AGNIVEERS AND THE CORPORATE CHOIR

   I belong to the 1950 batch of homo sapiens, and wasn't singled out for any special favours by the Creator when He was dishing out His divine gifts. So, as you can guess, I'm a pretty average Joe- average intelligence, average physique, average health, average abilities and skills; this last one is borne out by my 35 ACRs ( Annual Confidential Reports) in govt. service, all of which categorize me as Average. In the IAS, by the way, Average means Outstanding as I have yet to see an IAS officer who is not graded as Outstanding, but that's a story for another day!

   More relevant to the present, however, is the fact that God did not give me a singing voice- no baritone, no tenor, no soprano, no alto, no bass, no counter-tenor. I could not, therefore, find a place in any choir, a lasting regret I shall carry to the electric crematorium in the fullness of time. (I hope there's no power cut at the appointed hour). It has been a great disappointment but my admiration for the choir persists, and therefore I was thrilled to hear the rising sounds of a new choir last week, ascending almost to the level of a Wagnerian climax by the weekend, before it petered away into a whine.

  This choir was not comprised of your usual singers but of the captains of Indian industry, the Old Money types and the Covid billionaires, the Panama papers and Pandora papers types, those who tweet more often than the sparrows in my garden and dish out more advice on a daily basis than the Sadhguru. There was total silence till the 19th of the month, but suddenly on the 20th there was a chorus of synchronised voices, all singing to the BJP tune of  "Hum Honge Agniveer".

  It was a masterful performance, extolling the mythical qualities of the Agniveers, how their six month training would revolutionise Indian industry, fill all the gaps in operations, marketing, supply chains and technical back-ups; how their commitment and patriotism would usher in a 5 trillion dollar economy in four years. I couldn't see the Conductor but he must have been waving his baton- or truncheon- somewhere backstage because all the singers were looking back over their shoulders while singing, a standard precaution with choir boys, I learn.

  But something was not right- the choir was singing in a high castrato, which sounds more like bleating than singing. The lyrics lacked conviction, as in a Prasun Joshi song. And the reason soon became clear, when eminent veterans and social media began asking uncomfortable questions. By then, however, it had become amply clear that Big Capital in India is as spineless as the media, that they don't give a damn about our youth or about unemployment as long as they can keep cornering more of the country's wealth and ascending the billionaire ladder, that their ballad to the Agniveer was nothing but a command performance, singing for their dinner, as it were.

  The Agnipath scheme has more holes than a target in a shooting range, but that can be better left to the experts to dissect. I am more concerned with the duplicity, hypocrisy and sycophancy of our corporates. Take for instance their offer to provide unlimited number of jobs to the Agniveers discharged after four years: as a number of veterans have asked: how many jobs have they provided to ex-servicemen so far? Given their unrestrained excitement at the prospect of employing these youth with just six months of basic training and three years of hunkering down at Siachen or the Arunachal border, surely they would have employed thousands of existing ex-servicemen with 15 years of experience and far more training? It's been a week since this question was asked of them, but not one has tweeted a reply or provided any figures!

  The Director General (Resettlement), the govt agency tasked with finding jobs for ex-servicemen is able to place about 45000-50000 retirees every year, but here's the catch- 90% of them are as Security Guards! That too on contract, with no job security or pensions. So much for Mr. Anand Mahindra and FICCI's tweets about "blend of experience and discipline" and " creating a talent pool" for industry. Admit it, gentlemen- ex-servicemen are a cheap labour force for you, even with their 15-20 years of training/ experience. The Agniveer minnows, with just 4 years, will be even cheaper fodder for your industrial appetite- if you employ them at all, that is.

  But let us not make the mistake of thinking that the government has a better track record. An Indian Express report of 20th June by Harikishan Sharma (digital format) reveals a bitter truth. According to rules, the ex-serviceman quota in central PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) is 14.50% in Group C jobs and 24.50% in Group D category. But information provided by 90 PSUs shows that the actual utilisation of this quota is only 1.15% and 0.3% respectively! So much for the latest assurance of 10% quota in CAPFs Central Armed Police Forces) and Ministry of Defence undertakings.

