the important of gravity of the arguments.

No matter how much we may think our ideas matter to us or to some fictional reader the test of an idea can also be filtered by the yardstick of the publisher. In February itself I had two rejection slips- one from Routledge in New York and another from an Indian publisher of some merit. This really got the wind out of my sails and I plummeted somewhere, unsure what to do, how to get up again. Anyhow, I do not know how but I got up again and once again looked up the same publisher, in addition to several others. In fact I made a list of the top eight I wanted to go with and made it into a grid, checking each one’s website for submission guidelines and so forth. But in one case I wrote to one person personally, he was the head of India operations of that publishing house – the one that was TOP of my list. The answer came back promptly and that person put me in touch with a junior colleague, a commissioning editor.

They were interested in the idea I was proposing – an interdisciplinary inquiry in mental health having a component of law among other things, in the Indian context. Would I please fill in their submission form and append a couple of chapters with it? This was May 2021. I asked for until the end of May to send my proposal, but sent it by a week ahead of time at least. While writing the proposal I learnt many a thing about my proposed book. The foremost among them that mine was a first monograph in Mad Studies (hope I got it right and this is not a far-fetched claim). Writing the proposal was more difficult as the publisher asked for too many details, again and again asking the same question in different ways. Anyways the good thing is that I got to put two chapters together as an outcome, which was requested.

They came back within the month and said they were interested in the proposal and could I please do a few more things before we signed the contract. The commissioning editor hurriedly walked me through the process and while I received their response on 21st June with the words they would like to accelerate and sign before the month ended, I in fact ended up with the contract the same week- by 24th if I am not wrong. And as per that I had to make the first submission by August-end. I just did. My first book manuscript is ready…ha! Let me say it again.

my first book is ready as manuscript!

My first book is ready in manuscript form, derived from my PhD thesis, with the publisher I wanted! I am relieved and the process is on, the reviewer comments are now awaited and the final submission is due a few months down the line. and then my work would pretty much be done, and I can just relax having done a reasonable job and moving on to new projects. I have been so tortured that I cannot even feel the relief yet, but I do hope to in time.

My first book, as someone who did a Phd in psychosis and recovery, from a lived experience of the same, in the emerging field of Mad Studies, a part of disability studies, which is an emancipatory research asking tough questions about epistemology and questioning psychiatry about its goals for “treating” people – is on its way towards completion, an effort and meandering which has spanned a time of nearly three decades of understanding all these issues- schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It explains why people recover when they do and why they do not in a vast majority of cases. On the whole something useful for everyone for it brings many ideas together for the first time- especially sociolinguistics based Critical Discourse Analysis, epistemic injustice by Miranda Fricker and last of all Walter Mignolo’s ideas of decolonizing epistemology. But this is not all, there is a metacommentary from social construction and the whole premise is built on how people are made subjects of governance, an idea taken from Michel Foucault. Five years ago I only just knew Foucault’s name!

Phew! these are those five years of my life when my knowledge has really taken a new leap- the wind is getting back in the sails.

What do I cultivate?

As I was watering the plants upstairs, that has been transformed drastically from what it once was, I thought to myself today- have I cultivated this garden, has the gardener, or has the garden cultivated me, or what has happened along this road? Before that a glimpse of where the terrace was a few months ago and where we are today. The work was difficult for me to manage as being alone and having so much activity was noisy and unnerving to say the least- it even brought upon me a burnout later. But I am relieved that it all is over now.

You can pull in the middle of these two photos, on the arrow, either side. And this is a view of the same location separated by a few months. On the left is the under construction room on my terrace and the right is what it became after the construction. I could not do anything about the terrace floor as yet, for that would be left for another round of refurbishing. On the right you see what the left construction finally became.

Whether the garden cultivates me or I the garden is a philosophical dilemma, for who knows what occurs in the process? It is not as though the soil, an embodiment of Mother Nature, is such an inert and passive being that we can touch and mingle with it, yet remain untouched by it ourselves. And this intermingling continues long after we interact with the earth, whether our bare hands or with our minds.

