BeyondTheMargins

During my time in the north, my week looked like ,

Monday- primary location

Tuesday – location 2

Wednesday – location 3

Thursday – primary location

Friday – location 4

And throughout a year; it often meant shuttling around multiple locations. Via cars, sometimes via charter planes. Sometimes just twice a yr – Churchill. And once in 2 years – a permanent location change and a transfer .

The job, the lifestyle produced the eternal revolving door with a professional tinge.

Interestingly, when I came back to India. I thought this pattern would change.

But my year 1 location changes after moving back :

Canada – India – Vietnam

Back to India.

While in India 4 – 5 different locations in rotation (monthly) .

Year 2: It surprisingly got worse

Start the year with a 22 day trip abroad

Once back home; shuttle between multiple locations in a week.

3 days in the week- home with parents .

4 days in the week – in the mountains in my home town

Fortnightly – grandfathers home in a scenic location in north India

Fortnightly in the capital.

Once a month extended relatives home in the north of India.

Pretty soon my immediate family started viewing my presence as the revolving door. This time with a tinge of personal interaction and vanity induced social climbing .

These trips led to many things. A trip to mother’s base in Kannauj, famous for kanyakubj Brahmins and katiyars, the rose perfume markets and the gun markets; native ancestral villages of old great great grandfathers and a lineage of freedom fighters and government chief engineers. Cousins I met as children. Cousins who never ate eggs or non vegetarian food or drank alcohol, but liked guns and bhang. Cousins who were still afraid of their mothers and sisters. Cousins who were very proud of me. Aunties who loved me.

A Change in routine and off to another relatives home. Cousins who were highly intellectually inclined, entrepreneurial, modern, well travelled. Cousins who could relate. Cousins who set up company’s in some modern southern hub. Quintessential ‘Self made’ people.

A trip to father’s base in Jharkhand, some strong rugged looking uncles, a sister taller than me (a record breaker), the Palamu district, close to late grandfathers ancestral village. Memories of a cow. Memories of being heinously annoying to the cow. Memories of being kicked by the cow, memories of being launched in the air all 4 limbs up; memories of being launched into the arms of the rescuing paternal family. Memories of strong advice from the paternal family to – leave that cow alone.

Rice paddy fields full of coagulated waters, swampy lands, marshes, memories of late grandfather strongly lifting me up through the marshes while at 5 I felt like i drowned into the marshes with every small step I took. Grandfather taking me on daily trips across the agricultural land. Learning about rice paddy fields. Uncles who reminded me of exactly who my grandfather was.

A trip to another set of islands in September and back to Bangalore for networking, for business, for helping a cousin.

Apparently relatives and childhood friends are hiding in different nooks and crannies .

Have you ever reconnected back to base after a time ? To find out you connected despite, and the love never left; your extended family secretly couldn’t just wait to have you back?. All in all you register that they are both very different on both sides, and as you get to know, you get to know yourself. Which way do you lean more?. Who are you like more? Same blood line, different times. You find yourself in others through distance and through time.

This is a different kind of post.

Organ donation is a very iffy and controversial topic in India and many other cultures. The idea makes people afraid and uneasy psychologically. However, one has to keep in mind that organ donation via official and legal routes in India is extremely time-consuming and exhausting for a person in urgent need of the transplant. India has high rates of human organ smuggling rings and also individuals in dire need of finances who sell their organs for lowly rates. In such a scenario, if a person would like to be donated an organ the correct way, they must obtain court approvals, which can take a bit more than one good year itself. The court makes time to ask the donor if the donor was pressured into donating the organ, either psychologically, financially, or if any other kind of coercion was involved in any way. Often, the individual in need of the transplant possesses a family of his/her own and spends painful months to years awaiting approval, which can even cost their life.

