ramya's photo journal

Category: life lessons

Little Brownie Girl.

I grieved her loss in phases. The grief came in waves and only now has it settled. Settled enough for me to be able to write about it. It has been three months since we lost her, our darling streetie girl, Brownie. Somehow, I found it rather hard to make peace with her loss. Perhaps because she was with us, yet on her own. Because we weren’t aware of what brought about the fatal accident that would eventually take her life, while under our care. Because we were left helpless after trying over and over again, to save her precious life. I was so numb the day she left, that even tears wouldn’t form in my eyes. By the time they gushed down, she was in doggie heaven, presumably chasing away other dogs, because that’s what she’d do – so her best friends Yogi & Angel could walk away, with the road to themselves.

Over the years, I have grieved for the beautiful doggie souls that have touched my life and left almost as soon as they had come ( as it seemed to me) and what struck me most with Brownie’s leaving was how differently grief manifests with each loss, how it shows up in the most uncertain of places and how it changes you fundamentally by reinforcing that truth that death is not permanent. It takes that course of grief to know that it is not. And each time, that is what life is trying to reiterate through grief. But it’s not that easy, is it? It never can be.

But that is the truth and so my darling girl is living with us now. I still feel her gentle licks, hear her silly i-love-you howls, and I can see through her crystal clear, bright brown eyes. The doe eyes that had captured R’s heart, the day he met Brownie girl on the street and led her home, two years back, which was the beginning of this precious bond with our favourite streetie. She came home almost every evening from then on, after her daily meanderings about the area. Almost. Until she went missing for a few weeks last year, and resurfaced with injuries that would eventually take away her little mortal doggie body.

Her soul is here, however. With me, as I write this at last, and therefore setting me free.

“God’s finger touched him, and he slept.” ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sleep well my sweet child. For there is so much play ahead of you.

January 31, 2014
The Rescue Diaries : CUPA Calendar 2014

My life is entwined with a non-human species called dogs, in a manner of pure blessing. Over the years, I have found simple answers or somethings-like-that, to life’s complex questions through daily living with my puppies and all the fellas I get to interact with.

For the past three years, I have had the opportunity to work with CUPA and it’s amazing team on the theme based annual calendars. Every calendar is a series of carefully captured and curated images, created over many months, and aims to spread an urgent message of love, by showcasing the wonders of the simple possibilities that are all around us. The calendar project is also an important fundraiser for CUPA, where every single penny from the proceeds goes into caring for the helpless, injured, homeless creatures. I look forward to this project each year for the light and the great learning that it brings into my life, the incredible humans involved, and of course the balls of pure joy that come with four legs. The support we have received in this regard, over the years, from you all has been so moving and on behalf of team CUPA, I’d like thank you all deeply.

I’m ever so happy to share another close-to-my-heart CUPA calendar. For the year 2014, we went with Rescue for the theme. Spanning across various rescues consisting of canines, felines and wildlife (at CUPA’s wildlife wing, WRRC), this year’s compilation of photographs pays homage to both the beautiful creatures and their caregivers – who work tirelessly to help and provide them with loving, gentle care at all times. Photographed at CUPA’s various centers around Bangalore and WRRC, the photographs express, albeit in a small way, the joys and the profound empathy that belies Rescue.

As always, I appeal to you all to join hands in this effort and spread the love. Every purchase is precious to enable the bigger cause at play. All the details for purchase of the CUPA Calendar 2014 are in this poster below. Thank you all again. xo

I’d like to dedicate this year’s calendar to our dear streetie, Browine, who we lost recently.

December 4, 2013
A Dream called Real

Mulling on some blurring lines from my here-and-now.

{The photographs above were captured on a Holgaroid on FujiFp 100 C instant film}

November 29, 2013
Just as it is.