The past winter was a different experience, partially due to the pandemic and partially because I myself had the burnout soon after the Ph.D. process was completed. The garden suffered tremendous neglect and other lack- primarily being a reliable gardener to fall back on. The burnout naturally meant total withdrawal from the world and introversion for weeks. So all the sowing that had to be done in September, was delayed due to the construction not being over until October-end, and the need for curing the planters, could only happen much later. Organizing the earth, compost and other paraphernalia being unwell was a huge roadblock and naturally there was nobody I could fall back on. I was absolutely late to think of growing and sowing anything at all. So though things were sowed and some produced very good harvest (especially the mustard plants- sarson) there was utter failure with other things- cauliflower, cabbage, carrots and beetroot (whose leaves I continue harvesting still).

We did reasonably well with tomatoes, though not as much as last year- two varieties (including cherry tomatoes), radishes, brinjals, spinach- that I have started taking for granted nowadays, pok choi, salad leaves (though I did not eat them much). Also there was kohlrabi for the first time, and yes celery.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

  Harvesting gaanthgobi or kohlrabi

The best part this year was the number of vegetable flowers I encountered for the first time and how I learnt to distinguish between them. So here are a few pictures of those. These are onion, pok choi, radish, brinjal and tomato flowers from left to right every time.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The unusual occurrence

How unusual can life get for a seasonal garden? One never knows until we see how things shape up. So couple of unusual things happened due to the ongoing pandemic situation. The first among this was that I could not go and get seeds as I said earlier, nor I could afford buying many plants ready made, but I did grow many things from seeds for the first time and more importantly scores of plants came out of the earth when their time to germinate came. Saying it differently I just watered around the garden and Mother Nature gave me back from her deposits from the past year in due course. So here are some which came out on their own – which were principally nasturtiums and poppies.

• 

• 

• 

All the free flowers that Mother Earth gave back- orange nasturtiums and red poppies

And then there were the first timers- those plants that I grew for the first time. These two belong to that lot-begonias and sweet peas. I am absolutely happy about the latter, though the former were a disappointment. But that is life- you learn, you lose, you make mistakes you grow. No mistake, no growth!

• 

• 

• 

There are hits and misses every time, learning continues from season to season, something works another thing fails, there are heartaches galore all along the way, yet something comes along to offer solace. There have been many solaces and one beautiful addition to the garden- which always invited a lot of birds anyways. But the last picture in this post will tell you what it is, for now I just share the usual flowers that I look forward to every year and manage to grow some every time. This year a number of these are growing from the seed stage in my home, and that is real satisfaction personally.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

And I take leave with this one foto for today, for the meditations i wanted to engage in are not possible due to the expected entry of some family and friends now.

Creating safe spaces for birds, bees and life around

And that brings me to the question- do I cultivate the garden or does the garden cultivate me? That is the real question

2020- a year that took and gave us something

Seriously it took a lot… So many people passed away and a global gloom descended as people were forced to learn new ways to live confined within domestic spheres. An appreciation of what matters at a fundamental level may have hit home for scores of people, and possibly a need to prioritize. It is the biggest churning one can imagine we could stand to witness; for a phenomenon of the scale of a pandemic is something beyond our conception at most times. It has disturbed us at deep levels to see the inequality of the world we have created, where social distress is humongous. If we are in an emotional coma of some sort only then the world around us can stop affecting us in our little cocoons, which we believe to be our little havens. But how many havens have developed cracks this past year is only a conjecture, or a reality hidden within numerous hearths and hearts!

When I last scribbled on this blog I had submitted my thesis; well before October 2020. Thereafter I have not been able to write another post for longer than I would have wanted. The completion of a reasonably successful doctoral viva (or defense if you please) got me a great amount of adulation and respect among groups whose scholarship and responses I value. Yet that was not the end of the suffering for me.

A delay in writing this blog post is also partially due to the burnout which came soon after my Ph.D., in fact just three days later (29th October 2020). I did not even have a chance to enjoy my success as I was bedridden and delirious or sleeping for prolonged periods of time- really long. It took the whole of November and that upset my gardening calendar seriously. I was sad that for all the efforts I had put in for the new room and the new beds for growing vegetables I would probably not get much outcomes this year, as my burnout took away the crucial time of sowing seeds, worsened by a gardener who kept cheating me while I kept trusting him due to my longstanding connection with him, the gullible fool I am! But that was part of the reason for not writing, the other part was a new research that I embarked upon soon after. Or, putting it differently I started documenting something which had been pending and playing on my mind for a long time- my counseling practice, another arm of research I do.