In such a scenario the best and fastest method is to register for NOTTO (https://www.notto.mohfw.gov.in/). NOTTO is Indias most legitimate government agency on organ donation and doctors look up the registry to find the latest deceased for urgent purposes of a transplant. The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) is the apex body in India responsible for regulating, coordinating, and promoting the donation and transplantation of organs and tissues. To pledge, visit: https://notto.abdm.gov.in. 24×7 Toll Free Helpline: 1800 11 4770.

In Canada, organ donation registration is managed provincially, not through a single federal registry. You can pledge to be an organ donor online through your provincial health ministry or during services like driver’s license renewal. https://www.blood.ca/en/organs-tissues/deceased-donation/organ-donation-after-death

MYTHS:

There are plenty of myths surrounding the process of organ donation, particularly due to emotional and ritualistic dogmas, and even literate and educated individuals fall prey to them. For one, a person who pledges once may withdraw their intent at any given time according to their own will. There is absolutely no shame in withdrawal. No organs are donated while the person is alive; the transplant takes place only after an incidence of cardiac arrest or brain stem death. After the organs are salvaged, the body is sealed up, cosmetically enhanced, and provided back to the family with empathy and deep respect.

Keeping things in perspective, As of late 2025, over 82,000 Indians are on waiting lists for organ transplants, with nearly 3,000 deaths reported in the last five years due to severe organ shortage. While India conducts >18,900 transplants annually and ranks third globally, a massive gap exists, with kidney and liver transplants facing the longest waits.

But thanks to initiatives like NOTTO, there appears to be a change in the numbers. “The number of transplants in the country has seen a fourfold increase from less than 5 thousand in 2013 to nearly 20 thousand in 2025. Around 18% of transplants currently being performed with organs donated from deceased donors. More than 4.8 lakh citizens registered to donate organs and tissues after death through a Aadhaar based verification system, since 17 September 2023. India leads the world in hands transplants and performs a greater number of hand transplants than any other country.” https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2231563&reg=3&lang=1

Although India is a nation of a billion :

The kidney crisis exists, wherein over 60,000 people are waiting for a kidney. This is largely due to the rise in diabetes and hypertension across India.

The liver gap exists where more than 18,000 patients need a liver transplant

Heart and lung organs are in short supply, where nearly 2,500 people are fighting for every breath, waiting for a donor.

In Canada :

A persistent organ donation crisis, with hundreds dying annually while awaiting transplants despite roughly 3,000 procedures performed yearly. While 20% of donations are from living donors, low registration rates (approx. 20% of the population) and missed potential donor opportunities create severe shortages.

Regardless, Organ donation is a gift that you can give to someone with the most minimal effort and through the general power of your awareness.

If it is of any condolence, and you have any doubts or need encouragement, then I am not your preacher. Me and my well to do neighbour are on the list.


Its how we make things better for those around us, You, me and many more just regular people who are like us. Thanks for taking the time.

fyi this post has reached Canada ! cheers!

hey all, have 3 posts ready. But away on family commitments. Be back by the 12th! Cheers!

This is one of the questions i have been bombarded with since time immemorial and i don’t want to answer it because frankly i do not know how to answer in a short answer format or explain the agenda about it…People have asked me why I am in the rural north and not in Toronto or Vancouver or Edmonton and why not work in a large city.

To answer this question, especially since there’s not a lot of people who would go for the rural north (but maybe after this post they probably will), I will have to give an account of the lifestyle required and financial breakdown and government benefits. Also, keep in mind that if you can’t handle isolation, the breaking cold, and are unable to adjust to very different cultures and communities, the rural north should be your last holding ground despite the money.

