It was a horrific sight for me. I chanced upon it sometime during the monsoon of 2006, the year when we had just shifted to our new residence. I couldn’t help but shriek out, “Dad! Help! They’re going to die!”
I had been gaping eyes-wide, mouth-wide, heart in my mouth, holding my breath at a litter of… I forget, two, may be three, puppies. They were huddled close together. Had it been some other time, I might have thought they looked cute. But the horrific part was that they were shivering uncontrollably, drenched to the bone, trying to stay warm under my mother’s old car. It was literally pouring cats and dogs! I spotted their brave mother trotting away with one out of her litter in her mouth. I presumed she was looking for a warm and dry place to relocate her litter to. The trouble was that this slow, one-by-one transference would surely have cost a life. And I was not going to let that happen!
My dad rushed out. He had to, anyways, as it was almost 7:50 AM. I was already running late for school. However, my dad and I (for once), were on the same page and gave the safety of the puppies top priority. Hence he rushed back inside and was out in less than a minute, carrying an old shoe-box. Very gently we put the puppies into the snug cardboard box and lowered the lid just enough to allow some amount of ventilation and to block out the merciless rain. Needless to say, they survived.
That was how I had discovered Dolly. I don’t remember exactly why or how she had been christened thus but that name was to stay.
I didn’t see the puppies for some time after that. Then one day my brother barged into my room excitedly (I use the word barge in, though he had only walked in, but it felt like barging since I had been quite busy preparing for my examination, and wished nothing more than to be left alone in peace and silence) and dragged me outside. There, just inside the gate, sat a tiny little pup staring up with shiny wide open eyes, as only a dog is capable of. It was so tiny it would have fitted in my hand! I noticed (maybe it was my hyper active imagination) that it had a very guilty expression and looked so nervous! I just couldn’t stop myself. Forgetting all about my notes and piles upon piles of textbooks waiting to be read, I ‘scooped’ up our little guest and spent the next hour molly-coddling it. It was ADORABLE! Really, such cuteness should be made illegal – for the good of the students and the future of our country! In due course, I discovered why it had seemed so guilty – it had relieved itself comfortably near my mother’s flower pots.
I had recognized it instantly as one of those miserable puppies whom we had ‘rescued’ from the evil showers that monsoon. Dolly was a common street crossbreed, a half-Labrador probably I think, and a she. She had a lovely reddish-brown coat with black markings around the eyes and a distinctive white band across her forehead. And as I told you (in fact, I can’t stop saying it), as a pup she was an absolute cutie pie!
A nuclear family such as ours has never been able to keep ‘live-in’ pets. We have had some fishes, but with disastrous consequences that I do not even wish to recall. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to develop my own army of injured birds, stray cats, squirrels and stray dogs. Hence, Dolly became, not a pet I could carry around the house in my arms and pamper with Pedigree dog-food, but one I could pet everyday on the way to and back from school and feed tidbits coaxed out of my mother’s immense store. As I progressed from class to class, I saw her grow into a beautiful dog. She wasn’t one of those rude, constantly yapping galli-wale kutte. In fact, I’ve never seen her so much as snap at any unsuspecting passerby (even cats, as long as they weren’t too close for her comfort). She was always serene, always very polite, graceful and well-behaved… ‘lady like’ even, and a favourite of my father, who has hated dogs ever since that unfortunate incident ages back that had left him with 14 injections to his belly. Even my mother seemed to be quite fond of her.
I was pleasantly surprised when one day in the summer of 2007, she brought with her two tiny creatures, waddling behind her hind legs nervously. She came to us with a second litter (consisting of four really fat puppies) the following January. My brother and I took great care of them and had lots of fun trying to come up with interesting names for them, which mostly rhymed with or seemed similar to ‘Dolly’. We even named a later pair ‘Rock’ and ‘Roll’ and then there were a Ronaldo and a Fernando Torres (Fatty), given by my brother of course. I try not to think of her offsprings much! Too many sad memories for my comfort. There was one who seemed to have died of ‘anorexia’, one was battered to death by a neighbour due to a disease he had contacted after a mad monkey bit him, one got run over by a speeding Toyota Qualis and four others were taken away by someone and I shudder to think what fate had in store for them. Let me simply sum it up by saying that I’ve shed more tears on being parted from my animal friends than on the death of any relative! This also brings back painful memories of my old cats… but that’s another story..
