Slum dogs

I recently read this very fascinating book that showed the life of street dogs, the book is called "slum dogs". This is a book written by Eloise Leyden, in which you witness the photographer’s one year trip in India. This book ,however, is mostly a picture book. It does have some writing but it is mostly pictures of street dogs in their daily lives. Her book is greatly focused on how the dogs live here and their relationship with humans. This is a very good book to read if you wish to understand more about a dog’s everyday life and what they have to do to survive.

Let's go to the MALL!

Dear readers,

Today I am sorry to inform you that I have no idea what to talk about.

So, using a certain episode of How I Met Your Mother as inspiration, I'm going to talk about the Malls of Bangalore. There are quite a few of these, and each of them are very different, not only in the shops they have, but their structure as well. Each of them has something that passes as a food court of course, and nearly all of them has a movie theater in there somewhere. In the food courts you'll find the usual McDonald's, KFC, and maybe a subway or something. The  similarities pretty much stop there.

One of the best known malls is Garuda mall, and this one is probably one of the largest and most successful ones here. To give you an idea, it is the only one I've seen in India which uses one of those lift parking systems, since it has so many cars to house.By the way, it has a haunted house at the top.

The newest mall, Pheonix mall, is a more spread out one, with an array of different shops you don't really see in the other ones: California Pizza Kitchen, Cafe Noir, Chili's and Zara. It also has a rather large courtyard with what seems to be a rock climbing wall and trampolines. It's a rather fun place to hang out.

If you live in Whitefield, Forum Value Mall is a nice, relatively small mall to hang out at. It has a small arcade, a few restaurants, a cinema and a good indoor court with a few miscellaneous attractions for kids. It's a well rounded family friendly mall.

Those are the major ones I know of. but there might be more, so go out and explore, maybe I missed one and you can rub it in my face. See you later!

Ejipura makes the news

Hello everyone, and welcome back

As most of you should remember, one of my previous posts talked about the incident at Ejipura. Well, this incident was spread across in the news, and I even learned that there were someone else other than us that was helping these people.

Cutie Puppy named Fang

Hello again, Francois here, to give you another series of amazing advice and stories if you're moving to India.

Now as some of you may know, my brother recently posted an article on the dogs and cats of India, and how they behave depending on where you live. Well on Wednesday, as a school trip, my brother and I were out near a new construction site where people had been evicted from their homes due to the construction. At the end of the day, after donating food and clothes, my brother noticed a puppy that had been evicted as well, and was being taken care of by another of the evicts.

Here is Fang, the newest addition to our household

This man was taking care of around five dogs whose owners had been forced to leave, or just weren't able to feed and care for them anymore. My brother instantly noticed the five month old pup which lay there in the dirt, seemingly unable to move. After phoning our mother to see if he taking care of it was a possibility, he got her to agree and we took it home. After a visit to the vet, we were informed that his spinal chord was broken at the back, and one of his nerves might have been damaged, making him incapable of moving one of his front paws along with his two back legs. With only one leg working, but all of them still capable of feeling touch, there is a small chance of him walking again thanks to vitamin supplements.

We've had him here at home for the past few days, and it hasn't been all that easy, but we've managed. He seems to be doing okay, and we're hoping for some kind of improvement on his condition, since a dog with only one leg is... well, very hard to take care of. If he can get his front leg back, it might give us a chance of finding him a home, as there are ways to deal with such conditions. We're hoping he gets better, and now maybe you'll be hoping too.

Have a good day, and look forward to my brother's upcoming article.

The honorifics of Indians and the incident of Ejipura

Hello dear readers, this time I am going to discuss the honorifics used by Indians and an event that caused many people to lose their homes.

In western society the word "uncle" and "auntie" is given to the brother or sister of the child's parents. However, in India this word is not necessarily used to describe a parent's brother or sister, but is mainly used by young children when speaking to an older person. In India, the world Mister and Missus do not exist in their language. However, as India develops more and more, the word sir and madam or miss can be sometimes heard from time to time. This is mainly used by drivers who work for foreigners, since sir and miss is a word used when addressing to a person that you show some kind of respect.

A quick news flash regarding a rather big event that happened this week. In a slum area called Ejipura, there were around 1000 people living in an unused area. However, a corporation wished to build on said area, giving the inhabitants some time to take their belongings and leave. Unfortunately the corporation gave nowhere near enough time which resulted in many people losing a majority of their belongings when the area was bulldozed. Out of approximately 1000 inhabitants only 200 remain due to the lack of space and food. Luckily for the 200 remaining, there is an organization that brings them the resources they need. My whole class and I helped this organization as part of a school activity, giving the inhabitants breakfast and lunch, and any clothing or toys that we could give away.

Before:

After: