Several years back I used to work on the creative team of a leading e-greetings site. We were located in India, making cards for US occasions. It involved a lot of guess work, since most of us had never been to the US and our only window to the country and its culture were the popular soap operas that used to run on local television.
Halloween was one such BIG occasion where we had a lot of fun second guessing ourselves as to which egreetings site will make the wackiest cards. Well, we did come up with some wild ideas, and till date they remain some of my best creative forays in any of the professions that I have dabbled with.

Since then, I have been to the US and watched this festival being celebrated first hand. Boy! it is so much more fun than we ever thought. In fact, one of my most enduring memories of Halloween remains Callie, an Australian sheepdog that belonged to my neighbor. She made it a point to dress her up on Halloween, and made sure she looked even cuter than she actually looked. I will never forget Callie in her green and burgundy Halloween costume. Any misgivings I had about dogs being tortured by such frivolous acts of humans vaporized that day. Callie was having fun – and I know that because I know my dogs.

Which brings me to the question, will you be dressing up your dog this Halloween? There are some super cool places out there where you can buy pet costumes that are not just comfy, but apt for the occasion and easy on the pocket. I would, if I could, but Halloween is not a rage here in India so my dogs will have to wait for a while. But if someday it catches on, I will be the first to buy my dogs something to have fun with. For now, I can live with this…