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La Raçaillaise

Why do we humans bother to make nations and draw boundaries and have national identities? What ever happened to the Stone Age, when different hunter-gatherer bands roamed around, eating food, playing games and making love and war just the same as we do in a 'civilised' manner today?

Do dogs do this? Do they were to constitute republics and elect leaders? Have they a national anthem?

I asked my friend Puppysingh, and he told me in his language. When they collectively bay at the moon, they are in fact affirming their national solidarity. Here is the translation of the anthem of the Mangy Republic:-

La Raçaillaise
by Chiennoir deRues


In streets and dingy alleys where
Our fathers fought before us;
Inder staris, in hollows where
Our mothers had littered us;
O'er rubbish bin and gutter filth
A republic of dogs we build!
We affirm a mongrel guild
We claim a canine commonwealth!

No collar, leash or metal chain
Shall hence inhibit our will!
Our freedoms o'er all terrain
Is proclaimed from every hill!
At the moon gaily we bay
And snarl and bark and hiss and growl!
No human dare call us foul
Now a dog shall have his day!

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...a late morning, a tumbler of degree coffee, a birthday greeting to a friend (thank God for Facebook), another tumbler of coffee... ...a hot water bath, catching up on weekly politics, rice and bitter-gourd curry with jeera rasam and pickle, a long unhad siesta... one murukku made from old rice, ground by hand and made in coconut oil, one piece of jangri - not too sweet - washed down with hot degree coffee... a walk with the dog drongo-spotting in the garden, and old family stories with mother under the jamun tree... ...a little poem, a bit of light reading, and an interesting online chat on the Dhammapada... ...and finally an ascent to heaven with curd rice and vadu-mangay, before the fall to the netherworld of Monday.