But I am not going to write about the new research which I have (now also) started as a project for the next few years, among several other ventures. I am more interested in marking the little joys of gardening and the minor successes I achieved with all my earthy labours. Some of these efforts started long back- around the time I returned from Goa (July 2016), aghast to see my house bereft of much greenery except for the ficus trees in the backyard. In all the years since I have done a lot of things and sadly though all my companions of those years- my four dogs Ginger , Nikki, Raga and Dash have left me and moved onward, life has not been static at all. The little pups have grown bigger and become full dogs now and the backyard that looked one way once looks entirely different.

just stretch these images to see the full picture and see how the same space has been completely changed, and the only connector being the red Chlorodendron creeper which was quite small as evident in the photo on the left and in the latest picture from 2021 it has occupied the better part of the wall on the Northwest of the house. Using the arrow in the middle of the photos you can enlarge both images. The left image is taken from the ground level while the right one is a view from above

The new venture

From pitaji, my paternal grandfather I inherited a streak of changing the way space is organized every now and then. I get bored in the same location, sitting the same way or just not having a new perspective to look at the same thing (which also contributes considerably to my eclecticism in research). Change is intrinsic to my being. On most if not all fronts- especially artistic, ideational, and gardening. All these contribute to make my life fairly tough and reasonably busy. Naturally enough having long spans of being alone is essential to these pursuits for ideas take long to incubate and nurture further. Some ideas are faster to reach fruition but a lot of them do not.

For years I had been wanting to build a room upstairs for myself but decided not to simply because it is too much of a headache to build something in the same house as you live in- the dust, noise, human presence can be overwhelming. Anyhow this past year I bit the bullet, and now I not only have managed to build a room for myself upstairs but also a green patch that I was so keen to. On all sides of the room there is greenery and in big troughs at that. Here lies a set of pictures that depict the manner in which the upstairs has been transformed from a dead territory to a living vibrant, growth oriented space. I still have to expend a lot more effort in shaping it to the exact contours I wish to have, but my patience is always more vested in my research than in construction and domestic activities. So here is where I stand for now, this first part of the new decade- giving shape to new ideas. Not to forget that a set of solar panels have also been installed with great pains and persistent efforts!

• 

  Solar panels on the north east part of the terrace

• 

  Harvesting gaanthgobi or kohlrabi

• 

  View of the Western side of the terrace

• 

  Spring onions on the Eastern terrace

• 

  Harvesting radishes

• 

  The room under construction- July 2020

• 

  Kohlrabi first time in my home

• 

  Mustard greens and radishes- a first sight

• 

  Meena stands with the carrot greens, beyond them you can see mustard flowers

• 

  Peeping in: the new room from the outside

• 

  Shoots of beetroot

• 

  A view of the room, February 2021

• 

  A failed attempt at cauliflowers!

• 

  Flowers of brinjal

• 

  Spring onions have grown now and Flow cannot but investigate

Even as I write this today, the terrace upstairs is already a changed place and when I write the next blog post I will narrate about how I am fortifying some parts of it, to protect my plants from monkeys. So though these photos are authentic they represent the past, even at the stage of writing this. Hopefully the next post will be more about gardening and about the new research whose outcomes are likely to occur soon.

I conclude here these little attempts at gardening. Lastly, lest I forget I could remind myself, and share with you, that this year I have grown most of my plants from a seed stage. I count this an achievement by itself. But more of that in the next post, which I hope would not be as far apart from this one as this has been from the previous. Thank you for your interest and reaching here with me. I take leave with a glimpse of my Ph.D. dissertation – one of the major accomplishments of my life, not just 2020. Also something I am proud of, not the degree necessarily but the work I have accomplished, whose resonances will come only in time.

In 2020 I earned a doctorate in mental health, and took my first steps towards becoming a farmer. When I was a little girl I used to feel ashamed when they said that the only culture Punjabis have is agriculture. Today I feel proud of it for I have developed a great respect for that culture and what all remaining close to the earth can engender…musical melodies the least among them :). Tending to plants at close quarters and seeing seeds sprout, grow and become bigger plants, blossom and bring vegetables is least of all a matter of cultivating attention, patience, respect and acceptance of what can go wrong. If the farmers are the salt of the earth I am happy being another grain of it as well.