  Just about all corporates require a graduation degree for any job above the D, or lowest, grade. The Agniveers will at best be 10+2, and will have little or no meaningful technical skills or training, notwithstanding the Army Chief's tall claims. They will be soldiers after all, needed at our borders, and the Army will not have the luxury of keeping them in training institutes beyond the very basic training. Are our corporates, therefore, ready to take them on as interns, pay for their skill reorientation and give them jobs in management, and on the shop floor? Their past does not hold out much hope for this: social media these days is full of posts from ex-servicemen- even retired officers- whose applications were not even acknowledged, and who remain unemployed even after years.

  But hold on! Maybe I'm being too harsh on our billionaires: perhaps they are just reciprocating the largesse and generosity of this govt. for giving them that corporate tax break a couple of years ago, something which this country can ill afford- almost Rupees 2 lakh crores per annum, which is more than the total pension bill of the armed forces (including the civilian defense employees). The corporate worthies were supposed to have used these savings for capital investment, increase production and manufacturing, and create some of those 20 million jobs every year that had been promised us in a jumla moment. They haven't done that yet and have pocketed the savings. Why should they, in fact, when its cheaper to sing in a choir ?

  But even a non choir type like me can notice that they have struck the wrong note, a falsetto. You can sing for your supper, but it makes for lousy music.

  

AT THE CROSSROADS -- VISHWAGURU OR HINDU SAMRAT ?

    If there are two  qualities our Prime Minister does not lack they are a soaring ambition and the self confidence to believe that he can do anything he sets his mind to. These are, incidentally, the same qualities that Dedalus of Greek mythology possessed in abundance, and which brought him crashing back to earth, but since mythology is not the subject of this blog we shall set this trivia aside for the moment.

   Ambition is a funny thing- if it is not rooted in reality or matched by ability it can self destruct very quickly. This is especially true of political ambition; as James Callis said: " Anyone who has political ambition has an Achilles heel." Mr. Modi's ambition is totally political, since by his own confession he has no other attachments. But his ambition is also of a sui generis variety, at least in the Indian context, because it has a pronounced evangelical component, not seen before in our country (and, hopefully, not to be seen again).

  It is a schizophrenic ambition, almost a Jekyll and Hyde affliction, because it comprises of two incompatible and opposing elements. To put it simply, in the terminology of the day, it is the Vishwaguru versus the Hindu Samrat syndrome. On the one hand Mr. Modi desperately wants to be a global statesman and leader, on the other he wants to be the last of the Hindu Emperors, the ruler who restored Hinduism to the pedestal and hegemony from where it had been dislodged by " outsiders". His dilemma is that he cannot be both.

  A global leader has to command international respect, abide by the widespread consensus on important matters such as religious freedom, press freedom, human rights, judicial independence, freedom of speech and dissent, liberal secularism, to mention just a few. Unfortunately, on all these parameters India has been progressively sliding down the accepted scale during the BJP's rule, notwithstanding the acerbic fulminations of our External Affairs Minister. 

   This deterioration was inevitable, given the divisive and majoritarian policies being pursued under Mr. Modi's watch, the licence afforded to vigilantes on the streets, and the brutal bias of the police and enforcement agencies. The govt. has lost not only its credibility but also the shield of deniability, as its failed attempts to distance itself from the recent comments of its spokespersons indicates. The low rankings by international agencies on democracy, religious freedom, inequalities, press freedom etc. are an indication of this, and do not strengthen Mr. Modi's claim to world leader status.

   A true leader also has to have a vision for the well being of his peoples. Unfortunately, our social and welfare indicators- hunger index, poverty and inequity indices, health ( including the Covid fatalities), environmental and pollution rankings, employment etc.- too have been consistently declining under his dispensation. The current economic figures are not too good either, but I do not think they are vital: after all, in the 1950s and 1960s India was literally a basket case but that did not prevent Jawaharlal Nehru from being acknowledged as an international statesman and a global leader in the moral sense of the terms. Today our economy is much better, relatively speaking, but the leadership status still eludes our Prime Minister. Mere geo-political considerations of balance of power, or trading interests of countries, are transactional considerations and do not confer the Vishwaguru status which our Prime Minister is seeking.

  In short, genuine international acceptance of leadership stems not from commercial or strategic importance but from a moral core, which has at its center the welfare of ALL peoples and a commitment to genuine democracy, all acknowledged freedoms, compassion for the most vulnerable, affirmative actions to redress imbalances in the economy and society, religious tolerance, and the careful building of systems that ensure these values.