The deal with the rural north is one that you don’t make in big cities. Let’s take the example of big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Edmonton. There are a few things in big cities that people are attracted to: more opportunity to socialize, more things to do, more places to eat out, and more activities to engage in. In terms of being a professional, the sky is the limit. You can be as good as you think you are, but you will never be the top 1%. However, you can hang around the top 1%, or you can be a shrimp in a large ocean, if that helps. If that’s what you are looking for or is important to you, then kudos to you, but that shouldn’t be your only criteria for living in a location. For example, in cities, individuals definitely make more money (above a 100 grand is minimal). However, to be fair, this is quickly dissipated by the cost of living. For example, if you lived in Toronto, your monthly salary could be $10,000; however, your monthly rent would be for a two-bedroom apartment about $4,000. Fifty percent of your salary going into rent is a pretty bad idea. Add to this your cost of groceries and co-curricular activities, which are generally more expensive in larger cities. I would also like to add that so far in your budget you do not own a car and do not yet pay gas or car insurance. If you did live in the city, you would pay a lot of car insurance, lots of money for gas, and you would pay a lot for parking space as well. It means your mobility is limited to the city area without a car and is generally constricted, and you basically aren’t saving as much as you think you would. I have not added the utilities to this, which include your gas and water payment, your internet and phone plan payment and other things like health insurance. Apart from this, I wouldn’t know how helpful individuals in cities really are, but I don’t hear a lot of supportiveness in the network of large cities from friends in Vancouver and Toronto areas. The vibes would be quite different too if you worked for a private company, with more demanding hours of work and money being your number one criteria.

However, the things that people do, just because everyone else around them does it…

Anyway, moving on, the rural north is like a strange time hole that doesn’t operate like other places .. lets use this analogy ….are you ready to walk in through the worm hole? have that pill?

(Wormhole time lapse)

In the rural north, you live in strange communities, in strange lands with strange people. If you are a person of color, you might be sometimes the only one of your kind in the area. Regardless, your best case scenario for surviving in the Rural North is to take the help of the biggest giant in the room who has your back no matter what, namely, the government… In effect, I would argue that if it wasn’t for your relationship with the government, then you had absolutely no business locking horns with the rural north or even thinking about it ever. You are better off in that case, living in a city where you would be confined to the general types of restrictions or hobbies mentioned earlier for the majority of the population. It is obvious that bustling cities are covered by entrepreneurs and businessmen, so the government toggles down into the rural north with different projects. It means if you dont work for the government then – DO NOT ATTEMPT.

After you enroll in the government as an employee and begin living in one of the communities in the rural north that you are transferred to, the lifestyle change and the economics of the situation can be a bit like 2 + 2 = 4, but it’s actually 2 + 2 = a 7 or a 9? – this takes time to discover.

For example, your salary on paper for a 9 to 5 job would be around 100k a year. You would be expected to cover large expanses of the area via a vehicle, either your own or a government fleet. This means a great car in the breaking winter is a compulsory asset and a necessity. As you will live in the rural north with limited populations, your probability of being hit by another car, or having your vehicle stolen would be minimal, which means your car insurance would be very low. In Canada, the rural north is generally ridiculously safe. Gas is another matter – one can argue that one may break their bones paying for gas if they were in a difficult-to-get-by location. However, at this point, the government, your main employer, comes to the rescue. For example, my Lexus gave me 19 cents of gas per km covered; however, the government reimbursed me 59 cents for every km covered as a set standard. It means you could either drive a gas-guzzling Ford Truck or you could drive a Mini Cooper or an EV; you would receive 59 cents for each km covered. In more remote areas like Nunavut or the Yukon, the government reimburses $25 per km covered. Yes, you heard that right… It means every km driven for the government is profitable. There is no loss as such… The government, when sending you into weird and strange places which at times felt like walking through a time lapse, also paid for your daily lunch, supper, and breakfast. If you went to Churchill on behalf of the government, you would not only have the opportunity to look at polar bears and beluga whales, but would be sent there by the government on a charter plane with $3000 paid in full and a conveyance fleet in Churchill, and then after an accommodation in a hotel paid for by the government. It means that despite the biting cold at -50 degrees outside in Churchill, you notice nothing because nothing really hurts.