Living the ‘wait’

My name translates to ‘waiting’ – a verb to the average Hindi-knowing person, because prateeksha means that. To someone more poetic it may mean something else, like hope or ‘looking forward to something’, but the common person is largely prosaic, not poetic. Waiting can be painful unless made otherwise by meaningful investment in one’s time and abilities.

And yet we are all obliged to wait because such is the nature of life, such is how everything unfolds – in its own time, its unique gestation, its inner rhythm which nobody knows for sure about. At every point in time we are caught in a multitude of waiting-s. One cannot even rate them properly, each is uniquely agonizing in its peculiar way. An embryo grows in waiting, an exam result is awaited, a loved one coming from afar is waited for, any activity which is underway is awaiting completion. But then there was can massive seasons of waiting, when so much goes on in every domain of life and so much is awaited. Currently I am going through that mega-waiting.

Laying the thesis to bed

The PhD thesis was submitted on 6th July 2020, and from what I know, it was sent onward to examiners a week thence. Soon it would be two months and agony of the waiting is quite palpable. The next big thing to unfold was a room for me upstairs, as part of a more ‘ambitious’ plan to have a terrace garden. Both these things had one thing in common- a desire to chase the sun in winter. So that activity also rolled out from the 11th July 2020, and is going to be two months soon! Right now there are nearly ten people working upstairs- masons, labourers, carpenter, welders, and others coming in and out. The house is noisy, dusty in parts and doing anything with hammers blowing on top of your head is not exactly easy- neither writing, nor singing.

The pandemic has had another set of setbacks on various counts. The relief I was hoping to experience, post submission is simply not there. It is just one thing after another. Doing a PhD at 48 is not the easiest thing for anyone, especially when there has been nearly NO support, guidance or supervision from most quarters except for a few people to occasionally talk to. Only towards the end my supervisor appeared on a distant horizon but still quite aloof and watching from afar, not really participating. But yes, one colleague or peer, if I may use that word, appeared whose communication was a source of much support in the last two months, especially after I made my pre-PhD presentation on 13th April.

The presentation –

Just as an aside, the (pre-PhD) presentation went extremely well- something I had not prepared much for, because what can one ‘prepare’ more than what one has done in the PhD- it was quite spontaneous and done at ease. My PhD work is something I am finally proud of, it takes me long to appreciate myself mostly. That day was the first time when I really heard the echoes to my work from the academic community and felt a sense of accomplishment and relief, that I was being heard and understood.

The Vice Chancellor of the university congratulated me and said he had not heard such a good presentation in a very long time, (or did he say it was the best he had ever heard? I forget). I am not one who remembers praise easily! My supervisor also became extremely proud of me thereafter because she knew my work by then and was willing to stick her neck out for it. Our relationship never came out of the freezer though as I could not pick up the spirit to walk back to her and befriend her after the hurt of silence I suffered for most part of my four years of the PhD journey.

The satisfaction I gained

I have many sources of satisfaction from the work I have done- the publications only one among them, then the time I took (a few weeks short of four years) to submit the full thesis, but MOST significantly perhaps developing the ability to understand and critique law. When this year began, I was absolutely terrified of law, legal ideas, legal language and whatnot. And I had to write a full chapter about the mental health law of India from my perspective. This was by-far the most difficult writing I have done until today. It took me nearly eight-nine iterations from March 2020 till June 2020 before my supervisor sent the following comment- ” As far as I am concerned, you have earned the doctorate Prateeksha”. Coming from her it was a big thing, for she is known to be economical with her praise/appreciation.

• 

• 

• 

• 

But in general I have heard from Chandramati (the peer who appeared) and also another person about the good word going around about my work/me (?) at the university. So now I am being ‘owned’ by others, whilst all this while I fumbled and staggered alone in the labyrinth. It seems the heroine would have to go through her labours alone and when the baby is about to be born the whole world will start getting ready for the event! Chalo I suppose this is how everyone’s doctoral research is, except that everyone has different set of challenges to deal with and mine were among the toughest. I have finally dealt with at least some of the challenges and emerged, victory will soon follow ( I imagine).

