Beige and Black
I sat musing in my own world, when a beige colored dog, that had been my focus of interest for the past half an hour, ran away to a more nourishing surrounding, richly laden, enough to let him wag his tail. I had been ready to pounce back upon him had he shown any intentions of doing the same to me. I am wary of dogs, having been bitten twice and clawed at, on my chest, once. This dog, a stray one, fortunately, seemed to have had a rather decent upbringing since he showed no inclination of attacking my modesty with his canines. He did not even consider me worthy enough to come up for a pat, as it did with most other passers-by. That suited me fine. I am paranoid about dogs attacking me. Him safely out of the way, I found a corner of my own an made an effort to clean it with my hands. With hands serving as a dustpan, capable of bearing no more, I shifted my faculties to cleaning the place by blowing tiny puffs of air, having sadly been devoid of a tail to do the same, by some higher power, who somehow failed to foresee the utmost importance of a tail when men sat in company of dogs.Finally, I did settle down into a not so cosy, but rather comfortable position, not much unlike dogs again. I generally tend to behave in the manner of the entity that is in my vicinity and has also encroached, to some extent, on my mind. As a matter of fact, I identify the most with a sunflower, the sun in my case being any ethnically pretty female human species. Anyways, coming back to our beige colored dog, who still does not have a name, sauntered away, possibly to a more congenial environment, since the vibes between us could not be possibly called friendly. Ever since my encounters with those two blood thirsty hounds who had the audacity to vent their frustrations on me of all people, I have held a deep sense of regard and esteem for the doggy community and treat them with reverence. The reverence surfaces only as long as there is a dog within a mile of my present location. Once out of its way, my deep rooted hatred takes complete control over me and in my fury, I swear to kill, or at least, bite a dog the very next time I see one. All that arrogance translates itself into undying fervent love for the dog, when actually faced with one the next instant.
Breaking out of my reverie, I chanced to see that very beige colored dog, haughtily marching towards me, with a piece of bread hanging precariously between its clenched teeth, as if determined to rip me apart. I think it would have given the dog a huge ego boost, had he been able to listen to the voices of my conscience. So, he comes up to me, looks directly into my frightened little orbs with his big, bright, beady eyes, as if trying to prove a point of his own, and settles down next to me. I presume he presumed that we were on some sort of a date in which he was playing the role of the man, being the breadwinner, literally. I, even after being driven mad by curiosity, dared not ask him his gender or endeavor to do the same myself. I have used ‘him’ throughout to describe the dog till now. Readers will please take note that the him over here is used in a generic sense and does not necessarily imply the male sex. This distinction is specifically for the dogs and does not apply to myself.
Even as I was trying to make myself believe the incredulity of the situation, my first date, with a dog, completely nude, with uninhibited carnal instincts, a second dog, this one black in color, comes running in slow motion, as if directly out of a motion picture. I guess he (naughty you, I know you are thinking whether this one is a male or a female) must have been a struggler in the film fraternity and came over to our side, the stray people, once he knew that he did not have the talent to match the top dogs of the industry. At this moment, our beige colored dog is sprawling on the ground, driven by the illusion that he was at his own farmhouse, on a long holiday from the cares of the world. The piece of bread was lying beside him, an open invitation to me to join him. Well, I had the decency to say no, as my mother had always taught me not to accept any eatables from strangers, and moreover, the bread might have contained a bomb, but the black colored dog was not so worldly wise. I think his mother must have forgotten to tell him about food poisoning or else, he must have come from an extremely undernourished family, where even poison is food. So, whatever his reasons might be, this black dog seriously did not have the manners that befit such a solemn occasion, and he grabbed the piece of bread and walked away to a clearing a little farther away. My dumb luck, to be a ‘bone’ of contention of two dogs, the genders of whom, I am not sure of, even now.
