Puppies Behind Bars

The extent of human imagination always amuses me!

Today was meant to be a very uneventful day….only to realise that some of the events in life just happens. Lazing on my couch with a cup of coffee in front of my TV, I didn’t realise that Oprah was going to break down and would actually get emotional. I felt exactly the same…..

Let me ask you a question before I go any further. What happens when a prison full of hardcore inmates, few eight months old puppies and Ex servicemen get together?

A lot of tears, emotions and life changing turns……that’s what happens!

For all of you who remember Glenn Close from Fatal attraction (released in 1987 staring Michael Douglas) made her come back, in a different style. This time she is part of this mind blowing programme started in the US called ‘Puppies behind bars’.

‘Puppies behind bars’ trains inmates to raise puppies to become service dogs for the disabled (Physically or mentally) ex servicemen……Sounds weird!!!!

Each of the inmates in a prison is given an eight month old puppy, who then lives with inmate twenty four hours a day and even sleeps in the cell. The inmates are then trained by the professional trainers to train the dogs as special service dogs.

I might not be able to do justice to the whole idea due to the lack of expression; however I was exceptionally moved and impressed by this.

Sergeant Allen Hill is a 41-year-old veteran of the war in Iraq. He has been in the Army/National Guard for a combined total of 20 years and is still on Active Duty orders. He was injured in November 2007 and came home from Walter Reed Hospital in March 2008, suffering from acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the signature injuries of the two wars in which we are now involved. From being the life of the party before he was wounded, loving to wrestle with his boys and engage with his family and community, Allen Hill came home a terrified recluse, unable to leave his house or relate to his devastated family.

Life had completely changed for Sergeant Hill once he returned. He lived in the shadow of fear…..fear of drifting back to past……. And then Frankie came to rescue.

Frankie was living at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in upstate New York with Roberto. Roberto is an inmate whose life has been changed by the program. Convicted of second-degree murder, Roberto has been in prison since he was 17. Like many other inmates, Roberto was living in the shadow of guilt and remorse. He just could not forget the pain and loss he had caused to his victim’s family…….

Frankie coming to Roberto changed his life. Roberto had someone to be around; someone who could offer unconditional love in a place where the word love is seldom used.

With professional help and the drive to do something for the community, Roberto trained and bonded with Frankie. Frankie was then sent to assist Sergeant Hill. It was very difficult for Roberto to part with this only one friend who had been with through his dark year. However, the feeling of being able to help someone- that too an ex servicemen was perhaps the first achievement for Roberto in a long time.

Sergeant Hill is now solely dependent of Frankie to survive!

He decided to visit the facility to thank Roberto and give them both (Frankie and Roberto) a chance to see each other…..marvelous!

There’s this one scene where Roberto and some other inmates along with Frankie and Sergeant Hill are sitting and each of them have tears in their eyes…..

Roberto…..tears of remorse, regret, love, achievement

Sergeant Hill…..tears of joy, to be able to live again….freely….

Frankie….tears in his eyes because his only two masters ever are emotional and he can feel it!

www.Happylife.com

When I look up, I don’t see much,
All I see is a blank ceiling & a loud Beer ad.
At first, sitting amidst hundreds of bodies,
It didn’t make much sense to me.
I guess, I was looking to make sense of all,
Only if there’s any sense to most of all.
I don’t know, neither would I ever know,
Perhaps, this’d be the ironical beauty of life.
I don’t mind, mostly don’t, at times might,
Since I learned to believe, it’s just all the one.
Especially, when the people have lost the password
And the username to http://www.happylife.com/

I have no one waiting for me at home...

The dark-cold deep leaves and the wet-grey road…..As the tiny drops of rain hit my windscreen….I feel elevated, Ecstatic with the waves of Tiesto.I blow out the pain in smoke with another drag….just as the ash falls on my charcoal coloured jeans….I feel alive in the pair. Cruising along at the speed nil, I feel static. The momentum seems infinitely consistent.

I look up…and I see far away, as the colour of the sky changes…I trace the freefall of a tiny droplet. The time is still…and I say goodbye before the tiny droplet hits and dies…just white blood! And we call it water.

Mazda 6, Holden Barina, BMW Z1….the rickety old white coloured Com’dore warns me with the dim dyeing brake lights…..and the speed descends….I am comfortably numb!

