Canine Canonization!
When man's best friend was better than ever

Travel and time. Apart from the fact that the former requires the luxury of the latter, there is more in common. They both beget experience - a very handy virtue. And thus, when this synchronous scheme called time-travelling lands me at an outwardly ordinary looking station in Tokyo, I figured that there was some profundity waiting to shine through the plebeian; as if one of life's little lessons looking to jump out of the dog-eared pages of history. How right was I.

On the spring evening of April 21 in 1934, my attention was drawn to a crowded commotion at the Shibuya Station, around what looked like an unveiling of a statue of a. dog? Indeed it was; as I drew closer, there was the sculptor and next to him, the 'hero' - an adorably-large Akita dog. Stuck behind an equallyintrigued gentleman, his investigations revealed the tale of Chuken Hachiko (Loyal Dog Hachiko).

With Prof. Hidesaburo Ueno since one year of age, Hachi ko would escort his master daily to the station to see him off for work, and be back in the afternoons to receive him. But come one sundown, the professor didn't come back, having suffered a fatal stroke at his place of work. Hachi, however, had kept up with his afternoon vigil routine, despite having been sent away to his new owners. "Poor dog. so, how many days now?" asked the sympathiser. Straining to be heard above the waning whistle of a passing train, the other replied, "Ten years."

To say I was moved would be petty. Instead of turning to behold the paragon of fealty - in bronze and in flesh - I was suddenly looking earthwards, giddy with overwhelming disbelief and faith. And then towards Hachi ko. Staring back at a fawning assembly, unmindful of the mass adulation around him, Hachi's eyes still seemed to be scouting for a familiar face; one he'd happily hop back home with. Dogs and loyalty, of course. but 10 years? Have you known love of a greater kind. unconditional and unbroken - exactly how this emotion was first conceived by the Power Supreme. It's time the world went to the dog(s).

Healed by his beloved Olin
Life's little treasures in the womb of the deep blue sea

To send an invitation by rolling waves across the shore, for a rendezvous of sweethearts in the depths of water, had become a circadian for the Red Sea. From the shores of Maagana bay in Nuweiba(Egypt) emerged the love story of Abid'allah and Olin. I jumped out of the time machine into the year 1996. As I walked on the sparkling crystals of sand with the waves kissing my feet, the cool breeze softly whistling in my ears carried with it words, disrupting my solitude. It was a film crew, which was here to make a documentary on Abid'allah, a fisherman who claimed that swimming with his beloved had improved his hearing and speech. 'Olin' was the first word that had slid from his mouth and therefore was the name given to the amiable cetacean, his playmate. The producer narrated the story of how Abid'allah, an excellent diver, who was deaf and dumb since early childhood, went diving and was approached by a Spotted dolphin, which had been swimming near the shores of Nuweiba. "Olin is gift of god", said a proud villager, "she attracts tourists and brings in money!" The conversations further informed me that Abid'allah had grown up playing with the dolphin, swimming through the clear warm waters. "Olin loves to be tickled on the tummy and rolls over to let you" chirped an excited voice amidst the gathering. A pleasing host, Olin always greets her visitors with ebullience by offering a ride in the tides. Abid'allah's love for the aquatic wonder blessed him with self confidence and had bestowed on him the power to hear, as a token for his friendship. The dolphin's inability to communicate with the humans conceals the mystery behind her choice to spend her life among human beings. And much similar is the mystery behind dolphins' therapeutic powers. With the high levels of toxicity in our oceans, accidental deaths from trawley and even hunted for meat, the day will soon approach when people would realize that the cure for myriad physical disabilities would not require a doc but a dolphin, but by then the dolphins would be gone, the healing touch washed away.

Triggering the War
It could have been indeed quiet on the western front...

As I uttered these words to spot the moment that spawned world history, I landed at Mortiz Schiller's Cafe in Sarajevo, capital city of Bosnia & Herzegovina. The calendar swinging on one of the side walls of the cafe showed the date as June 28, 1914. Sitting alone, next to the sidewall was a lean and a sickly looking 19-year old Bosnian Serb mumbling, "The Archduke, Franz Ferdinand is here, and it's our only chance to kill him, but he must be dead by now. and if not, how I wish, it is I who kill him!" Absorbed in his own world of raging thoughts, the lad the world would come to know as Gavrilo Princip was longing to realise his murderous dreams, doing which he believed would free his nation of the ignominy of provincial statehood, given by the domineering Austro- Hungarian Empire five years back, after it annexed Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1908. His eyes burnt with a mix of fiery pride and hurt dignity and he seemed to be telling the world, both he and his country might seem weak in body and frail of spirit, but are soon going to be both great and glorious.

The Archduke, 51-year old Franz Ferdinand was coming to Bosnia to survey the military and to open a museum in Sarajevo when around a ten-member secret youth nationalist organisation, Black Hand, planned to assassinate him and thus positioned themselves at diff erent locations on the route of Franz's trip, so as to turn the "Bosnia Herzegovina weds Croatia" journey into the Archduke's death procession.