Now the beige colored dog showed such supreme indifference at his piece of bread being taken away, that I was taken by surprise. I do not express this concern because I was to share that bread, but purely from an impersonal, to the extent of being ascetic, point of view. When you look at the dogs of today (yesterday, I was not born), they invariably end up fighting over everything they have to share. So, the first reaction that I had expected was the beige colored dog to jump up, bark incessantly, go round and round in circles, glare and snarl at me, and march on to protect his rights, to clutch the throat of the black dog and snatch the piece of bread, even if that fight left the piece unfit for eating for anyone. And here I was, witnessing a near miracle. Probably, he was a spiritually superior dog, and knew life as it was, its intricacies and the futility of avoidable skirmishes, and the joy of sharing and giving. It seemed pretty self satisfied and content. The black dog, in the meanwhile, had gulped the whole bread in one humungous effort. Maybe he too was anticipating a fight and wanted to savor his victory before that. Seeing peace and calm all around, my nerves soothed and I released the pole I had been clinging to and had been ready to climb, had the need arisen.
It was all nice and homely for sometime. The three of us took turns at looking into each others eyes, trying to gauge the depth of emotions that were rising from deep within, enabling us to fathom that thing that binds a man to a dog, a dog to a man and a beige colored dog to a black colored dog. It was one of the most enlightening moments of my life, when I felt that life held a bigger, deeper meaning than ruing missing tails or fighting for bread or going on dates with dogs. I could see it in their eyes that they felt the same. I felt a strong sense of bonding for them at that moment. We were all crusaders, moving, slowly but surely, towards the same goal. Just as that elusive truth was within our cumulative grasp, a dumb witted lesser mortal came along with amorous ways to lure the dogs away. Seeing him, the beige colored dog shot forward and nuzzled his nose against his knees, an expression of fervent love. The mortal stroked him gently, and patted him on his as good as moth-eaten back.
Being a witness to this act of kindness, I felt jealous at my incapability at having failed to evoke the same response from either of the dogs but found solace in the fact that at least I had the black dog my side in this moment of loneliness. What I did not find, when I looked around was the black dog. My grief knew no bounds at such a shocking loss to that mortal, who was but my reflection. He could not have dared match me but for this day, when I was out of sorts. In the meanwhile, the black dog had encroached upon the love of the mortal, and again the beige colored dog had retreated, silently bearing the anguish at the loss of new found love. The black dog, on the contrary, took full advantage of the sacrificing nature of his counterpart and stood on his hind paws. Embracing the mortal with his front paws and licking him all over, he lingered on as moments passed, wagging his tail in sheer delight. It was pure joy to see him in ecstasy.
As I sat there after the dogs had betrayed me for that mortal, who did not even have the courtesy to thank me, the events got me thinking. Why did that beige colored dog let go of his rightful things so easily? Why did he not fight for it? Why was he not dejected at his loss, or was he? I could only come up with a few standard explanations for this occurrence. One could be that he was one of those meek, subdues dogs, who take it for granted that they have to submit to the atrocities of the bullies and not retaliate as it is against the norms. They have learnt to bear with every humiliation, every infringement of their rights and move on, without desires, without happiness, dragging along, as life has them on a leash.
Another reason could be that the black dog had, at an earlier time, been wronged by our dear friend, the beige colored dog, and he was now compensating for it by giving his own by right to the black dog, so that he gets his due. It could be that the beige dog was repentant and shamefaced and that is why it did not attack its counterpart at having been literally robbed of both food and love within a space of a few minutes. He probably lived a life of constant guilt and wanted to redeem himself in the doggy community of which he was an outcast and he saw this as an opportunity to make his ends meet. That would imply that the beige colored dog was either really regretful or extremely clever and pounced on opportunities as and when they came.
The third reason could be that he was in love with the black colored dog and was trying to hit upon him or impress him with his vows of eternal love by being all sacrificing and nice. He probably wanted to show the black dog what a good spouse he’d make, given a chance and would let the black dog be the ‘DOG’ of the family. His actions might have emanated from a desire to either impress his love interest or as a direct consequence of his genuine feelings towards that dog. Frankly speaking, I am not good at reading the expressions and emotions that dogs express, so I would not know for sure what the exact reason might be, but it sure got me thinking, seeing such animals exercise so much self-constraint when the supposedly civilized people are all the time reliving a conflict or another over food and love that they do not even deserve, let alone, own. Who, then, should be called civilized? Who is the higher being? What commands more respect?
I have been unable to unearth the answers to these questions as yet. Can you?
posted by Swetank Gupta @ 11:32 am
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