  None of the above is possible if one simultaneously seeks to be a religious revivalist, promoting one religion at the cost of others, as Mr. Modi has been assiduously doing for the last eight years to personify himself as a Hindu Samrat. For one, such an ambition leaves too little time and state resources for governance, as we have seen repeatedly. Two, such obsessive and extra-legal ambitions compromise and destroy the institutional structures of democracy over time. Third, a Samrat cannot exist in the modern world of rights, laws, constitutional guarantees without trampling them underfoot as appears to be happening on an enlarging scale in India nowadays. Excesses are inevitable, and a Samrat astride a religious hobby horse is the worst of the lot as history has shown us again and again: bigotry flourishes, majoritarianism reigns, minorities are marginalised- and in the process all systems of civilised governance collapse. This is not the formula for becoming a Vishwaguru.

   It has taken the Nupur Sharma episode, and its aftermath, for all these contradictions to blow up  in our faces, particularly of those who admire Mr. Modi's style of governance and lofty ambitions. Countries comprising a population of two billion have denounced his govt's policies and actions against their religion.. Their governments, driven by economic necessity, may eventually make peace, but their peoples may not. Coming on top of our already deplorable record of human rights and human development indicators, this is a serious impediment to the Prime Minister's ambition to be accepted as a world leader. The attempt at damage control lacks sincerity and conviction- the bulldozers are out again in Uttar Pradesh, the Delhi police continue to beat up Opposition workers, support for Nupur Sharma and Jindal appears to be growing within the BJP itself. Mr. Modi,  inscrutable and unrepentant, continues to do what he does best- maintain a Sphinx like silence. But he needs to consider this: is it possible to become a global paragon when a quarter of the world's population, comprising some of its richest nations, is ranged against you ? 

  Maybe he is self- introspecting, maybe he is waiting for the storm to blow over, maybe he is planning his next master stroke. But I hope he realises that he is now at a cross- roads: he can choose to be either a Vishwaguru or a Hindu Samrat- he cannot be both. He can take either the high road or the low one. It is perhaps time for him to choose his destiny, and the destiny of the nation he presides over.

   He must choose wisely, and quickly. For if he does not, then we have Oscar Wilde waiting in the wings with his trade mark cynicism: " Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

RELIGIOUS HATRED IS NOW ON AUTO-PILOT

    So the BJP national spokespersons, Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal have now been served the first serving of their just desserts. But anyone who thinks that this represents a course correction for the party has to have the brain of a guinea fowl and should admit that evolution has passed him by. The BJP is doing nothing of the kind, it is simply fire fighting the backlash in the gulf countries which provide employment to millions of Indians who repatriate US$ 42 billion every year to our coffers, are a major market for Indian goods, and supply 60% of our petroleum products. The BJP's response was dictated not by any change of heart but by the potential damage to the business prospects of its sponsors. Because for a whole week it did nothing, even as protests erupted across the country and violence broke out in Kanpur.

  Even more breath-taking was our Govt's statement in response to the demarches issued by Kuwait, Qatar, Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries): it is nothing but a treatise in duplicity, dissembling and double-speak. It accuses these countries of divisiveness and a communal agenda. It speaks glowingly of the protection of minorities in India, their constitutional guarantees, our secular credentials- even as their persecution has become almost a state policy now. The most bizarre claim was that these inflammatory statements were made by "fringe elements" and not by anyone associated with the ruling dispensation ! Which begs the question- how can the Govt's Ministers, MPs, MLAs, national spokespersons, who churn out this venom every single day, be considered as fringe elements ? In how many countries are "fringe elements" followed on Twitter by the Prime Minister, senior Union Ministers and a whole host of party functionaries? As someone said, this is a new concept in physics- when the fringe becomes the core. Not surprisingly, this crap did not cut any ice with the Gulf states ( to mix a metaphor) who are demanding an apology and punishment for the two spokespersons.