This is a found word accordion book I made from scratch, when I was in San Francisco recently. It was an exercise that involved discovering an order in the randomness of tearing out words from a novel, and placing them in a new context, or the lack of it. By the end of the exercise, the pages had developed a flow of sorts, unbeknown to me. There are images, image transfers, dry leaves, twigs and whatnot that overflow through the rest of this book, but what held my specific grasp was tearing out words and unconsciously letting them rearrange themselves.

This little project was momentous to someone like me, who likes to have things in “control” What it started, I don’t know, or it was perhaps just a catalyst to something that was already on a roll. I just don’t feel there’s any need to tamper with the natural order of things and the universe. Simple but a constant awareness seems to be enough for now – it does the job and has the immense capacity to take us through, complete with the unraveling of directions to wherever it is we want to go. It is working for me. How, I don’t know. And I’m trying not to fight that too much. I’m not asking. When I was a little girl my father once flung me into the pool because he thought there was no better way for me to learn how to use my wings. He said, don’t ask too many questions, just learn. The wisdom behind that, I feel in it’s entirety.

As we speak, in the background there are looming deadlines, bills to be paid, responsibilities, and that big little rascal, ego, always telling me what to do. But for now, this moment is beautiful. Just the way it is. My puppies beside me breathing peacefully as I write, my heart is beating fast and I’m letting it be. The heady fragrance of lemongrass and roses in my studio fills me. A moment of euphoria. A pang of post run hunger. My favourite old tamil music keeping rhythm with my fingers as I type out these words….the natural order of things…

What’s up next.

I don’t know, and I’m exhausted looking for what I don’t need to know. It is beautiful just as it is.

June 1, 2013
When a Little Goes a Long Way

by

Shreyas Jayakumar, Ramya Reddy & Ashita Mathew

It’s hard to summarize the overwhelming feeling we experienced when our paths crossed with the troubled souls residing at what was once the economically Weaker Section housing complex at Ejipura. What were once secure housing blocks, have now been reduced to dirt to benefit mankind’s greed. A swanky shopping mall is destined to occupy a site that has seen some tragic outcomes as a result of its deracination. Mountains of excavated earth, tons of trash and leftover remnants of the residents’ paltry possessions – the scene was eerily similar to what we see in many disaster movies, but this is exactly what greeted us when we – Ramya, Varsha, Ashita, Tiya and Shreyas – entered the hurriedly-barricaded entrance. Armed with boiled eggs, biscuits, bread and milk, we made our way into the plot, with only one objective in mind – to feed as many of the hungry, displaced dogs (and cats) as we could find.

That sense of sinking despair had already set in as we were approaching the folks who would lead us to the several dogs that desperately needed to be fed. We were received with a sense of remorse and bitterness (as we had expected). ‘Dogs over people?’, we were asked by many. We had done sufficient homework and knew that the meals for the human population were being tended to, and were also told by our peers not to be bogged down by these very human, outbursts. We went right ahead and started feeding the needy babies – over 80 dogs and puppies that were rendered homeless and abandoned – without any further thoughts affecting what we had set out to d0….Read the rest of the story here

April 30, 2013
This View.

And I am here now. Far from this view but happily at home with my puppies. New projects await and the mangoes too.

Like the view above and how it would manifest so differently in the light of each day, my state of mind too seems to be straddling very different worlds every so often, especially over the last one year. As they say change is the most constant thing and I have come to believe that it is a valuable thing to embrace and enjoy. As enriching as it is, living between two very different scenarios is a touch unsettling, at least for me. It’s a very small price though for the life lessons and education that come with it.

So here I am now. Far from this view but I can see it still.

April 26, 2013
A Year in Instagram

Did another year just pass us by ? Feels like so much happened in a flash. So much.

There have been goods and the bads, bitter days and sweet ones, sadness, joys, incredibly fulfilling exchanges & projects, mountain days & rainy ones, countless cups of chais, coffees and glasses of vino over amazing conversations, books and plenty of art.

Most importantly, lots of love and positivity.

