I have been reading The Book of Dog edited by Hemali Sodhi which claims to be an anthology celebrating our beloved best friends. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to review this book- it touches too close to the heart; but I’ve made it a point to recount my tryst with numerous animals whose pawprints have touched my life in inexplicable and multifarious ways. So, over the course of the next few weeks, I shall attempt (mostly, in vain) to explain the inexplicable. The first in this series is titled “URGENT- Puppy nowhere to be found”.
On a hot September afternoon I was just ready to go to my hostel room and take a nap before I had to go back to the acad block to prepare for my moot throughout early morning hours, when I chanced upon a puppy that could barely walk and looked like he was in a very bad shape. On a closer look, I noticed that his body had been infested with maggots. Yet his little tail would wag every time he received pets. The puppy also had a very serious case of mange. I was appalled by the fact that people around me were least interested in helping this poor baby. Some people helped me rub turmeric and betadine over its body, while most people watched with disgust. I contacted all the animal welfare organizations in the city, veterinarians, sought help from professors, but no one was available right away. A veterinarian who also rescues and fosters animals said he would be available the next day, so I decided to wait.
In the meanwhile, I e-mailed everyone in the university to come forward and help in any way they can. In a world where human beings barely show any humanity to other fellow human beings, I really expected people to come forward and help a puppy that objectively looks like something no one would ever want to go near. He was emaciated, chronically dehydrated, had maggots crawling out of wounds on his body, and a serious case of mange. People abandon and abuse pedigreed dogs and where I was expecting a bunch of low EQ people to sympathize and help. In retrospect, even though my emails may seem like a joke to anyone who reads them now, I would probably do it all over again if I had to.
Any way, since I had to take matters into my own hands, I made a makeshift shelter out of boxes for him, arranged for some towels, a water bowl, and kept feeding him intermittently. I sat with him from 2pm that day until 5am the next morning. I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and was starting to feel extremely sleepy and tired from running around all afternoon and sitting in the same position for 12 hours. I made the worst decision I could have possible made- to rely on another human being. I asked the security guard in front of the acad block to please keep an eye on the puppy and that I would be back in an hour. Just one hour. I just wanted one hour of sleep. By the time I returned, the puppy was nowhere to be found. I asked around, looked outside the campus, nowhere.
Guess what’s the worst thing you can do apart from relying on another human being? It is to expect from them. I wrote yet another email after a long search, hoping someone would have seen him, or at least volunteer to look for him. I made a coupled of angry calls to members in the animal welfare committee for their lack of responsibility, and that’s it. Then there was a breakdown. Which lasted for a whole week, even more. I cried, could not sleep, had nightmares about losing my dog back home. I could not stop thinking about him, whether he was okay, or dead, or alive. I tried to cling to every hope and possibility of him making it somewhere safe, not far away from campus. I hoped he would return. My search continued every day, for a long time. But then reality sank in and my hope was overshadowed by desolation: there’s no way he would have recovered without proper treatment, no way the maggot wounds would have healed by themselves. Mostly, I cannot (till this date) forgive myself or forget the fact that at the very same hour when I was fast asleep, this poor terrified thing was on the run, or worse, deliberately kicked out.
In this context, I like to recall a particular essay from the book titled ‘Part-Time Dogs’ by Jai Arjun Singh where he mentions, “Urban ‘development’ aims to weed out the natural world from our lives; to erase paw prints from cement. It is based on the hubris that we are exalted creatures, capable of living autonomously in our concrete bubbles, after having impinged on the territories of other species; never mind the consequences for the ecology and for our own physical and emotional health.“.
So when yesterday I could not find one of the strays called Tripod (she is three legged) near my home in Bangalore, my heart skipped a beat and I started getting flashbacks from three years ago when the puppy went missing. I informed everyone immediately about Tripod’s absence and went to look for her myself (this time around I had learnt my lesson about not relying on other people). Guess what? I found her happy and healthy, she came running to me, jumped on me, and covered with the sloppiest kisses. I was at peace. As Jai Arjun Singh says, we have a big responsibility, those few of us who care about these vulnerable creatures. The ‘strays’, who only know a small patch of terrain as their forever home.
Literature, Poetry and Reading. 