Federal employees who travel overseas for the government get even more excellent perks. An uncle who is a business immigration officer arrives in India for work in New Delhi and lives in these

(The Taj New Delhi, India)

And gets driven around in the city in these

(a mercedez and a chauffier in New Delhi, India)

But hold your horses – that is the federal government of Canada and that one is a tougher nut to crack than the provincial government. Often takes years to get in..

Regardless, lets get back to the Rural North and the provincial governments of Canada.

Every month or maybe biweekly in the rural north you receive your monthly salary which was part of the agreement. But if you travelled around for the government and covered large areas of the province, a separate cheque comes in the mail which is your ‘expense and mileage claim’ and this is usually often 1/3 of your monthly salary and sometimes 1/2 of your monthly salary cheque. It means you were obviously making far more than what you made on paper.

Now lets get to the expenses.. The government provides you a cell phone and a laptop, sometimes people don’t even have to pay for any of those services depending on the regulations or rules of the province that hires you. Some departments are lax and others are stringent on your use of these. Extended medical insurance is covered by the government which includes silly things like the massage therapist, chiropractor, physiotherapy, holistic therapy, acupuncture. The government puts in money for your retirement as well into a fund for you. The retirement benefit is probably the number 1 reason for most Canadians to stick to a government employment.

Let’s get to the rent. As mentioned above, big cities have incredibly high rents, which are often at least 1/3 of the paycheck, without the addition of car expenses or grocery expenses. These are often small, choked-up apartments where space always needs to be used mindfully, or you need to think a bit before purchasing the next item. That is not the case in the rural north.

My rent for my accommodation was often in total just 1/6 of my income and sometimes 1/7 when considering the lowest of the low without the hydro. Accommodation in the country is not as expensive, and you often rent an entire house with a massive backyard, a front yard, a garage attached for your car, a big deck, with trees in the backyard, and a minimum of 2 bedrooms and a basement. If you want to count the grocery costs for one person who isn’t a big eater, that is really just not about anything at all. For maintenance of my home in Beausejour, I even had a cleaning lady coming in on a weekly basis and I barely lifted a finger, let alone I wasn’t even home most of the time.

For those unacquainted, I have a poor history and habit of not locking my front door, and this habit only escalated while living in the rural north. For one the rural north is too safe. Second, it is very difficult to steal something from someone who lives in the rural north. You would at least need a massive trailer to haul all that stuff out of the home and transport it to wherever the hell you were going to take it to. Thirdly, the community is often very tight-knit. It means people keep watch over each other, and even if you did acquire a trailer to haul in the stuff, the moment you parked that trailer onto the driveway of the house you wanted to rob, ten eyes would lock on you and take you out before the cops would get there. Add to it – who keeps money in the home nowadays anyway? Everything is via the internet and online bank accounts. It means even if you did succeed in getting into the house after all that effort, the odds of you finding anything worthwhile were completely nil. Bottom line – really and truly not worth the effort of thieving anybody. In short, in the rural north a thief is usually considered a low IQ nut wit or an idiot. You are better of selling drugs than robbing houses..

Not only that, I once took a 2-month trip to India and left my entire house in the country open while my neighbor watched over the house. People have a country charm in the rural north and quickly become your friends, and safe to say I made friends with the community. It meant during summers my neighbor mowed my massive backyard lawn for me, and in the winters, the snow on my driveway was already shoveled by my landlord, who did it for me for free. These are one of the most basic beauties of the north; if the community you live in takes you in, half your work is already done. People are trustworthy, simplistic and overall gentle.

(My favorite treed deck in Beausejour)

As the rural north is beautiful and you get transferred from place to place, its safe to say sometimes you live in locations like these.

(Saskatchewan)

and sometimes you lived in locations like these …

(Kenora MB)

If you went more and more remote into the uncharted territories of the rural north, for example the Yukon or the Nunavut, the government covered your housing and you lived in furnished paid for subsidized housing for government employees. I did not go here, but a friend i know works for the federal government of Nunavut.