Milestones happened, leaps of faith too, and self belief. I am a decade older – stronger with an improved sense of humour ;-) a better artist (I think), a fairly decent cook, a godmother, and journeyed through all these waves along with my ever supportive love, R. Oh, and we’ve never been more sure of wanting to add to our brood of four legged babies.

I hope I have been able to give more than I have taken. And for all that I have received from the universe and from my beautiful family & friends, I am ever so grateful. Happy 2013 !

January 7, 2013
Living in Harmony – CUPA Calendar 2013

Hello Everyone.

This calendar is a part of my ongoing project about living in harmony with our community dogs and finding ways to take responsibility for their welfare through baby steps. They belong in the urban landscape as much as we do and in my opinion, their warm presence indicates a state of good energy floating all around because dogs are devoid of negativity. If we put our heads together, we can work at keeping their population in check in a compassionate manner and also reduce that lurking uneasiness of “stray dog menace” and instead, eventually turn it into “community dog asset” It is possible simply because dogs are nature’s gifts to mankind and they are simple folks who only want some love. And we as humans are capable of so much more love than we know.

So let’s open up our hearts.

Love, ramya

December 11, 2012
Haiku and the Morning Mist

A misty morning here in San Fran(above) and a monsoon back at home (below). Both so beautiful, both so soothing. I miss the latter, and can’t wait to catch up with it, which should be in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I’ve been reading some Haiku these days and writing some as well — for an exciting collaborative project that is in the final stages (details soon!). I find it so calming and clarifying.

To express with such eloquent simplicity and yet keep the richness of layers…what a beautiful way to exercise the mind, don’t you think ?

August 31, 2012
Happy Families – Adopted Dogs and their Parents.

I have been meaning to post this for a while now. Below are some of the images from a series created for the CUPA Calendar 2012. Some of you might have already seen them in the calendar itself. I thought it would be nice to share some of the images, stories and thoughts here.

Basically we wanted to showcase portraits of people across demographics and their adopted pets. Dogs to be more specific. As a passionate dog lover, and having adopted both my boys from shelters, I have a soft corner for the cause of pet adoption because I have seen closely how it affects these orphaned/abandoned creatures and how deeply it changes how we look at animals in general. This is also where our native Indian dogs come in. Over the last few years, my folks and a few others in the close family chose to adopt these guys and every time we see them we are talking about their incredible energy levels, sharp intstincts, robust health and supreme adaptability to the local conditions. And needless to say they make amazing, ever faithful, keep-you-on-your-toes and slobber-you-with-love kind of pets. They have been around for really long, so they have obviously tuned themselves to be survivors and that’s what makes them so right for us. They are easy to care for and pretty much know how to care for themselves. Isn’t that how nature might have intended it to be ? It’s funny that we overlook these facts and the fact that hundreds of dogs – so many beautiful, exotic ones particularly – are abandoned ruthlessly each day by their so called families. Everywhere. Between us all, we already have so much to care for, no ?Just take a walk in the local neighbourhood or make a dash to an animal shelter if ever you are ready for a pet or if you might be considering another. I doubt that one would ever want to look elsewhere. In the recent past, I have seen several Bangaloreans opting to take in these abandoned orphans or the natives from the neighbourhood into their homes and this fact comes in as a small but bright hope in a world where all it took was a teeny little snarl from a local native dog to tick off a chain of unpleasant reactions. I won’t elaborate on that, it is another story by itself. So this year’s theme was inspired by these hardy survivors, the native Indian dogs and their remarkable parents. Right from those with modest means to the affluent – they chose these guys over buying a pet and every one of them had incredibly moving, heart warming stories of adoption. All the images were made in Bangalore with lots of love.