Dolly led a pleasant life. She made friends with all the other packs in her own community and as a result something unusual happened in our neighbourhood. While there had earlier been small and segregated packs who would lash at each other viciously, now they had become a more or less unified dog-family (something similar to European Union..:)). It was common to see her with her (handsome) mate lounging in the park, always keeping away from the benches as though they understood that lounging on them was not a luxury they were allowed, unlike other dogs who didn’t show any such maturity.
My greatest cause of grief when Fatty had died had been regret. Regret due to my ridiculous decision to give these stray dogs a taste of Pedigree dog-food and not being able to fulfill my wish. My dad had always been strongly against the idea, claiming that it would spoil the mongrels. As if! I believed every dog should have his day! But then Fatty got run over and my wish remained unfulfilled. I resolved to pamper Dolly and her latter litter with a big packet which I would secretly purchase with my pocket money, which is sufficient to buy several packets, but either I’d forget my purse at home when I would be at the market or they would be out of stock… Basically I never got around to buying it. When only two remained of her third litter, I decided I should buy the packet soon. I still lazed around, taking my time. I thought I had so much time. I was so wrong.
A few days back while I was walking to school, my father pointed at Dolly in alarm. She had drool trickling down her mouth. She looked ill. I should have done something immediately. I should have immediately asked dad to take her to a vet. I should not have taken it lightly, thinking she’d get over it. Yet I walked on, just a little concerned. I thought she’d recover. I thought she had so much time.
Engrossed in my selfish thoughts and reminiscing about school, it wasn’t until I entered through my gate yesterday that I heard it – a terrible moan, a painful whining. I swung around in alarm. There she lay, my calm and composed friend of many seasons, under a car, right across the street, twitching and howling in such pain as though the Devil himself had slashed at her intestines. I stared in shock. Then I dashed inside, flinging my schoolbag right across the living room, and hurriedly boiled all the milk that was kept in the fridge. Then I poured it all in a dispensable bowl, ran to her and lay the bowl beside her. She couldn’t have been rabid, she just couldn’t. She didn’t attack me at all but instead lapped up all the milk so ravenously that I had tears well up in my eyes. What could have caused such a good soul such incredible pain? She was still polite. She still did not snap at me, who deserved worse. When my parents came home, all they said was “Stay away from her! She may have rabies; it’s highly communicable and incurable!”
But how could I do that? My best friend was dying. But I did that all right. I went and hid in my room, trying to study for my exams. I raked with huge sobs, but did not go out. My heart longed to see her… get a last glimpse, but my feet were rooted to the floor, defeated. I could have asked them to get her a vet, but didn’t. It would have been of no use. Shock had frozen time for me. I was under the illusion that there was time, that there was still time, a lot of time…
Somehow, I got lost in my books and it was dark outside when my father came in and tried to console me. “I’m sad for her too,” he said. I wanted to say, ‘Let’s go out and see her,’ but from somewhere in my mind a voice said, ‘It’s no use. They’d never allow you to get near a diseased dog. She’s probably dead already’.
She’s probably dead already. I pushed away my books and instead, started to type out this article on my laptop. I knew I had a lot of time until dinner. I could go out and see her one last time; but somehow, writing this out seemed more important. Maybe I am just not brave enough to face the reality. There are things that can shake one from within. For me, I think it is the idea of such an unfair and untimely death. She should have had many more years to live. I want to make her immortal. It seemed to me, that’s the least I could do! There are so many creatures under the Sun like her who come and go, without leaving a mark but at the core of some hearts, like mine. She was such a being. Oh! How I’m going to miss her…So much!
I don’t know, as I type these lines, whether Dolly, my faithful friend, is still alive. Just for her sake, I wish the negative. If she is alive and miraculously well, then I’ll see her tomorrow. I’ll splurge on her. I’ll buy her the best treats. I might even force my parents to adopt her. I’ll…
If not… then may God rest her soul! At the moment, I’m just so grieved about the fact that I never got around to feeding her any Pedigree dog-treats…
As I walked to school today, there she was, lounging on a patch of grass and dry leaves with her two puppies, alive and miraculously well.
(Epilogue: I planted this article on my dad’s desktop and he promptly brought home a packet of pedigree dog food!)
Priyanka Das
Class XII, Mother’s International School, New Delhi
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