(Government employee subsidized housing in Nunavut)

If that happened, then that meant that now you did not even pay your rent…..

(Nunavut government housing – as you can see, this is not bad, even compared to large cities..)

(Churchill Government employee subsidized housing)

Adding to this, the job is often straightforward 9 to 5 with incremental value for overtime. Infact in Nunavut and the more difficult communities, employees cycle to and from the work place in 6 weeks and back and forth.

If everything combined and turned into the most extreme format of the rural north employment structure, you might end up in the northern most areas, paid for by the federal government in high dollars, but cycling back and forth on charter planes paid for by the government, and living in subsidized housing when up north and in turn basically paying nothing for it. If you ended up in the Nunavut scenario, then you would be under the class of federal employees who worked for 1-2 years and took the next 1 year off.

Add to all of this, the protection by the labor union, job security, standard in the society you venture into, the high level of individuals you met and befriended as government employees filtered through by the government, all these things combined meant something like –I know its -50 degrees outside baby, but right now, i don’t feel it at all.

Regardless of your income, the income to expenditure ratio is almost always pretty high, and if you have a partner in the same department, you can make some great bang for your buck while maintaining a work-life balance and without the headache of worrying about your job security. It means, if you have the appetite for it, and if you are not afraid of the north, and you like freedom and spacious areas and are open to meeting new and diverse communities, then the rural north, tamable only via the might of the government, is your friend. If you stick around long enough, you might retire as a director or the minister. Regardless, I made it far enough to walk into government buildings in the designated areas and not be asked for my ID card anymore because I was known enough.

I was having coffee with some friends in India, and this just came up that I should post about my time in the town of Steinbach, predating my time in the French town Beausejour, when I was first posted for the government for the southeast designated area. It is notable to note that this era was filled with all kinds of “awkward” developments in my life due to the onset of COVID-19. In 2019, I started working in the small German town of Steinbach in Manitoba. This would make an exciting post because it seems that in 2 years, along with the culture shock of serving some Germans, and being in a lockdown and moving into an unnecessarily large country home on a whim, I was breaking personal barriers.

Steinbach is a German town in the southeast designated area of the government, mainly comprising Germans who immigrated from Germany and Russia and set up various companies in the area, mainly related to chemicals, pesticides, farming, 100-acre large-scale farming, trucking and logging companies, and large-scale housing rentals, etc. For the record, I still use Steinbach Credit Union, which is used by many millionaires in this area, and it offers me the highest interest rate than any other bank in the province. As hard as it can be to believe, Steinbach is home to many Germans who are rich and reside under the radar in the country. To be fair, Steinbach looks like this.

( Above the government building in Steinbach or my work place)

Working with this community in Manitoba is a challenging task. If you’ve read my previous post on Muraveinik, then it’s good to know that many German Russians settled in Steinbach and made a lot of money and set up companies. This is a strong “builder” variety type community, and they run large-scale operations in the small town of Steinbach. Steinbach is dominated by the German community, and as you walk the streets, you can sense it and feel it to the point that if you ask somebody a question, the response will be “ja” in German instead of “yes.” For the unacquainted, the community is exceptionally introverted, reserved, hard-working, disciplined and hard to break into in the initial stages. You are expected to know the language, and even knowing the language would only get you so far. As a rule, they are complainers and don’t take well when a government official does not do their job properly or they detect inconsistencies. In short, you better shape up or go home; the community puts a type of pressure on the person who resides, forcing them into a gradual and ruthless readjustment phase. (Of course, as you know, this is completely different from the later described French community of Beausejour, and I doubt these two communities even talk much to each other due to their differences). Alternatively, staying around them for too long means they start rubbing off on you, and you start becoming like them: introverted, reserved, efficient, and a workaholic complainer with high standards. Life can become a case of self-inflicted brutalism. . .

For the unacquainted, despite the “brutalism” and “savagery,” I have to just say it, everything that this community does is flawless and almost perfect in design and architecture. They have money and they have a brain, but they also don’t seem to care all that much about anything at all.

