dogs

Don’t feed them.

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Not your problem. No one else does. They’re a nuisance.

Our neighbourhood has a matriarch of a female-dog, Heaps, who in the last 18 months has produced two generations. When we returned from our monsoon break last year, her son, whom we lovingly called Livingston (due to his seagull ears), had disappeared. Her daughter, Lilly (as in silly, she eats very slowly which is silly given the other dogs steal her food) had Poppy (from Puppy) who then went on to produce five, all of which the local temple took for adoption.  Lilly also had Bear and Patch who we managed to re-home with a local family.  Heaps then had another four, of whom one disappeared and two starved to death in front of our eyes. The one that survived looks like a Teddy. So, that’s his name. Against popular advice we feed them when everyone has gone to bed. Bad!

A State highway nearby is a regular haunt for these dog families.

We approached the village administration about sterilisation, and they said it was the Town Hall’s responsibility. We went to the Town Hall, and they insisted it was the village administration’s problem.

In view of multiple road traffic accidents caused by dogs, the Supreme Court of India, on 7th November 2025, “imposed a clear and mandatory obligation upon the jurisdictional municipal bodies/authorities to forthwith remove all the stray dogs found within the precincts of such identified institutional areas and to relocate the same to designated shelters, after ensuring due sterilisation and vaccination in accordance with the applicable statutory framework.”

The actions to be completed within a period of eight weeks from that day were –

  1. to establish a mechanism for removal and sheltering of stray animals from highways;
  1. the constitution and functioning of patrol teams; and
  1. the operational status of helpline facilities and installation of sign boards displaying helpline numbers.

There is no helpline. No staff. No designated shelters. No implementation.

We leave for the monsoon again in a few weeks.

Wonder who’ll be here when we return.

A missed opportunity.

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Never have I had so much time and predictability. Days have been rolling at a soft rhythm. This whole drama started nearly a year ago. What have I done with the advantages I’ve had? What do I have to show for it?

Nothing.

People have started new businesses, done a whole lot of voluntary work, written books, got fit, learnt to knit and sew and cook and all that jazz. I am just the same as I was at the start. Still subconsciously judging me based on my productivity. Old habits, like patterns that repeat themselves on an unending roll of synthetic fabric in a psychedelic print. I must admit there is a strange kind of gratification in that. Self-flagellation is a modern virtue.

One lesson we can learn from a dog – it never tries to be a better dog. It is fully accepting of itself. It has no concept of ‘self-improvement’ or ‘achievement’. It’s free of the notions of ‘self’. You might want it to be a better dog but as far as that sweet creature is concerned, it is purely its unadulterated self.

The world was given an opportunity to unite and it managed to cut itself up into even smaller bits – the ones who wear masks everywhere and the ones who don’t, the ones who think that vaccine is God and the others who don’t, the ones who drive beyond 5 kilo-meters and the ones who won’t, the ones who use public transport and the ones who don’t, the ones that can’t wait for the lock-down to end and others who can’t bear the thought of it ending. One side trying desperately to convert the other. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. People went as far as snitching on their neighbours – all in the name of a greater good. Not really for themselves but for other people.

The list of criminal offences has more than doubled in this time while basic human rights have been trampled upon or willingly surrendered. Who would’ve thought that leaving one’s house more than once a day could be classed as a ‘criminal act’?

I suppose I can congratulate myself for staying out of prison for one whole year.

Felicitations dear World. You have just given birth to a baby religion.