The first death was the hardest
The driver almost hit a tree when Robert yelled. He had seen a street dog. Robert was from the Austin office visiting us. A staunch dog-lover he couldn’t believe how many street dogs were running around in the city. He wanted to get off the car and hug them.
“You cannot do that, No, absolutely not. These dogs bite and you will get rabies.”
“Really?” He pleaded. “But, Sree they look harmless.”
“Well, they are mostly hungry and upset at the world and they don’t care about your love for their species. You are not hugging those dogs.” I said with finality.
Then we drove into a neighborhood and he shouted again. We looked up. Perched on the water pipes of the building was the cutest pair – a baby monkey clutching onto the breast of a mother monkey.
Time for a nap for these street dogs
Few months after arriving in Chandigarh, I decided to rent the second floor of a house in a nice neighborhood. The rent was modest, a clean and cozy space with two long terraces front and back. A lovely view of tall Eucalyptus and dense mango trees. The lake was close. When I stepped into the large living room, It felt like a sky room, up in the air, ringed by pale yellow sunlight. Out front was a green manicured lawn with flower borders. In winter, large Dahlias, chrysanthemums and hydrangeas bloomed in flowering beds along the perimeter. The back terrace was finished with rough concrete. It turned magical at night. Moonshine fell on the uneven contour, a random chessboard of light and shadows. Silent black triangular shapes glided over my head when I stood at the edge– bats. This would be my home for the next four years.
Within a fortnight of our settling into our new home, my daughter took to feeding the street dogs, big dogs with calm eyes. I overcame my fear of rabies. One particularly took her fancy. A giant of a dog, with eyes like the morning sky. We bought a little steel platter and fed him every day. He took to hanging around the house and the neighborhood. We didn’t know then – love for street dogs can be heart-breaking. Street dogs are not welcome in nice neighborhoods with their manicured gardens.
He came into our lawn one morning and lay there, listless, eyes vacant, dribble streaming from his mouth. Meghna rushed in to tell me. We ran out.
She said, “Mom, I think he is sick. Maybe, he needs some warm milk and maybe Tylenol.”
“Maybe, it’s the heat, sweetie, maybe, he has had what they call here a heat stroke.” I said.
As the day progressed, I knew we were wrong. His eyes closed slowly and his breath became faint. I sat close fanning his head with a paper fan till I heard a long resigned sigh and then nothing.
He had been poisoned. A big dog in the garden was an intrusion.
Meghna had gone back inside the house and was watching TV when I came in.
“What happened Mom?” She knew but didn’t want the truth and I did not have the courage to tell her.
“Oh I think he fainted, I am going to have him sent to the hospital, sweetie.”
She didn’t ask me about the dog again.