For the record, once I got a government job I relocated from a small apartment in Winnipeg 90 km west to Steinbach. I was so stuffed living in an apartment in the city that I just could not wait to get a more open space in the country. In came my German landlord, who was friends with a friend and owned the best-level construction company. My landlord owned about 35 houses, and the one he offered me was a massive 3-bedroom home in the country with an attached garage, a large backyard, and a front driveway. The house came with heated floors for the winter, which meant you roamed around in -30 degrees being barefoot inside your home. I wanted to experience the level of spaciousness, the experience of having a massive home in the country, and just took the home without much thought. At the time i had bought a nice luxury car, acquired a competitively held government job position and safe to say i was feeling confident about life in general. This house was close to the workplace, and I wanted to live a little big just this time..

The home was a 3-bedroom, two-story house on the right side of a duplex. The home had 2 bathrooms, one on the top floor and one on the ground floor. On the bottom floor, it had an open-concept kitchen with a massive living room, a separate mechanical room for the heating equipment of the house, and another storage room on the bottom floor. The house had an attached garage right in the front, a driveway, a side yard, and a massive backyard. The enormity of the house meant that although the process of moving into the house was very exciting, once I was settled in, my mind did a little bit of an ‘oops.’ Pretty soon after moving in, COVID-19 hit the world, and Canada went into lockdown, and the ‘oops’ turned into a larger ‘oops.’

(My driveway with the birchwood hybrid Lexus replacement for a week)

It meant that I was going to be working from home, and while the delta variant ravaged the planet, southeast in Steinbach only had just about 5 active cases in the entire city. However, the Canadian government is rabid about its public health policy, and that meant that we were still in lockdown despite only just about 1 or 2 cases of COVID-19 going around… Meanwhile protests took over the United States when people refused to wear masks and we watched our neighbor country with covid cases in the hundreds of thousands on tv beating each other up over masks and storming the senate …

In 2 years I saw the landlord probably just around 2 times – at the time of moving in and at the time of moving out. It did not matter if the doorknob broke, or the microwave broke, or the house caught fire; the general response was something like “I have 35 houses, I don’t have time to come out there and look at everything, buy it yourself and replace it and send me the receipt.”

Safe to say, this was probably the best landlord I had in my entire life. i had never seen anything like this before. He never bothered me with anything at all; in fact, he himself did not like to be bothered. If we were going into the territory of sheer negligence here or what were we doing exactly was hard to assess…. its not too often you find a tenant complaining that the landlord was just not bothered with the house at all…..

It meant that when the microwave did not work, I replaced it and sent him the receipt; if the side pipe burst, I had a handyman come in and sent the receipt, the fridge gave up and i had an entire fridge home delivered and installed and had the old one thrown out by middlemen and the landlord looked at the pictures and receipts and replied with a “YA.. OK” . – Seriously what is this guy?

I was becoming more and more industrious now doing stuff on behalf of the landlord while sending him receipts of everything that i replaced… I figured out how the heating and vent systems worked in the home and hired someone to shovel the snow and mow the lawn.

(The backyard mowing in progress by the mowers)

By the way did you know that if you did not mow the yard before spring time, the by law officer would knock on your door and hand you a bill as failure to mow can lead to different bacteria breeding in the yard and cause a community issue? – well neither did I!

During Covid 19 one of my neighbors suggested i should make use of this large backyard property and grow some trees. So i grew a bunch of these…

When winter hit in the dead of Covid 19 and the Delta variant just started ravaging India right in the beginning of the year, the lock down caused a very deafening silence in the community which brought out these guys right outside my window, completely unshaken and fearless..

(the effects of Covid 19)

Apart from that, Covid-19 and working from home meant the introduction of another item in my life: an Akita, a dog breed that I had never owned in my life. If you are unversed on the breed, then it’s safe to know that the Japanese Akita is one of the most intelligent breeds in the world and also very hard to pin down due to its rarity and expensiveness. For the record, Superman actor Henry Cavill owns an Akita and takes the dog everywhere with him.

