I am an Indian stray dog. At the end of that sentence, I still wonder why anybody would be interested in my story or my plight; nevertheless, I will go on like I generally do with my life. I scavenge my way around for a meal & look for a quiet corner to rest my scrawny body. It’s a dog’s life.
The story of a nameless Indian stray dog
Sometimes, I wonder regarding the usage of the word dog in so many phrases, a dog’s life, the underdog not to mention the innumerable movies where my existence is used & abused in their titles & dialogues. If you ask me, it particularly sounds even worse when used in the vernacular language.
But Really, How much of a difference does my existence make in an average Indian human’s life? Yes, I admit, I meet some humans who seem more friendly & compassionate than the regular foul-mouthed stone-pelting Indian, but again that gets me back to another dog saying “Every dog has his day” and I don’t see many of those days.
See Also: I am a stray dog
It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.
~Rorschach, Watchmen
I am a nameless stray, born in murky gutters to sniveling bitches.
My very existence is testimony to Darwin’s theory of survival. I pushed & shoved my siblings to just grab a mouthful of that satiating warm milk which was just the beginning of a little more than pushing & shoving just to fill my ever-hungry, rumbling stomach.
See also: Adopt a dog
No prizes for guessing where my siblings are; one lay decaying, crushed under the unforgiving wheels of a garbage truck before the same wrinkle faced garbage collector scooped the dead mass & dumped it in the same truck. The other not so luckier ones found our ways to other streets & corners trying to make a decent life of the one we were cursed with. My siblings are everywhere. We all have different stories, yet the same. We all look different, yet, we are the same; the Indian stray dog.
Did you know stray dogs are the best suited for Indian conditions?
We all are bound by that one single thread, weighed down by circumstances, weighed down by our looks & our origins. While patriotism is in its frenzied state, during red-letter days & rallies & protests, we have no takers. While dog shows are organized for our counterparts with their fancy ears & faces, we are considered a menace.
See: I am a dog in Bangalore
What humans fail to understand is that the same fancy dogs that are abandoned on the street, add to our numbers. Their genetic makeup gets ensconced into ours, while we merge with them; yet, we retain our identity, & take pride in the fact that no two Indian dogs would ever look the same. We outlive our blue-blooded counterparts, with all their high-class breeding & champion bloodlines, in spite of the conditions that we live in. Yet, we have no takers.
We love our human friends, just the same & would gladly sleep in any corner they feel fit to dispatch us to. We are happy little mutts with wagging tails, no different, yet, are perceived so differently.
We are the same, but just as different.
If only the hypocrisy & craze for everything from foreign shores would peter out someday, we would get our rightful place under the sun, beside the hearth & under a roof.
If only we had a voice.
If only we knew the language.
If only we would be acknowledged for what we really are,
The Indian dog, without the tag of the word, stray.
Here’s a list of helpline numbers for Animal shelters and NGOs working for the stray animals in Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.
Dog lover & ace photographer Gokul Krishnan shares this heartfelt rendition of an Indian stray dog’s plight as a guest post for Dog with Blog. Originally featured as photo-essay ‘Stray Dogs in Indian cities’ at strays.in
I know that feel bro.
And then there are days when I think no matter how much I do, I can never do enough. That it will never be enough, there will always be hungry stomachs. Always an abused, tortured animal somewhere. Always a dog dying and no one to take care of it. Always a dog abandoned by his family, wandering the streets – scared and lonely and utterly confused. Always the kids who will throw stones at them, never ever been taught better by the society and their elders. People who would hurt a dog, not of fear but of pure spite and sadistic pleasure. Of cars which go too fast crushing the nameless stray merely trying to live in this cruel, heartless world.
There are days when I think of all this and more. Of the contrast between the life my pet has, pampered as a child by my Mum, loved even more than me and then of the countless animals on the roads. I think all this and then i think of you and me, and the the few left who try and make it better. Maybe it doesn’t make much difference, maybe it’s not enough.
But it’s better than nothing, and maybe someday, someday, there will be more on our side, and on our furry friend’s side, after all it is on the same side of the line.
There were times when the same conundrum engulfed me; of trivial details and meager numbers. Believe me lady, even one act of kindness resonates till eternity. It makes a difference for that one lost stray in the wild world. Remember the starfish story?
I do remember, and I’ll be foolish to forget it. Thank you 🙂
We recently adopted an indian street dog.
He is so cute. I have shot a video of him too.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2GmYKkl8sk
So poignant, so beautifully written.
My mom feeds the dogs of the colony religiously; we can’t take them in as we’ve adopted cats which we spay and give out for adoption.
The friendly neighbourhood dog, “kalu” as we lovingly call him, has been the victim of numerous municipality attempts at taking strays to pounds where they’re put to death. But our community people have stood up for him. These animals are truly like friends/family, wonderful and loyal companions and should be treated with the respect and compassion that they deserve!
This world needs more humans like your mom. *bows down*
I hope and pray that Kalu like a knight will fade off all the wicked attempts of the municipal authorities. May he find a home he can call his own real soon.
On another note, I am a mastiff myself and am often called by this moniker, Kaalu (initiated for Kaalicharan).