Gardening is another exercise that has taught me the value of persevering and, of course, waiting! How can one not wait after having done the needful. This year I made many blunders but also reaped many a fruit (read vegetable) from my garden. the most successful ones were the tomatoes earlier and now it is the sponge gourd (tori), brinjals (whose saplings show in one picture above) and amaranth (chaulai). I am excited and nervous about the terrace that is being cleared up for the gardening activity ahead and I think it would require a lot of money as well, but let’s see. Will write a blog post soon to note about the outcomes of all these efforts…as I am now ‘in waiting’ 🙂

The Karo…na staycation!

o now we are all on a forced vacation– at least I can call mine that! (Karo…na is a parodied version of Corona, in Hindi which means, do it not). But since the government has put us under this forced vacation, it has indeed put us there!

Why?

Because I recently got over with the writing of the doctoral thesis, so it is a much needed break…utter break that I am taking after July 2016. I never took such a break, or any real break– there was always so much to do academically (while there is still more to do now as well). So I was hoping to go around, meet friends, be with my parents, eat out a bit, drive around Delhi- Noida etc, meet a few neighbours that I had been promising to before plunging another time into the deep end of writing, more writing and riyaaz (and more in music research).

Yet, one good thing happened last year- that I watched a lot of gardening videos (in my last blog post my friend Vishu said I may be taking another degree in gardening as well, alas! this much is enough. But thank you the idea is interesting Vishu) strange as it may sound, while I was writing the thesis, I was also learning about growing vegetables, about cooking food (I am a reasonably good cook, but learning more things) and more gardening videos, not to mention all about politics (globally). Have been reading a lot of research in social sciences and medical sciences for several years…so the mental activity has been humongous. And I was really looking forward to applying my gardening ideas to the garden, where else. It was planning to grow vegetables… been planning from last year August how to expand the gardening space. Naturally one can only do so much when it comes to horizontal space, which means going vertical. So I also watched myriad options of how to create that vertical space- over months and budgeting for it, slowly adding one little thing at a time.

Anyways, the long and short of it is that now that the time came to implement those ideas has arrived…it seems I really have to implement them with my own hands! The gardener has stopped coming; he is anyways always too happy not to! And here I am saddled with all the seeds, manure, coco peat and whatnot

…and of course the space, which is asking for lot of work because the plants are overgrown with weeds and asking for work, beds are asking to be cleared among other things. I was just outside clicking a few pictures for this post and I saw a huge amount of tomatoes growing, and I have only recently learned the mistakes I have made with growing tomatoes, for not having put the support they require. Nevertheless one always learns from mistakes and so am I. Especially when your gardener is not proud of his farming roots and he wants to do the little dainty flower gardens and not hard core vegetable patches then one is left to one’s own means to figure it out.

Among the gardening videos there are several channels I follow. One of them is this person who speaks in a very funny manner but his ideas are very good and at least a couple of them have been tested by me. And as one outcome I have got these results exactly by the method he told me

If I take you on a tour of the garden just for a moment, you would know how much work is needed here!

Spinach and lettuce

Abundance of tomatoes

These beds have tomatoes, nasturtiums, radish, green onions, lettuce, coriander all growing together. This corner is asking for a lot of effort among other locations around the house

After these issues there is more work, I mean planting more seeds, or make seedlings first and then planting them. there are scores of things here in packets and let me first get them up and going before talking about them. Already some seeds have sprouted, as I showed above- bottle gourd and now these- amaranth (chaulai- very rich source of iron etc). Right now these seedlings are very small and they are at the seedling stage only. But since this photo is taken from a height it is not easy to make that out.

But this is not all that is required to be done in this house, manned by one  academic- musician, but also two dogs, and cockateils, fish etc

Cockateils

Along the furthest wall there lies the aquarium

There is a huge amount of work just to keep this house in order, and working. I cannot claim I can do so much work- which includes cleaning, cooking, dusting, the plants, the birds, the fish, the yard, which I am just about to show here-

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is the amount of work required, and this does not include the basement which I will keep closed and the guest room ditto, until the household staff returns. In addition to keeping this space reasonably clean on a priority basis, the first being the kitchen and the dining area

Ginger under the dining table. Just see how her underbelly is all red with the itch and scratching, though she sleeps here peacefully

This above photo is from the time when Ginger was still with us…so this is a nutshell of the space that needs to be kept clean in addition to the washrooms!