(actor Henrii Cavill with his Akita)

The Akita is supposed to be a companion and guard dog. The closest bet to the dog is the movie Hachiko by Richard Gere on the Japanese Akita and its loyalty towards its master. An Akita is famous for its loyalty to the owner, and its high intelligence in the dog department. The dog comes with double layers of fur, which means that it likes the snow and the negative degrees. It suffers in the heat and the sun…

The dog is recommended only for advanced dog owners and not the intermediate or beginner types… It means shelling out 3 grand on an Akita might seem a lot for a dog, but well, first times for everything in life: an unnecessarily big house, an expensive car, a good job; now that we were in over our heads and everything was exploding, why don’t we just go in for the kill and chew more than we could handle?

It meant the dog arrived like this …

and turned into something this…

for those wondering what i was doing outside in that snow – i went snowboarding.

that and when i could i went snowmobiling. . .

and that dog came with me.

During the lockdown the dog did everything with me…

Every morning, the dog plopped into the Lexus with the owner, just before work and we drove 15 km to a coffee shop to buy a large mug of coffee with 2 Cremer and a small bun for the dog, no matter if it was the snow or if it was the summer, this was our ritual.

My mother jokingly commented that the owner of the coffee shop laced the coffee with “aphim” or “opium”, because no matter the weather, if snow, a storm, the bright blazing sun or a torrid rain fall – we went for that coffee….

No matter how you look at it, the Akita has an instinct to protect the owner and the home. It meant that around the 1-year mark, I stopped locking the door of my 3-bedroom house simply because I could not be bothered to replace it… Of course, it should be noted that the landlord himself , was the last person in the world to be bothered with the broken front door knob. …Its safe to say that a once in a 100 yr world pandemic came and went and couple of door knobs broke in the process and the landlord never bothered me at all…..

I became so lax with the presence of the dog in my home and the general lack of accountability that I left the door unlocked with a Lexus sitting in the attached garage of my house and went cycling or something….. When the front door completely broke and fell off and there was no way to get inside, I just started using the back door of the house to get in.. It wasn’t like I was having any guests over during the COVID lockdown. For those unfamiliar, if one violated a COVID-19 lockdown and visited people during lockdowns in Canada, one would have the police at the door, asking questions about who, where, what? certain to say – we were not Americans….

The dog had his own full time career which included guarding the house …

inspecting the car and making sure no intruders were present in the garage…

Going out on long walks with the owner…

waking up the owner in the morning for daily coffee…..

Inspecting the garden tomato yield and making sure adequate quality controls were in place…

being a support animal…

It meant the relationship between the dog and the owner turned into a ‘bff category’ now, just like Henrii Cavill and his dog…

Soon Covid-19 ended, and I accepted a position in a French town in Beausejour with an entirely different subset of responsibilities and dealing with completely different populations. This time it was not the nonchalant Germans, but the French, the Cree, and the Métis. Plus, it would be Churchill and Pine Falls this time, meaning since the pandemic was over, the car would be put to good use. I learned from my mistakes and overconfidence and moved into a much smaller accommodation rather happily this time around in Beausejour. My German ex-landlord gave me raving references and reviews as a tenant for putting up with his bullshit and his absenteeism. I questioned if he was an absentee father as well… but from what i gathered he was a very dedicated father, just a workaholic… He told me that I was the best tenant he ever had, and I told him that he was the best landlord I ever had…. As we haggled on the last day, we wondered if we should give the dog some credit too for doing so much work around the household too? because why not and Afterall? …

For the curious individuals, the dog did not move to Beausejour but moved into a German friend’s 100-acre farm land. He’s living there, taking on the responsibilities of the farm for now and pretending to be a sort of a king. He might show up, if possible, if government regulations don’t hold him accountable for being an Akita.