   So far 18 countries have officially protested, as has the United Nation spokesperson. One cannot help but feel that it is not just the present blasphemous utterances of the BJP spokespersons but the govt's track record over the last few years that has made these countries finally draw a red line. For it is now clear that, given the escalation in Muslim bashing that has become the new normal under this regime, the remarks against the Prophet were just a matter of time. The litany of Muslim persecution-  bans on beef, halal meat shops, offering namaz, shops near Hindu temples, the hijab ; bulldozer justice, love jihad, conversion, judicial applications to dig up masjids and mosques, multiple challenges to the Places of Worship Act, one sided state action whenever communal violence broke out, Dharm Sansads calling for genocide- had become so persistent and its practitioners so emboldened, that it had to reach its apogee soon. Nupur Sharma was a disaster waiting to happen, that the statement came from her was just a happenstance, for it could have been anyone from a long list of arachnids encouraged by the party and the govt. all these years- Sambit Patra, Gaurav Bhatia, Prem Shukla, or anyone else of their ilk. This apogee has also, unfortunately for the BJP, become the tipping point for many countries.

   The suspension of Nupur Sharma and expulsion of Naveen Jindal is not only too late, it is also too little. Dozens of people, including journalists and intellectuals, have been thrown in jail for far lesser "offences"; these two should be criminally prosecuted. As should the anchors of the TV shows in which they were allowed to make such statements. Navika Kumar of Times Now who was the anchor when Nupur Sharma made the despicable statement, did not intervene to stop her from spewing venom- she neither stopped the BJP spokesperson, nor muted her, nor took her off the air. At the very least she should have asked her to apologise and should have tendered an apology herself. She did none of this; instead she later claimed that as this was a live show, she could have done nothing! It is also disappointing, but not surprising, that so far none of the media self regulators- except for the Editors' Guild which issued a strong statement on the 8th of this month deploring the role of TV channels and their anchors in subverting our Constitutional values of secularism and comparing them to Radio Rwanda - have censured Kumar for her irresponsible conduct.                         The physical threats to Nupur Sharma on social media are reprehensible and should be dealt with with an iron hand. But I find it ironical that Nupur Sharma should now claim that her life is under threat- did she not put the lives of countless others at risk by her provocative remarks whose sole purpose was to incite hatred against the Muslims? This daily baiting and demonising of minorities on evening prime time shows has gone on for far too long. If the govt. means business it should use its powers to shut down these Spanish Inquisition type programmes immediately.

   But my own personal feeling and assessment is that even this will not detoxify the poison that has been injected into our society and system over the last eight years. For the hatred, bigotry and religious intolerance has now gone into autonomous mode and can no longer be controlled by one central authority, the centrifugal forces that have been generated cannot be easily stopped. To understand this phenomenon one needs to refer to the theory of Cumulative Radicalisation propounded by the British historian Sir Ian Kirkshaw.

  Kirkshaw's theory was based on his study of developments in Nazi Germany in the 1940s. He postulated that this radicalisation begins with a Supreme Leader and quickly percolates down through the political executive, bureaucracy, judiciary and the media. The tipping point is reached when the ideology of hate, intolerance and unabashed majoritarianism infects the  society at large. This becomes a kind of chaotic authoritarianism, as opposed to a Stalin kind of programmatic authoritarianism. At this point the vigilantes, social media trolls and non-state actors take over. Society is carved out into two parts- the Believers and the Silent Acceptors. The former now do the job of the ruling dispensation, thus providing the government a deniability to ward off any criticism.

  This process is faithfully mirrored in the present imbroglio and explains the current state of affairs in the country. The BJP and its govt. at the centre have carefully promoted and nurtured an eco-system of hate in our polity and society, and are now no longer fully in control of what its followers and savants do. The hatred is no longer a command performance but has gone into autonomous mode, with every party functionary or group doing what he or they think the Supreme Leader wants or the party ideology demands.

  This is demonstrated by the backlash to Nupur Sharma's suspension, from the cadres and supporters of the BJP itself. There is widespread resentment among them at the action taken against her, with Mr. Modi himself being called out on social media for his " pusillanimity." Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS Supremo's recent placatory statement that Hindus should not look for a shivling under every mosque, has also raised the ire of the Hindutva faithfuls, with one prominent seer even commenting sarcastically that age is making Mr. Bhagwat incoherent and confused. The party line and discipline is being breached, and therein lies the danger that cumulative radicalisation poses.

