Devil in the Rain

Bruni's stomach is rumbling and grumbling and also making all sorts of wierd noises. It's a bit disconerting. For a long while I thought there was some strange animal hiding under the bed inside the room –- I was working there while she would sleeping on her bed on the veranda. When, with great tredpidation I looked under the bed and found nothing, I decided to come out to see what it was and there I see her curled up on her bed fast asleep while her stomach was talking to itself. She must have eaten something outside. God knows what it was and I certainly don't wish to know.

The dogs have become a menace really. I've already metioned that one of them ate up Parvati's chicken. The other day I saw all three of them harassing a calf. The mother was trying to defend it and getting really angry. Cows are docile creatures and something has to make them really angry before they become aggressive. Villagers know the dogs belong to us and so they don't say anything. Otherwise, they would have stoned them to death. They do that to mad dogs. I won't be surprised if they do that to Bruni's brood and claim that they had gone mad!

Keep them indoors and they tear up anything! They've destroyed one quilt, one mattress, a couple of bed sheets and a pillow. Suman and Khagen are fed up. They spend most of their time these days running after the dogs who have not only become naughtier, but also smarter and more cunning! Even Bruni gives them a wide berth. I really don't know what to do with them. All four of them require 4 glasses of rice – twice as much as all of the rest of us on the project.

They eat and sleep all day unless pushed out of the premises. And they eat and sleep all night! Bruni has earned her keep on many occasion by barking at poisonous snakes (she does not bark at harmless ones). The others don't even know how to bark! At best, they howl and only when other dogs or jackals are about. They just live off the project –- maybe they learnt from watching humans! But these are dogs, not apes!

What's giving me sleepless nights is that Bruni might be pregnant again! And there are two other femal dogs on the project! What if they become pregnant too? What should I do with so many dogs on the campus. What if they bite the school kids? What if they become rabid? There are no vets here. We tried to get Bruni vaccinated against rabies. One vet gave her the initial shot. Then refused to administer the booster dose. So far, we are lucky that there haven't been any major mishap.

School went off well today too. I was busy with class 3 while class 4 was busy with classes 1 and 2 and Khagen with Nursery. When it was my turn to teach class 4 I asked them how things were going. They all said it's going well. But I could see that they were all very tired too! In fact, the whole bunch seemed dull and listless. I asked them if teaching was tiring them out. They half admitted that it was. But when I suggested that perhaps we should change things so that they are not too tired for their own classes, they said everything was fine. I then asked them if they realized that while being rewarding, teaching can also be quite draining, they all wore a tired smile and said: yes!

Let's see how it goes after a month or so. Either they will get used to teaching, or the enthusiasm will die a natural death. I don't want their own studies to suffer because they are teaching. I'll think of some other arrangement. Perhaps they could teach for 30 minutes every day instead of 90 minutes! I wonder how they'd feel if they had to teach 3 to 4 hours continuously! Teaching can make you tired and you really need to be a teacher to realize that. Fortunately, the reward is so great that enthusiasm to teach seldom wanes even when energy levels are low.

Well, it looks like the monsoon is finally here. Since day before yesterday it's been raining off and on. When it rains, it pours. Fortunately, the showers rarely last for more than an hour or so. This is followed by bright sunshine. That is nice. We can dry out wet clothes and put out the solar panels and charge the batteries. But poor Richard, he really missed out on this and the cool, cool weather we are experiencing right now.

My yoga practise is suffering though. It invariably rains just as I am about to start yoga. So I can't do it at Baba's Temple as it is exposed on three sides and gets wet easily. I can't do it on my veranda because it leaks. I can't do it on the volunteers' veranda because the rain sweeps right across it. So I am letting it slide for a while. I'm backsliding! I'm backsliding! The devil's after me. Satan won't give up easily it seems. This time he's come to tempt me in the form of untimely monsoon rain! Begone devil, let me tread the narrow yogic path to nirvana!

Talk of the devil! It's really raining again. I'm not kidding!