Black Dog

It was a day like any other day. The month of December. Early morning with Delhi’s infamous smog making it seem much colder than it was.

Raj and I were on our usual stroll from our residence at Pamposh to what the R Block residents proudly tom tom as their ornamental Park. We came out on the main road, myself in front and Raj bringing up the rear.There was no intimation of impending peril.

Suddenly, as we approached the unfinished building of the GK I Police Station, two dogs emerged from the darkness and   emitted a general bark in our direction. This was standard operating procedure for Dogs on Duty.   I looked nonchalantly towards them and waved my stick. They retreated tactically. So far so good.

Telling myself inaudibly that there was no danger from these canine rascals, I plodded ahead. The duo now decided to move towards Raj in a threatening pose which took her entirely by surprise. She shouted something in Kashmiri, possibly Drr Drr, as we do to dogs in Kashmir.

But they were not Kashmiri dogs to be intimidated by a mild reproof by a memsaab. They went on barking.   Raj got nervous, fearing the worst and stated retreating as they moved towards her, barking loudly.

Raj says that she was reminded of an incident  that took place in the Park a few months ago, where a stray dog had attacked a woman walker inside the Park. The lady had to have several anti-rabies injections and had stopped coming to the Park. She says that she went backwards only to escape a similar fate. In her fright she also uttered a mild shriek.

It was the shriek that alerted me to the realisation that all was not well. I turned and was in time to see the two dogs moving dangerously towards Raj and Raj raising her two arms in a gesture of self-protection and nervous retreat In slow motion. I saw Raj keeling over and falling on her back.

I hurried beside her, waving my stick belligerently at the dogs.  I asked Raj to get up as a car was coming behind her.   I tried to hold her hand, but she said she was unable to get up. Meanwhile two  other chaps materialised from the darkness and shoo’d the dogs away.

When Raj finally got up with a visible effort, I asked her to walk a few steps. She did so and to everyone’s relief said that she did not seem to have broken any bones.

We then proceeded on our usual walk at our accustomed speeds. The word spread like wild fire and soon the scanty population of winter walkers in the Park fawned over  Raj ., each with a word of sympathy.

I raised the question of stray dogs and the menace they posed to the peace-loving population. I suggested that our management committee take up this momentous issue with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. But the suggestion was pooh-poohed away by the question of whether the weather would play truant.

Someone laid the blame entirely at the door of Maneka Gandhi who had assumed the avatar of Protectoress of all animals. She had laid down the law that stray dogs were not to be eliminated. So if you rang up the MCD Cell, they might capture the dogs of your locality but it would not kill them. They would be released quietly in some other community of unsuspecting innocent citizens without publicity or fanfare.

But why blame the MCD?? Had not the Supreme Court of India decreed that even a murderer or dacoit could not be handcuffed on his journey to the lockup or jail? How ridiculous could human rights or animal rights activism get!

Next day, when I passed the crime spot , taking care to walk gingerly and noiselessly on the other side of the road, I was flabbergasted to see the black dog of yesterday barking his head off. He was wearing a coat around his body to protect his delicate skin against the onslaught of winter.

And behind me walked Raj with nervous tread, wearing a  belt under her jacket, to accelerate the healing of the fractures in her back as advised by Dr. U.K.Sadhu, th noted orthopaedic surgeon.