When
we came into our current housing society, we noticed that the security guards
at the main gate had kept two pet dogs. These dogs were never chained; I think
these were stray dogs that the security guards had befriended may be to grant
them some amusement in their unexciting jobs. I noticed that they had tied a
strip with ‘ghunghroos” (metallic bells) around one’s neck, perhaps because she
was a female, and a leather belt around the other who was perhaps male. Over
the time I became much of a fan of these dogs!
I
think these dogs were saintly men in their past life, or will be born as ones
in their next. They never barked! It was not that they could not bark; but they
barked only to protest when some uninvited guest of their own race tried to do
a trespass in our society’s campus. For the whole day they slept peacefully.
But they did not sleep in some hideous place. They made it a point to lie down
and take peaceful long (endless) naps only at the main gate, thereby communicating
that they were not avoiding their duty! Both had white furs and were always clean.
For many months, I saw these two dogs make themselves a peaceful and happy neighborhood
of our society. But something troubling happened yesterday morning!
This
Sunday morning the Municipal Corporation sent some men with a van to catch local
stray dogs! Two men were standing at our main gate with a big net and stick in their
hands. Their van was parked at some distance from our society, with around 20
dogs in it! I looked around for our dogs and found them wandering visibly
uncomfortable at some distance from these guys. They must have smelled
something fishy and hence were maintaining some distance from these guys, and
were no longer sleeping or relaxing. I looked out for the watchman but he was
nowhere around! My heart started beating loud and I became much scared... But I
saw a man who was perhaps employed by the builder; he was telling the dog-catchers,
“these are good dogs; have been here for many years now… they never create any
troubles…” But the dog-catchers were not convinced and were on a constant look
out for our gentle dogs to lie down. At that point, I went out of the society
to buy something. I saw the dogs that were already captured in the van. All
were standing tall, none were fighting or even talking to each other; and were
looking out of the van… One old lady was looking at them from her house, as if
trying to search for her favorite street dog there… (a lot of households feed
the stray dogs at some hour of the day, in purely selfless gestures…)
These
unfortunate dogs won’t be knowing what would happen with them in the coming hours.
I myself did not know. Will they leave these dogs at a faraway distance from
the city? Or will they feed them to the lions of one foreign circus which has
been stationed in our city for many weeks now? Or will they simply poison and
dump them somewhere? It was not nice to think about them. But these dogs won’t be
knowing what could happen to them. We human beings write down our experiences
in the form of books which our children could read and know about things; these
dogs must not have seen such a tragic dog-catching van in their past which
could ruin their life…
I
came back to the society in 5 minutes after buying something. On my way, to my
great pleasure, I watched the van driving away from our locality… I anxiously
rushed to see if our dogs were unharmed, and there they were! Both the friendly
dogs were now standing at the main gate of our society, visibly relieved but
still attentive on finding the dog-catchers leave…
When
we went on shopping during the latter part of the day, I was attracted to kids
section where they had put lot of soft toys in a huge basket. I found so many
small dogs there (toy-dogs and toy-puppies). While I waited for my wife to buy
some essential stuff, I picked these pups up and tried to read their face. Some
(toy) pups were funny; some were mischievous; some were sleepy. One looked so mischievous
that I felt like pulling his ears and putting a gentle slap on him; another was
cute and adorable. Some were big, bulky and uninteresting too. There was one
which was a mix of all good things; his face was full of fun and he smiled with
mischief and amusement. His ears were bent to the front and he had brought his
rear legs to the front to sit much vertically. I wanted to take this dog home
and my wife obliged!
So
we brought this cute little (toy) pup home and I had my favorite place to keep
him – our book-shelf. So I have kept it inside the book self and he looks out
through its glass door. This morning, I woke up and went to meet him there. I
looked into his eyes and remembered our small niece and nephew – they will love
it! But I am not going to share my dog with them; I would rather buy them different
ones and more, but not this!… Like all kids, I am possessive of my possessions
and this little dog is my dearest as of now!!!
:)
So
this was a little gentle dogs’ tale… 100% of what happened, happened in real
life yesterday…
-
Rahul
