A day for Cody

So, the dog I used to walk for subsidized rent, Cody, died about a month back of cancer of the spleen. Marie Runyon, my landlady and local legendary low income housing activist, got his ashes last week. In his memory, my housemate Al, his boyfriend Ron, Marie's former tenant Amitabh, his girlfriend Kaveri and me decided to scatter the ashes around the path we used to walk him. (The tree he used to pee on, the spot he used to poop at, and most everywhere in between).

As all of us did a little ash scattering, we actually got to know each other. It's amazing how, living in a city like New York, you don't even know the people whom you share a house with.

We came back home for brunch, and discussed Indian Godmen, Osho, and humanitarian principles over Marie's famous pasta casserole. Amitabh and me, both true desis, were quite anti-them (Godmen, not principles). Ron, who is doing his PhD thesis on the relationship between the culture of science and religion, knew quite a bit about Osho and had a more neutral (perhaps, even leftist) view point ("What you may consider as a hoax, may actually be what some person believes in"). I think, overall, it was an interesting conversation, and that even though Americans (and Kaveri, who was raised in California) can't quite understand how bad the situation is back at home, they keep a fresh mind about things.