The Grand Feast

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I live in the Whitefield area of Bangalore, where the street  i live is definitely special for one reason.

The # of dogs and puppies in the street.

There are five houses in the street and 7 pet dogs in total.  In addition, there are 4 street dogs and about 7/8 puppies. I have never seen such a small street with so many dogs. Except the pet dogs, all the others are always on the road. All the residents in the street love dogs and feed them very well. So, the dogs have a good time. Since, all they need is food & water, the dogs and puppies never leave the street. Between the 2nd and 3rd house on the street is an empty land, where all these dogs reside.

Our house owners also have a white fur dog, named Tommy. My house owner loves & cares about Tommy more than her husband and children [:)]. Her younger son Chandru loves animals a lot and feeds all the dogs on the street with the meager pocket money he receives from his parents.

Next to my house is a school which teaches Vedic Mathematics to children on Saturdays and Sundays. During weekends, the street which is usually calm, suddenly gets busy with a lot of vehicles which come to drop children at the school. The drivers have a tough time as these puppies keep moving across the road and some of them even sleep in the pot-holes. Most of the puppies which are brown in color, are hard to differentiate for a fast driver, especially while they are sleeping in the pits.

One Sunday evening, i was coming home on my new Honda Activa, and i saw all my neighbors gathered in front of the school. When i stopped my vehicle and went near the gathering, i saw a small brown puppy which was lying on the ground and gasping for breath and i was informed that it met with an accident. One of the vehicles which came to drop the students at school ran over the puppy which was sleeping on the road. Unfortunately the vehicle crushed its nose and tongue. Though the remaining physical system was untouched, the dog couldn’t breathe air and drink water offered by my mom and other neighbors. We knew it could die any minute.

Sensitive Chandru was almost in tears, and was red with anger. He would have cursed the harsh driver over a thousand times by then.

Me and Chandru quickly grabbed the dog, and drove to the nearest dog care center/vertinary hospital. The hospital was closed. We tried reaching the doctor’s  number on the hospital hoarding. No one picked up.

Chandru immediately called the local doctor who gives injections to Tommy every month. Unfortunately he had gone to the city, and said that he would take more than 4 hrs to return. When we were about to go to another hospital which is far away, the neighbors intervened and said that all other vertinary hospitals will be closed on Sunday. More over, the nose and tongue of the puppy were completely crushed. The injuries were beyond repair. We realized that their argument made perfect sense.

The dog died a few minutes after that. Me and Chandru had to keep our emotions aside and say good bye to the puppy.

All through this incident, and for a long time after that, a story was ringing in my head. Its from the book “Stories to share and enjoy” by Partap C Agarwal, a retired professor from Cornell university. Let me summarize the story for you.

The author used to go for a walk in a park near his house in Hyderabad. Once when he entered a bush to attend a nature’s call, he noticed a little white puppy which was less than a month old. Slowly, he made friends with it. He called the puppy, Chitta (meaning white in Punjabi) because he was so plump and white that when he walked, anyone would mistake him for a rolling cotton ball. The puppy used to follow Partap, during his daily evening walks and used to play with him.

One morning he didn’t see Chitta and wondered what happened to him. When he went into the bush, he realized that Chitta was bleeding and was in great pain. When author asked Chitta what had happened, he answered

“Oh Brother, I am in great pain. I was run over by a speeding scooter. A young man was driving; a pretty young woman was riding on the pillion. The vehicle went out of control. I was lying half asleep on the side of the road. It went over my back crushed my legs and broke a vertebrae and pelvis. Should i blame the poor driver, the girl or my wrong choice of place to sleep? Perhaps all of them together and destiny caused the accident”

“I cannot walk anymore. The fracture is complex. I think my end is near. But, I am not afraid. Death will be relief from pain. I have found this secluded corner to lie down and starve to death. Fasting makes you groggy and subdues pain. Soon i will lose consciousness and that will be a signal to my friend the crow to come and eat up my eyes and make me blind to the world. Other birds too will get the message and descend to feast on my body. This will be good for I too will be in the feast as the host. I will give to my fellow beings what i got from life. After all what is death? Chitta will cease to exist but every bit of his body will feed life in his brothers and sisters. They too will some day die, and chitta reborn in a new body. The flow of life will go on and that is what counts”

I was wondering if the puppy which died on our street was thinking like Chitta, before it passed away.

A  few days later i was going through the rough patch where the dead puppy was placed and i saw separated body pieces and scattered bones.

A Grand Feast would have happened, with the brown puppy as the host, giving away his whole body with joy.