  The BJP should realise that it has gone too far with its ideology of, and support of, Islamophobia. It is in danger of losing control of its own poisonous narrative, its deniability is eroding, our economy is under grave threat and the reputation of the country is suffering notwithstanding Mr. Jaishankar's Alamo-type heroics.  India has the largest immigrant population in the world- 32 million, of whom about 12 million live and work in Islamic nations. It would be the height of folly to denigrate Islam at home and expect our citizens to prosper in Islamic countries, or to expect these countries to be our trading partners and quietly ignore what is happening to their co-religionists here. In an increasingly globalised world we have to be sensitive to global concerns even if we treat our own citizens with contempt. It's time to call off the Rottweilers and return to sensible and equitable governance, before the dogs turn on their masters.

   The govt. would do well to go back to the drawing board and relearn a basic postulate of governance- that in a globally integrated world, one cannot separate domestic policy from foreign policy. Hubert Humphrey had put it very well when he stated that " Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on."  Wise words, but it's difficult to put on your hat when you have both hands on the controls of a bulldozer or are caught with your pants down.

DOGGONE IT ! THE IAS IS IN THE DOGHOUSE AGAIN !

                                     [ This piece is not about the IAS, it's about dogs. ]

    I am a congenital dog lover and therefore I have to agree with Mrs. Maneka Gandhi on this one: the decision to exile the Delhi IAS couple of walking fame to Chinese claimed territories is hasty, disproportionate, over the top, and wrong. But not for the reasons given by the lady- I know neither of the officers or of their competence. My reason is simply this- anyone who loves dogs and takes them out for a walk after a hard day in office cannot be an entirely bad person. Did the "walking" interfere with the training of athletes ? I don't know. Was the stadium shut down at the express orders of Mr. Khirwar? There is no evidence of that and it is extremely unlikely since the stadium did not come under him. Did it deprive India of a dozen gold medals in the Olympics? I don't think so, given our track record in the pre- walking days.  Does the incident provide a convenient scapegoat to the govt. for beating the IAS, an institution this govt. must demolish completely to achieve its totalitarian aims? Yes, as earlier instances of harassment of other IAS officers shows. How is it that a Samir Wankhade who misused his powers to maliciously lock up people without any evidence or due process gets a cushy posting in Chennai while an officer who walks his dog in a stadium is shunted thousands of miles away ? This is not to defend the "walking" but to disapprove of the arbitrary and harsh punishment.                                                                                                                      But to turn now to the focus of my blog- dogs. A word first about the deteriorating standards of our media: they have given us the complete biodata of Mr. and Mrs. Khirwar but we still don't know the name of the canine at the center of the whole imbroglio. Since said pooch has played the leading role in extending the couple's short ramble in the Thyagraj stadium to a longer walk to Ladakh , we are certainly entitled to know the dog's name, whether it was in English, Hindi, third language, mother tongue or regional language. But I'm not complaining too strenuously, for this also gives me an excuse to relate some of my doggy stories.

   It's no easy matter finding out a dog's breed or naming it, even for us IAS types with all the general knowledge acquired at Rau's Study Center. Till today, for example, I clearly recollect that day in 1975 when I was sauntering at Library Point in Mussoorie with my now long lost batchmate, Mukul Joshi. We saw a man with a little doggy's head poking out of his coat pocket. We were intrigued and wanted to see the whole dog; the stranger took it out: it fitted neatly into the palm of his hand ! Neither of us had ever seen such a tiny pooch, so we asked the owner what breed it was. He replied, "Yeh Chihuahua hai." Mukul was non-plussed and retorted: " Isko kya huahua hai ? Yeh itna chhota kyun hai ? "

   Names of dogs are important because they tell us a lot about their owners. Someone with a dog named Custard or Dumpling is likely to be a diabetic, the owner of a Sultan will have more testosterone than is good for him, anyone with a dog named Tommy or Tiger probably had English as his third language in school, anyone who has a dog called Yogi will end up in Agra jail, a Spice or Samosa in all likelihood will belong to someone whose diet is strictly controlled by his wife, the owner of a Bhim is likely to be a BJP supporter, any pooch called Bogey can only belong to a golfer, and not a good one too. You get the point, don't you ?