Gunda and Gullamma

Every household in the village of Venkatapura near Koramangala in Bangalore includes a much adored dog as a part of their family. Every one of them was either an abandoned orphan or a homeless stray from CUPA. Despite their modest means, the love these folk feel for their dogs is so moving. One would be amazed to see how effortlessly their lives are entwined with their happy, faithful companions and how they coexist. Seen here is that companionship shared by mighty, gentle Gunda and the spirited lady Gullamma who is 85. Isn’t Gunda just gorgeous ? He is easily one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen. So strong. So big. So gentle. I was so tempted to steal him away :) Right after we finished this shot, a bunch of little kids descended on Gunda tugging at hime from all sides. The gentle giant was so patient through all the commotion and the excitement. And so cute and enduring especially with the kids.

Gunda and the little ones

Pappi, Harshitha, Ankitha

Pappi, an abandoned orphan from CUPA was adopted by Harshitha, Ankitha and their family from the Venkatapura village that I mentioned above. The bright little guy likes to follow his sisters everywhere and is always ready for a game which involves lots jumping.We could barely get him together for this shot. If you are wondering how he finally gave this cutie expression, treats in the background did their job.

Gigi (far left),Toby (center), and Rani (right) and Sheila

Gigi’s congenital condition took away one of her limbs when she was a puppy, but that was even more of a reason for Sheila Narayan and her husband to adopt her almost eleven years ago. Gigi is fiesty as hell, loves her various beds and challenging her brother Toby at play and usually gets her way. Toby joined the family when they found him as a frail little pup, lost on the streets. Rani too, was found lost in their neighbourhood and recently joined the brood. She is blazing fast and is keeps the family on their toes.

Jogi and Maya

Jogi is the braveheart, whose sixth sense prevailed in the midst of his illness, 6 years ago when he was a puppy and wandering alone. It led him to his home which was with TV presenter, Maya Sharma and her husband Nandu. Jogi fought back a lethal condition with Maya and Nandu’s care and is at the very heart of their lives today. He loves to be perched in the balcony taking stock of the goings on and passersby,making astute observations about the world around him.

Foxey with Calum and Matilda

Foxey made his way into the hearts of Claudia Scott and her kids right from the time the family moved into Bangalore in 2008. When wandering the streets in their development, Foxey took to Claudia’s kids Matilda and Calum and they to him. Despite odds, it was clear to Claudia that Foxey had become an inseparable part of the family. He is much doted as you can see in this picture and can often be seen accompanying the kids to play or lounging in his comfortable bed as they toil away at homework.

Linda, Jenny and Liz

Linda was found as a puppy on the streets by Denzil George who took her home into the loving care of his daughter Jenny, and Liz, his wife. Linda’s energy, sense of humour and love keeps Jenny on her toes and their home filled with laughter.The family believes that the right- ful way to welcome a pet into one’s home is by adopting what is already available to us through nature – the homeless strays that are left to fend for themselves in a difficult world.

Ramu and Kumar

Kumar, a plumber by profession from the Venkatapura village adores dogs and has consistently rescued or adopted them, from CUPA and other places. Despite their simple means, his wife and he provide for a loving home for their three dogs. His faithful Ramu accompanies him everywhere, from the neighbourhood tea shop to his plumbing jobs.

Bingo’s favourite morning walk with his master

Bingo was adopted from CUPA by the Reddy’s (my dad and mom) when he was just four weeks old. A true survivor, he bravely fought a lethal disease when he was just a puppy. We were constantly amazed by his will to live and helped him make it through the battle. Today, three years later, he stands tall, strong and handsome, brimming with love and extremely clever ideas. Apart from chasing and hunting down the other gentle inhabitants of my mother’s garden, his other favourite pastime is plotting to discreetly make his way into the kitchen and make lots of food items disappear into thin air.

I hope you all enjoyed these images of these beautiful fellows. We forget that like us, they too have life stories, complexities, needs and desires. All they ask is for love, kindness and a tiny little space in this world and that too, to be with us. And all we need to do is share just a little more. How hard is that.

This world belongs to all its creatures, after all.

PS : The actual calendar can be seen here

May 21, 2012