The brusque young lads ready to let go off their lives held the trigger of the gun in their hands, with Mehmed Mehmedbasic on the first location across the Cumburja Bridge, but missed a chance to shoot through the crowd. Cabrinovio stationed further down the road, dropped a bomb on the motorcade but missed Franz's car. Assuming the mission to be a success, the third assassin-to-be moved away from his post and Gavrilo, the fourth one, went across from his location to the café on Franz Joseph Road, which is where I caught sight of him ruminating on the day's events. Suddenly, Princip rushed out, as he saw a lonely car, with the Archduke and his wife Sophie in it, drive past. Although taken by surprise, Princip didn't want to miss the opportunity and blinded by passion and encumbered by untrained awkwardness, he aimed at the Duke but shot the Duchess instead. The second, however, was one of the loudest shots ever fired and it still echoes in the pages of history and the valleys of the Balkans, for with that second bullet that killed the Archduke, Gavrilo in his naiveté, changed the face of history.

This 'Assassination in Sarajevo', fanned the fires of the warring world and led to the great WWs of history. World War I began as its aftermath, and concluded its treaties, which led to dissatisfaction in potent corners, soon leading to another massive and much more destructive World War II.

Nationalism and patriotism are great virtues, indeed, but when young unknowing hands hold the gun, their actions are devoid of reason or consideration for consequence and the battle ceases to be for truth and justice and is oft en reduced to a personal quest for glory or a reprieve from one's circumstances. Their actions could plunge their world, into darkness and despair for generations. This holds true as much for a 19 year old in Kashmir, in Iran, in Liberia, or in the Basque region, as it did that fateful day for Gavrilo Princip of Bosnia Herzegovina.

As I stared at the blood stains of the Franz Joseph road, with none of that which triggered a moment back, I realised that if great passion is not tempered with greater wisdom, it invariably precipitates the greatest of catastrophes.

Going Great Guns!
May the pen and the sword rest in peace!

The year is 1947; struggle for independence is the order of the day. While the indians are on the verge of independence from the British, the Chechens are engaged in a fierce "war of liberation" with the Russians. The Americans, of course, are doing what they are best at - making news, what with the US emerging as the favoured destination of our Martian brothers (1947 saw numerous UFO sightings in America). And then like an alien itself, I travel to this poorly lit corner of a room, where a gentleman is working precariously on a design, knowing little that his concerted effort is going to change the way wars are fought, forever.

Observing Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian war hero who gave this world its first true assault rifle (Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 hence the name AK-47), was an awe-and-fear-inspiring moment. Through the ages, every civilisation has known a totem best representative of its times - the wheel rolled in and then clanged metal; our generation would at best brandish an AK-47. Not just another gun or magnificent piece of engineering, these rifles stand for redemption, for all who use it, whether for redress or ravage.

Manufactured in most of the Eastern Europe and some of the Arab nations - even included in the flags of Mozambique and Hizbollah - the proliferation of the AK-47 rifles is reflected by more than just numbers. Witness to death and destruction of unfathomable magnitude, its legendary levels of robustness and reliability have often been put to misuse towards senseless violence by the self-proclaimed messiahs of humanity. Props which have become a sine qua non of modern day combat, AK-47 and its variants happen to be one of the most smuggled and illegally sold weapons of today - a fact that probably pains its maker too. Shades of Frankeinstein running amok?

And now for Bono sapiens!
Make love, not war... and then some more love!

It was one of the most satisfying moments of time-travelling - in the relatively inviolate verdancy of the glowing green forests of Congo on a bright evening in 1929, pitied the 21st century civilisation's misplaced pride in its superficial prowess while it found little thought to spare for all that's unadorned, and yet beautiful. Suddenly, shaking me out of my reverential reverie was a familiar shadow. It's the Bonobo!

Known to man only as late as 1928, Bonobos are the pride of primates who lead an exemplar life that has for a motto "make love, not war." More closely related to humans than they are to gorillas even, it is but an irony that man chose to go the way of the chimpanzees - thankfully with a dash of restraint - instead of close cousins, bonobos. The former, always homicidal, sometimes genocidal while the latter, Gandhian at best and a hippie at worst! Bonobos are sexual beings. Period. From hetero to metro, bi to tri, their encounters, both with the same and the opposite sex, serve as a way of bonding and peace. and all of life itself.

Highly compassionate and conscious beings, the Bonobo society can best be described as peaceful, egalitarian and matriarchal. But their benign bacchanalia seems to come to no defence, as the species are being ruthlessly ravaged, both for the bush meat trade and the pet market. These smitten simians are, however, worth a lot more for mankind, for if we are to give up the straitjacket of false morality and go the Bonobo way, perhaps we could actually realise Eden as it should always have been.