A part of me….always aware….prone to stupid needless observations conducts the most random analysis….Friday evening, 6 pm, a remarkable time of the entire week….every single soul feels bit different….perhaps in different ways, but different!

What I observe is the whole flock of Monday to Friday, 9 till 6….the dominant species. They all seem to be the same to me. All with the same desperation to enter the weekend mode, reviewing plans, trying to exit the city as quickly as possible. There’s this tension in the traffic. It has started to rain heavily causing the fleet of human invented moving objects to surrender to the mighty nature. Once in a while, nature enjoys proving its point.

I am cool. I have no reason to rush. I have no one waiting for me at home.

It’s a great feeling! Indeed great, but am still trying to figure out whether I am done with the company of my loneliness.

But, I am cool. I don’t care how long it takes to get home. I confirmed, I have smokes, I have water and there’s abundance of oxygen in the air….nothing more I need to survive for some time. So, I cruise along with the rest, very calmly!

The aware part of me is a very restless and inquisitive sort. I look at the face of the red Toyota Camry parallel to me. I see desperation, and restlessness. The urge to elevate from the position and just fly over the crawling traffic and beat them all is quite apparent from the facial expressions. Perhaps there are kids waiting for red Toyota Camry at home.

I am cool. I have no reason to rush. I have no one waiting for me at home.

There’s this tension on the road. No one wants to wait…perhaps there is someone somewhere waiting for them.

My eyes catch this distant frail figure very slowly walking. It’s dark, cold and wet. I try to adjust my retina and the pupil of my eyes….still a distant frail figure in a very slow motion on the footpath approaching towards me.Suddenly someone honks in the next lane. The noise deviates my attention and I see an old blue Hyundai Excel trying to change lane, but being bullied by the flashy Merc behind. Of course, the Mercedes has to prove a point. The sole in charge of the traffic on the streets finds it is a duty to tell everyone their fault. Fair enough!

I have hardly travelled couple of hundred meters in last ten minutes.

I am cool. I have no reason to rush. I have no one waiting for me at home.

I look back at the footpath, completely forgotten about the distant frail figure in a very slow motion on the footpath approaching towards me. The figure somehow transformed into this old lady. Old but strong! Dressed beautifully in the Celtic patterned long skirt and a jacket, she has her head down. I see she’s drenched in the rain. Wheeling her little trolley after her grocery shopping, of course she has been in the rain for a while.

For a second, I wondered, ‘Why didn’t she check the weather forecast on google.com?’

But she isn’t bothered. But the new Holden Barina next me looks annoyed and frustrated. It is quite annoying sitting in your centrally heated new car, listening to your favourite music, sipping on Coke. Of course, it is tough life! I feel for you Barina.

The old lady doesn’t seem bothered at all. Unaware of the extent to which she is wet, she is comfortably wheeling the trolley in the heavy rain.

I lit another cigarette, just when she walks past the passenger’s side, something happens, she looks up, right inside my car, into my eyes….with this innocent smile, knowing all I have been thinking. I froze….don’t know why! Perhaps that energy from her eyes, perhaps….

She is moving very slowly, quite happily enjoying whatever nature has to offer.

I am amazed! I try to smile back, but she’s gone..

I look back, and I hear a horn. Unsure, I look at the front. The traffic is clearing up.

I need to move….move ahead!

The tension is still there on the road,I am amazed; she has gone….probably still wheeling her trolley somewhere in the rain.I am cool. I have no reason to rush.

I have no one waiting for me at home……

Dental Catastrophe - 08th of Apr 2007 (India)

When the gods seem to loose it all……
And gloom begins to steer.
All becomes so nonsensical….
But the dentist is the one to cheer.

It all starts so slowly, generally….
Kind of infuriating pain somewhere.
Deep inside your oral cavity, usually
Catastrophe seems so inevitable.

All night, an excruciating ordeal….
With your new beloved, feeling weary.
As if pain seems to originate from eternity….
Made-to-order especially for you.

Sacrifice grub and you still can’t ….chocolate
Seen the dentist and you still can’t …ice-cream.
You question the rationale of all, cynically….
It’s all fun….God replies; we all were bored to tears.

An X-ray, few blood-tests, painful again….
Again and again, you get used to pain.
And the time, you link to the soreness….
Beating retreat….you become the Devil’s reject.

Anugyan arun