….now that my dog-love button has been restarted I remember all those years of pure fun, kindness (not just from me to them….it came both ways), love, affection, trust …..such sweet memories!
Where it all began…..
I was an avid dog-lover…yeah avid…that’s the adjective, n yeah it had b’com a thing of my past (until recently) since 2002! The place where I grew up in was a huge ECL (Coal India) colony with high walls lining its circumference. And we had dogs …. all over the place! About 20-30 dogs including pups (mostly pure Indian breeds) populated our colony. Most of the people there, about 60 odd families, loved them.
We (my Mom, me, bhai, n our next door neighbour Mukherjee aunty) had named each of them. There was Nepali (I named him this ’coz he had those cute Asian features), Kalu (me again - well ‘coz he had a black coat, which btw was beautiful n silky), Sush (courtesy Ma - coz she was the prettiest lil white thing n Ma’am Sush was the reigning Miss Universe then), Mejo (bhai had named this one…coz it was a mid-sized dog and in Bangla…mejo is a colloquial term for the middle one), Lalmoni (Mukherjee aunty – as this one had a lush reddish-brown coat n ‘moni’ stands for the dear one :) ), Tommy (we were out of names n since we had named it’s sister lalmoni, we just found a name n started calling him that :) ), B[n]adu (ma thought he was a Bandar-mukhi – the moneky-faced one), n there were many more. We loved them all. It’s been 10 years since we’ve moved more than 150 kms away from there. Ma used to make extra chapattis for them, we played with them all the time, they got a good yelling when they did something naughty…hehe just like me n bhai :p .
Sometimes when they’d get into fights amongst themselves, I would get inside their little woofy-howly episodes and break the fight. They never attacked me. I did this ‘coz they’d get bruised n wounded in these fights n I hated that ‘coz they’d limp after that, or have a broken ear, or something as painful. But you know what…I got into trouble because of this on a strange street long back. These dogs didn’t know me n I was in the habit of trying to break these fights. When I saw them getting at each other, I stepped close n stupidly enough tried to stop them…..tried making “tch tch” sounds, yelled at them asking them to stop. And while most of them got confused and stopped, one of the full-grown males suddenly came right at me ….. I managed a narrow escape. I swore I’d never get too close to unknown ones until I had ascertained to them that I’m not there to hurt them.
I so miss those good ol’ days, n I miss Nepali – he was one of my favourite friends. I loved him n patted him …. n even though he was not one of those dogs which loved being cuddled….he loved it when I did it. I miss him! He waited for me near the colony entrance gate just around the time when I’d come back from school. He’d jump up a bit, wag his little tail, make little groaning sounds until I patted him. Then he’d go. I’d have to call out to it to bring it back n feed it. He never demanded food … just a pat n some love J. Now, I am jealous of God ‘coz he has him. I hope he’s having a great time getting the fairy services in heaven ;)
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