So while there may be people who are wondering what to do in this staycation, I have no dearth of work thanks to the 360 degree life I live! So these areas are as follows, just by way of summing up

Minimum daily work-

1. Bath, exercise and riyaaz (first thing in the morning)
2. Kitchen- cooking for self and dogs (separate meals obviously), this also means the two outside dogs, + doing the dishes and organizing in their separate locations, which are many and cleaning the kitchen!

kitchen

2. Birds– cleaning the bird cage and giving them fresh food/water- both the inside birds and outside birds. Also putting the birds out in the morning and bring them back when it warms up

3. Fish– food twice a day and aquarium cleaning once a week

4. Watering all sides of the garden- three sides

5. Cleaning the front yard– I mean by washing it and drying with wiper

This is the minimum work required to be done daily, whether or not I can do anything after that.

The front yard

Biweekly tasks

1. Cleaning bathroom/s
2. Teaching music classes online- every student twice a week online (two students in-person)
3. Learning music – once/twice a week with my own teachers
4. Going to the market for grocery shopping since there is nobody getting milk etc for me!
5. Washing my clothes and doggy linen

Optional work that needs to be done as per discretion/requirement

Planting new seeds/plants

Removing old plants and reworking the soil for next season

Writing (research) articles

Working on the next project

Reading research- in mental health and now Covid-19!

New musical compositions for teaching

Bathing dogs as per schedule

Counseling clients as and when they take appointments, usually online

As anyone who reads this can comprehend, this leaves little time to watch TV or anything else. So at most I may watch news on the phone and of course also turn on the TV occasionally. There is hardly any time for the phone, barring sporadic messages- which are more often than not work related. And after this if any time left check social media (facebook, linkedin, quora etc).

I can do with longer days or more energy

Oh! I forgot walking the dogs and now Rhythm just came to nudge me to remind me that I have missed it, just in case! (also time to take them out). It is a 20-30 minutes walk at least.

Now that my whole day is in front of everyone who is curious how I am spending my quarantine period, I think you have a clear picture how much there is to do here! So if I am unable to come online and answer some queries, you would understand.

OMG! this is really a lot of work, let me not read it again lest it overwhelm me 🙂

Another addendum: in all likelihood my ‘home-manager’ is likely to report tomorrow because she is also bored sitting at home. So let us keep the fingers crossed.  Possibly I would be able to focus on my whole specialized tasks than managing the chores as well, god bless her!

Not just another doggy tail or passage

Some dogs are so special, such important parts of your life that one thinks l…o…n…g before writing those words of goodbye that one must, to acknowledge that indeed the hands of time have moved, and life gathered your beloved pet, companion and soulmate into the folds of its long gown and slithered away. It is a week in calendar terms today, and it has taken me considerable effort to sit down now (8:15 am) on my computer to make these jottings.

My both retriever girls- Ginger and Nikki

In a posture of acceptance and love, with a guest who is at ease with animals

 

It is not to say that Ginger alone was special, but Ginger was the one who came first and left last, and that made her special in her own kind of way. I cannot but go back in time, time and again and how the images of her entering into my life flit past in quick succession- the first encounter on the service road of a big highway (Mathura Road) and the vet who had brought her along to palm off a sick puppy to me, without telling me so She was, so to say, my first official dog- not that there wasn’t another before her, but she was the one that I alone brought home, taking a quiet decision about it and dealt with the whole thing from the beginning. She imparted me with a great sense of responsibility and a little, sick puppy who came coughing (she had pneumonia then) became the harbinger of all that was to change in my world, soon after.

She was very ill, and the vet who had palmed her off just wanted to get rid of her and make his money. She was an outcome of a breeder’s farm and the runt of the litter– nobody had wanted to take her. That is how I got her, because I could not have paid what it took to get a Golden Retriever- I was a poor, dependent, ‘mentally ill’ person myself, with no job, having no life of her own, and not sure whether there was anything to live for. The year was 2006, I was 34. Today when I look back at that life of deep

This is the kind of basket she was crouched in

solitude, suffering and uncertainty and think of the young people who struggle with labels of ‘mental illness’ I feel they are much more empowered than I was then. There was no social media, or if it was there I was far from that world. Not to say that social media ever proved to be good for me in any real manner.

Anyhow, going back to Ginger- the day she came it was Diwali, so it is easy today to look up and find the date, am just about to do it! Oh, so google tells me that Diwali was on October 21st in 2006! So well, that is the day she entered into my life, my world and my home- that sick, coughing, terrified pup,  so lanky at four months (born on 6th June as she was) that the man who had brought her had put her in a vegetable basket, the sort in the picture above! My maternal grandfather was also sick at the same time, and he was coughing away with pneumonia  or bronchitis in his last days then. And then came a sick pup doing likewise. My mother was aghast to see this, for she had just met her father coughing and here her daughter had brought a coughing sick pup home 😦 Nobody can say she was pleased.

