smokey

They say Dogs are God's angels sent in disguise to protect and love us; can't agree more to this. Our angel passed away a month back today.

To be very frank, Smokey wasn't really an angel. I used to call him the devil's mutt. If you were to put down a list of the top 10 million most disciplined dogs in the world, he wouldn't have even featured in the next million standbys. He loved attention and unlike any other dog, he demanded it through not the most friendly actions most of the time. He was unruly, temperamental and quite out of our hands. From vomiting on beds to taking a dump on carpets to peeing on mom's sarees; he did it all. He tore my mom's nose apart, punctured my dad's finger, chewed numerous of my glasses, tore my brother's books, snapped at least once at every person who met him, bit each and every one of my ex girlfriends (this one for the good; should have trusted his choice more than mine) and in a gist raised hell all around him, wherever he went.

Smokey was not a perfect dog; he wasn't meant to be one. He was a part of our family; a son and a brother. He wasn't our dog, but we were his humans who he accepted and took for granted as his own. He did every little aggravating thing that a rebel teenager bursting with puberty would do and performed every action that an annoying little brother would. But he loved us to the bone and always made us realize that even if it were through his own devilish little actions.

To my dad, who he was the closest to, Smokey was his shadow. He woke up, slept and ate with him. He snarled and growled at us if we ever imitated hurting dad. He welcomed dad back home every evening as if he was seeing him after eons. For my mom, he was the body guard who followed her around through out the day, ensuring that she never felt alone when none of us were around. To my brothers, he was that younger sibling who they could irritate all the time. They troubled him when he ate and when he slept; made sure that he doesn't stop fuming and barking when they were around him. Like every other younger brother, he would go hide behind dad demanding security when my brothers went over board with their antics. For my friends, he was the entertainment at home that a boring friend like me couldn't offer. He partied with us till morning everytime we brought the house down for a celebration.

For me, he was a dream that took 15 years to come true. I never spoke to him heart-to-heart or he never came and quietly sat with me when I needed someone; but he distracted my mind every time I needed him to. He would wrestle with me, would bring his toy bone to play fetch, would get his collar telling me its time for his walk, would jump and yelp when football and girlfriends took his deserved attention away. He was my dinosaur, an extinct breed of a companion and a fighter, who doctors had claimed wouldn't survive after seeing his condition the first week of him being home.

Smokey wasn't the perfect dog, we never wanted him to be. But he was the perfect son, someone who me and my brothers would never be and the best sibling the 3 of us could have never found in each other.

Smokey was like a hurricane which lasted in our life for 4 and a half years. A liver infection claimed him a month back today. He passed away in his sleep on the bed between my mom and dad, which was also his favorite place in the world. The hurricane left us with a calm after the storm which none of us will probably ever get accustomed to. As a friend said, the worst thing about dogs is that we outlive them and they leave us with a gap that no one can ever fill. Really makes me think that heaven sure must be a place owned and run by dogs, eagerly and patiently waiting to welcome their humans with more love then they have ever felt even in their after life.

Our neighbor and a very close family friend, whose family was Smokey's godfamily and were as close to him as we were, made a video for him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmef3QCShFw). This 8 and a half minute video is a tribute to him that nobody could have ever given. It encompasses every little bit of what is mentioned above and much more about our lives with him. Smokey rests today at our friend's farm, which was also his 2nd favorite place in the world.

For Smokey, I want to believe that you can read this and you know how much we all miss you. I know you are in a better place and I really hope there are enough plastic bottles to chew on where you are right now.

I miss you a lot my little Dinosaur, you will forever be in our lives.

opportunity cost

Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative not chosen.

Everything has an opportunity cost attached to it. Especially in a city like Mumbai, every decision, from the smallest to the biggest one has an opportunity cost. Move cities, sacrifice comforts but get more opportunities; don't move here, live #likeaboss midst comforts but miss out on important opportunities and the pretty women ... Stay in a cube, pay less for it, save more money but travel more for work... travel less for work, but stay in a smaller cube and pay more for it. Take the train, get felt up by 5 men but reach home cheap and faster. Take a cab, sleep in it, be comfortable, get stuck in traffic and pay through your nose, eyes and ears. The list is never ending.

Its simple yet quite easily given a miss; every step of your daily living, you incur an opportunity cost, and the worst thing about this is that it grows... it increases as you grow older. From which cartoon to watch and which one to not, to what education stream to select, to what kind of job to accept and which one to reject... the gravity of the decisions we make or rather we have to make results in a higher opportunity cost paid with every passing day.

So on one of those days when the manstruation cycle is on top gear, I contemplated and tried to realize what is the biggest opportunity cost that we bear; the answer was right in front of me.

In the lust for ambition, money, fun and more money, we bear the ultimate opportunity cost of health. Work consumes everything and then the whatever residue remains splits between eating out, sleeping and practicing various forms of intoxications. Look around and try and think of one person who isn't suffering from some sort of health issue. A healthy life has become difficult to find and I can't think of a single person right now without a health problem.

In the extremely near sighted vision of wanting to achieve all the success and enjoyment one can, we quite humanely lose far sight and forget to preserve for tomorrow. Work hours are no longer in a single digit. Breakfast has become lunch, lunch is evening snack and smoke breaks are no longer breaks but rather a part of work itself. The food industry must be running on some part because of take home dinners. Fridays and Saturdays are considered wasted if we are not wasted enough by the end of it. They say dare to dream big and beyond to achieve success; now, one is lucky enough to get those few hours of undisturbed sleep to be able to dream about anything except targets and schedules and meetings.

Those who know me well can easily and very rightly point a finger at me for being a hypocrite to write this. Living and surviving (so far, so good) with a condition that clearly chalks off 80% of the things that happen in daily routine and lists them as ranging from fairly to majorly lethal, I do have my own lapses. But I am neither condemning nor writing an open letter to today's youth. Its like a vicious circle of numerous catch 22 situations that we have landed ourselves in.

On one hand we have hospitals (now with star ratings like hotels) coming up all around and on the other we have healthcare progressing on near sonic speend. So you either rely on this and continue to enjoy the satisfaction of that one cracked deal at work along with the endless hours and sleepless nights put behind it or revel on pride of chugging 4 pints of beer and gulping those 16 on the house shots. Or you pull up your act, get the will power and self control meters running and make sincere efforts to make it a healthier living.

I reiterate that I neither condemn / criticize the lifestyle being practiced nor do I intend to initiate a movement calling for a drastic change in life through this. I just voiced an opinion; an opinion which took seed and grew the moment I realized that I felt like hugging every elderly person I see these days and congratulating them for having survived so far.