  Naming dogs is no cake walk, believe you me. I wanted to name my last pet Bark Obama, but it just refused to bark; it also didn't byte, so that ruled out Laptop. I finally named him Brutus  (the only part of the English literature I still remembered from my Hindu college days) in view of his gravitas and dignified bearing as a pup, neither of which were much in evidence when he grew up. But this was not the first time I was proven wrong in the naming game- I christened my first born and heir presumptive as Sidharth, and the only Buddhist quality I see in him now 40 years later is a tendency to renounce life along with his job and watch Netflix in Puranikoti full time.

  Dog naming posed a bigger problem for a colleague some years back, in the era of the late Mr. Virbhadra Singh, the then redoubtable Chief Minister of Himachal. Being an ex ruler of Kinnaur district (where there is only one surname- Negi), his kitchen Cabinet and office drawer consisted exclusively of Negis. This was not appreciated by others in the IAS who took severe umbrage at having to take orders from Negis all the time. My friend, in a cathartic move that would have delighted a psycho-analyst, acquired a pooch and named him Negi ! This created quite a stir in both the senior and junior lunch clubs in the Secretariat and even at the evening bacchanalian bouts in the tehsil offices once the Jamabandis were properly fudged and attested. On being asked why this provocative name? my friend replied: "So that there's at least one Negi I can order around." Unfortunately for him, the Chief Secretary was also a Negi, and my friend served out the rest of his career in the Ayurveda Department pushing Chyawanprash as a living. History has no record, sadly, of the fate of the four footed Negi.

                                   

                                                 [  BRUTUS  December 1998 - June 2010 ]

  A word about my own Golden Retriever, Brutus, aka Golden Receiver to my neighbours as he was wont to greet every visitor with a wagging tail instead of barking at them and asking for their Aadhar card. Brutus had a pedigree longer than all the Shuklas put together and would have turned up his nose at the Thyagraj stadium- nothing but the Narendra Modi Stadium would have done for him. He was a one man dog, the man being your humble blogger. When Neerja and I took him for a walk only I was allowed to hold the leash. If Neerja took it even for a moment he would stage a dharna on the road (like Mr. Kejriwal in later days) and bring all traffic to a halt. While watching TV in the evenings, Neerja was not allowed to sit next to me (not that she particularly wanted to); that place was reserved for Brutus. One morning in 2007, when I was badly injured by a falling tree and lay sprawled out on the road with a broken spine and smashed ribs, Brutus would not let anyone approach me for ten minutes. He kept the doctors away, which, I suspect, helped my bones to heal faster than they would have done had the docs got their hands and scalpels on me. He weighed 45 kilos but was  terrified of cats, birds, spiders, monkeys and any loud sounds- this last bit was a blessing in disguise because it ensured that we never watched Arnab Goswami or Rahul Shivshankar on TV.

  There was one incident, however, when Brutus landed me in an embarrassing situation, albeit unknowingly, which impinged on civil military relationships. Colonel Abhay Rastogi and his wife Gauri were good friends of ours and we met regularly for drinks of an evening. Abhay and Gauri had a beautiful Labrador bitch named Saira, and as Brutus was now of age, we decided to broach the subject of a canine union to them.

" Gauri," I said casually one evening over drinks," why don't we mate Saira with Brutus? They'll have beautiful puppies, don't you think?"

There was a tinkling sound as Gauri dropped her glass of Bacardi, followed by a thick silence you couldn't have cut through with a butcher's knife. Abhay decided the time was ripe for a bathroom break and hurriedly exited the room. Gauri looked at me like a Major-General would at an errant Havildar. Finally she spoke:

"That's impossible", she intoned, "Saira is an army dog and we couldn't possibly mate her with a civilian dog. Their puppies would be hybrid para-military types."

So that was that as far as civil-military liaison was concerned. We continue to be good friends, both Saira and Brutus have moved on to canine heaven, and there's a lesson here somewhere  for all of us.

   Which, precisely, is the point of this blog. Let us not judge too hastily in this age of instant opinions. People who love dogs, like Mr. and Mrs Sanjeev Khirwar, cannot possibly be all bad or the ogres that the media has painted them out to be. The whole incident has been blown out of all proportion because this country needs a cause celebre every day to feed our insatiable appetite for sensationalism. Let's not put the Khirwars in the doghouse just because they happen to belong to the IAS. In any case, Ladakh and Arunachal are lovely places, and I'm sure their  (still unnamed) pooch will prefer it to a stadium, with or without athletes. This posting may just be the best thing that happened to them. There are worse places than doghouses.