Yet, I was besides myself with joy, and immediately wanted to name her ‘Lakshmi’ as it was Diwali, but my grandmother was adamant- for how could I name my dog after a Hindu deity! And it took a bit of humming and hawing before I would settle down for a name like Ginger- who nevertheless soon had to be started on steroids and antibiotics, for she was really very ill . The vet I had known in Noida (Rappai) came to my rescue and for many other situations I have referred back to him for long since and before. But that was Ginger then- in a manner of speaking rescued, and ‘restored’ in time. The images fall in front of eyes like droplets of rain and can I ever capture them on a blog-post? Seems unlikely and neither I wish to attempt such a big thing here. It is not a small time I am sitting here to chronicle, but a relationship of nearly 14 years. In fact had Ginger lived, she would have been 14 this year in June (6th June 2020).

Seeing or sensing that perhaps another dog would do us good, or may be I thought that she was lonely (was I projecting myself on her?) I decided to get another and that was to be Nikki- the most adorable, sweet, loving animal anyone would ever ever get to know. I remember the day I drove down- to Noida once again, to get Nikki- also from a breeder! But that lady was not into breeding Labradors, only Cocker Spaniels. Yet for some reason she had this particular labrador. But this is not about Nikki- but how Ginger encountered Nikki when they met. Nikki was over-joyed on meeting me and I thought it seems this pup has a past life connection with me (how silly!) that she recognizes me from some other time, seeing her recognition and joy at meeting me. She was going bonkers around me, flapping her little tail as though she had only been waiting for me. So even though, I had only gone to ‘check out’ the pup (though cautious enough to carry the little money I had) leaving such a doting pup there, made little sense.

So I quickly bundled her up into the Zen car I drove those days. Me, Ginger and Nikki- both pups in the backseat. I also gave them a chew-bone each to munch while we covered the distance back home. But Ginger was so upset with this new situation in her life, while Nikki was least concerned. For her having a family and another sibling with something to munch on seemed like a safe enough proposition to start a new life. By the time we returned to our home, she had not only eaten both the chew-sticks but also defecated in the car! So that was the start of our new life with the second pup. Naming her was another story, but I wouldn’t get into that here.

So life kept on its quirky road, with a person as quirky as I could be- then came Raga, the German Shepherd and life was never the same –

These were the dimensions of their size once upon a time- Ginger and Raga , and small wonder Ginger would never accept Raga’s dominance for all times ahead, no matter what the consequence

In October 2007, a year after Ginger entered my world, I moved to Faridabad- with my three girls: Ginger, Nikki, Raga (GNR), and the year after in 2008- December came Dash, adopted from a family in Gurgaon.

Today all these are just words, and memories– so many memories, so many people, encounters, neighbourhoods we lived in, a village in South Goa, cities- Delhi, Faridabad and Margao … Ginger held on as all dogs went down – my brave little angel. It was not in vain though- she held on until I had written the first draft of the PhD thesis. And perhaps this PhD would not have happened at all! In 2015 I was in conversation with two universities in the US for a doctoral research. In Stony Brook they were very kind and welcoming. In fact the lady I was in conversation with also put one of her doctoral researchers in touch with me and we had an email exchange and then a Skype chat as well. She was intrigued that I had published so much already- she was also working in mental health, an American woman, a little older to me. As these conversations unfolded I was living in Goa- the time was July 2015 or thereabouts.

While they showed interest in my possible application to the university I was uneasy about the fact that I was in Goa and I had these four  dogs around me. Finally I had to move one way or another- I wrote an email to the young academic and bowed out, admitting that since my animals were all ageing it was not possible for me to leave them and study in the US. I had internally imagined the scenario that they would be old, requiring care and would I be happy doing the PhD in cold New York? That lady was kind enough to understand my reasons and that was it- no more PhD for me!! At least that dream was shattered… Until (surprisingly enough) providence brought another opportunity in September 2015 soon after, which indeed is what I pursued and bring to completion now.

