#Pictures: Little Musketeers

Little Musketeers - bundle of joys - there are five of them. Most of the time they are hiding below the parked cars in our office space. If we go too close to their "spot", they would then emerge and rush towards us; expecting something to eat. Looking at their faces, it feels like sin not to go there with something for them to eat. 

- Rahul Tiwary

#Pictures: Pups and their TGIF

The little guys were just lying there and playing around:

Then, their colorfully dressed friend arrived with some freshly baked 'rotis' and offered to them to eat: 

The kiddos with small antenna like tails said, "TGIF - thank God it is Friday"!

Pictures (C) Rahul Tiwary

That Puppy on the Street

Last evening, I saw a small pup crossing the road inside our housing society.

There is this building below which there is a car parking. There is a lane in front of the building and on the other side of the lane there is this another car parking. I am sure these days more cars live on the ground than humans, who seem to be hanging in air eternally like the legendary 'Trishanku' did. Now, when we look at a car, what we see is a variety of a car - e.g. a good car or a bad car, a green car or an orange car, a battered car or a safe-until-now car, a car with a tilak on its forehead or a car named 'Mast Gurjar'; a dusty car or a rich car. But when dogs look at a car, they see only one thing - a home. A home which has four bathrooms near the four tires, one roof where they can hike and look down at their tribesmen, and one low-ceiling bedroom in which they can crawl into and just vanish. Even if the car just wakes up and tries to run away, the doggie sleeping below it would still remain unhurt and sleeping. And when you see a doggie chasing a car, be sure that it is not chasing a car but trying to get 'possession' of its home from a runaway builder!

So the pup crossed the road, went inside the car-parking below the building and made a noise. As soon as it made a noise, magic happened and four other pups looking identical to it appeared out of thin air!

What would have happened is this:

There is this big happy family of doggies living in that area. Only humans can be brainwashed by their governments into thinking that only 'small family' can be a 'happy family' while nature has designed all living creatures 'similarly'. Big is better! So this big family of at least five pups lived along with their mother, an occasionally visiting allegedly disloyal father and some dustbins full of trash. One fine evening, the puppies were all sleeping below the cars. The mother left them to go search for some food for herself. Four pups noticed their mother - which they see only as their 'source of food and love' - moving - and hence followed her. One of the puppies was left sleeping below the car. When it wakes up, it crosses the road in the direction of its favorite smell, reaches a point where its 'territory' ends, and then cries. Its brothers could hear it and hence they just jump in!

So the little fellow joined its brothers. And life goes on happily ever after.

Ever wondered how these little puppies which are nothing but lovely bundles of joy grow up to be nuisance spreading, barking, scaring and nothing but four-legged terrorists? Just look at us and you would understand. Life does it to all!

(C) - Rahul Tiwary

A Little Gentle Dog's Tale

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

Animal Lovers

I remember my first poem which was published in our school magazine. I had got a request for a poem and when I looked around for some inspiration, I thought about my neighbor’s dog. They had picked a cute puppy from the roadside and made it their pet. The pup became a hit in the neighborhood. But after some months, it was bitten by a diseased dog and became infected. They tried to get it treated but failed. So they took the pup to a faraway place and left it there. I wrote a touching poem in Hindi, telling about the pup’s plight…

I recall this episode today because this morning, I saw another dog on the road. It still wore a leather belt in its neck – telling about its once-privileged status. It suffered from some skin disease which had ruined its white fur. The dog had no friends and it wandered here and there. Once in a while when it saw a man approaching, as if in an expectation it waged its tail lovingly. But it got contempt in return. Even the roadside tea vendor ridiculed it – he called it by making signs to offer biscuits and when it came nearby, he threatened it and chased it away. I tried to escape from the sad scene, avoiding its eyes – but that wasn’t to happen. The dog looked at me as if searching for its old loving master.

Imagine, such pets would find it horrible to settle down in their new life because they weren’t born or raised in those conditions which make street-dogs accustomed to them.

Such abandoned pets are living examples of this life’s uncertainty. For a part of their life, they were pampered more than like family members. And now, they are rejected and hated by everyone.

I wonder – even after all this, there are terms like “Animal Lovers”. What lovers would throw their love on their streets when sick and vulnerable?

- Rahul