It's A Dog's Life

Just the other day, I was at my usual hangout, the neighbourhood bakery shop, when I heard a couple of guys talking. It seemed they were part of some writers' club and they had an assignment to write on Bangalore in the past decade. That must be something, I thought, since a lot had happened in the city in the past decade. But they seemed to have some difficulty in writing about it since they both were new to the city and would have to conjure much from their imagination. I felt like helping them and moved closer and opened my mouth to say something before they shooed me away. They didn't know I could help them out with their assignment. In fact, they probably didn't understand I even understood what they were saying. Quite possible that they didn't even notice me standing there, the shooing more like a reflex action. You see, I am a stray dog!

On the New Year's Eve at the turn of the millenium, the celebrations were quite exaggerated, probably because the much-dreaded armageddon never happened while Y2K turned out to be only something that helped propel India on to software limelight. My parents, on the other hand, were oblivious to all this. How do I know this? Because I was a product of their personal celebrations that night. Despite that, I was hardly welcomed to this world. To my father, my mother was just another notch on his tail. To my mother, it was a momentary indiscretion she'd rather forget. To me, it meant a tough initiation, as was it for my 3 siblings born with me. I have a vague memory of our mother feeding us for a week or so, but we were soon left to fend for ourselves.

Bangalore was good for a young pup in those days. For starters, we weren't overpopulated. There was enough space for each of us in this city. The food was not abundant, but it was healthier. We didn't have to sift through so much of plastic to find food. Nowadays, I see so many of the young ones gobble up those plastic stuff and getting sick terribly for days together. Of course, we have had a population explosion which hasn't made things any easier. With the city growing, we've had dogs from all around moving over to the city in hopes of better living. Some even hope to be adopted into a human household which would ensure lesser freedom but better lifestyle.

In those earlier days, life was simpler if I compare it to today. We had wider areas for each of our gangs. Even though the city was growing, there were still plenty of trees to pee on to mark out our areas. Occasionally we left our mark on the vehicles parked on the roadside, but that was more for fun than for any real territory marking. Over time, I've seen trees being butchered mercilessly in the name of development. A city that once boasted of its green cover now seems to only have a grey cover of pollution over it. Well, we need to move with time, and move we did. Instead of trees, we started using compound walls for our daily needs. While it wasn't the most comfortable or safest of places, we moved on to the roads to pass out our colonic effluents.

Over the past decade, movement in our territory has become extremely dangerous. Earlier, we could stroll across most roads in the city. Today, that isn't the case. During the morning and evening hours, when these humans go to what they call their offices and come back home respectively, the roads are so packed that we don't have much of a space to walk across. At other times, we have what they call "call-center cabs" who screech through the streets, putting our lives at great risk. Also, due to the pressure of increasing traffic, roads have been widened in some areas. These are equally dangerous because we now have a wider area to cross, if need be. To top it all, isn't the instruction given to every driver not to stop at the sight of a crossing canine because they would swerve out of the way anyway? The number of dead canine bodies seen around the city roads should be disproving this theory, but these humans are funny - they think life is precious, and life for them is only that of a human.

Bangalorean humans consider us as dangerous. Little do they realize that we're frightened at the mere sight of them. Given a chance, I'd stay away from a human, unless he or she is offering me something. Mostly, they just swing their bags or pelt stones at us. They couldn't care one bit whether it hurts us or not. If, for some reason, we do manage to retaliate, mostly at small kids who take perverse pleasure in stoning us, the whole city is up in arms. Humans then begin to increase their hostilities against us, despite both of us being Bangaloreans, and we being the sufferers all along. Judgment is passed on the whole canine population for a stray (pun unintended) dog or two losing their patience and retaliating. They arrange for sending us to concentration camps under the pretext of neutering us.

The city has grown enormously over the past decade. Our population in the city also has increased. The pressure is being felt as each of our gangs have increased while our territories have decreased. As more areas in the city gets richer, the more unwelcome we become. Our presence in such areas is either discreetly frowned upon or openly disapproved. With humans increasing in the city, this past decade has seen a decrease in humanity. I don't have too many years left to live now, and I'm happy my time is nearing. I don't think I would have been able to survive in the next decade, the way things are going. As I look back at a whole decade in this city, I just feel it's been a dog's life!