So the reasons that I began this PhD- my geriatric canine family proved the case that I was indeed right  in not taking up the opportunity of a foreign degree, while they lovingly watched over me  struggle with the PhD year after year- each of them leaving me, gently changing their own course…one year after the other or a few months apart…

Raga- 23rd October 2017 (the youngest)

Nikki- 8th June 2018 (utterly unexpectedly)

Dash- 28th June 2019 (just a day of being ill, really has not made sense until today)

and finally Ginger – 29th January 2020

It has taken me a week to write this, not only because Ginger left or that it was sudden, because this is a huge shift in my life- a demographic shift, a change in situation that I had not put at the forefront at any time, thinking they all had more time. Dash’s demise was certainly very shocking and Ginger’s- plain unexpected. This is not to say she was strong, or well. She was fading, getting weak, yet until the very end, barring the last one week moving around, demanding food, engaging with everything. Then her eyesight completely began to fade and I realized she was falling into the plants and I decided to guide her on a leash.

The last three days were  heartbreaking, the sort of time you really wish it would end. She was crying out in pain throughout the night. I could not put any medicines in her mouth because I knew it would not matter now- the same that I would want for myself. If I would pet her she would calm down- but I could not for the whole night and my arm would be frozen outside the blanket, though I did for several hours. I mostly managed to sleep for one or two hours at most. But in the day she would sleep peacefully  – while I could not sleep to that extent. She did not eat for full five days and that was a sign to me that this was it!

None of my dogs had such a painful demise as Ginger. I wonder if it was due to the fact that she was such a strong-willed, tenacious girl, who held on despite the pain or was it something else? She had not given up much earlier as well, even when she was considerably weakened by this very deep mange issue that I treated for her, but her immunity being compromised since young did not help the matter. We tried scores of oils, baths, treatments, antibiotics, anti-fungal treatments – oral or topical, you name it sort of thing. Then in the early parts of the winter she also had another case of aural hematoma . I did not do much about it this time because in the earlier case when she had developed this in Goa I had a surgery performed and was so unhappy with that experience that I figured that if this can heal on its own in a few months (as I read and figured it out) I would just leave it for now. And my poor darling resigned to her fate- quietly let the hematoma, the mange and age get to her slowly, as I poured in the CBD oil and everything else to make it comfortable for her , to whatever extent feasible.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This winter has been biting cold for us and I kept Ginger especially protected because her condition did not permit me to cover her with any garments, unlike the other two. At least the cold did not get her, she was safe, secure and warm- until the end. It was other things.

Ginger under the dining table. Just see how her underbelly is all red with the itch and scratching, though she sleeps here peacefully

It is not just Ginger who is gone- it is that big loop, which started with the entry of my dogs, and that was to change me forever, coming a full circle. I have no grief, only a deep sense of loss and tears that I find unexpectedly welling into my eyes- sometimes while looking at something, lying in bed or reading something. The home is the same, the dachshunds are sweet and playful- yet the passage of an age cannot but be acknowledged and accepted. It was not just another dog- it was a companion who came to change every possible formation on the chessboard of my life. As I write this down, tears that have frozen in my eyes finally find an outlet and this is a sign that yes, I have come to terms with it at least in some measure- I have taken seven days to muster the courage today to write these words down. All my darlings, no longer in front of me, yet forever with my soul who have merged.

There was something beautiful and auspicious about her, a little different from all others too. Imagine her coming in on Diwali day and my whole gloom and loneliness was replaced by a small, sickly pup. Similarly the day she passed away was Basant Panchami– a day I am very fond of, amidst all other days in the year. She passed away on a day that means a lot to me- another harbinger of change of seasons, celebrated, special day. Her passage was a relief for the end was very painful, especially the long time of throwing up and diarrhea – which I cleaned innumerably. It was tricky to keep cleaning from both sides, and I could not believe she could throw up so many times, for she had not eaten in so many days.

Buried in the garden, mid the flowers – a mourning, yet celebration; teaching me yet again to balance. That beautiful angel who touched me yet again in such a kind way

Ginger’s blanket drying in the backyard after she passed away

 

 

I have no words more to say for now but that my sweetheart, my darling is gone and gone is that part of my life where my dogs made me what I am today. I owe it entirely to them to become what life was to make of me, finally.

Friends, blog-readers and family, who would like to leave a word of remembrance or any other comments are kindly requested to post them at the bottom of the post itself and not on any social media platform, which would be lost forever. Hope this is not a trouble for anyone