Thoughts Astray...





          The outpouring of vehicles from the cyber park gate reaches an overwhelming crescendo at 6 pm. As I wait for the right moment to cross the road that would take me to the peaceful sidewalk where I could join the trickling pedestrians, I feel something soft and furry brush against my free hand. It is Mr. Dog; or rather, his tail. I say Mr. Dog because, I’ve been noticing Mr. Dog from Day-1, the veritable handsome fellow that he is. His coat of fur, oat-bread beige and his eyes a soft honey-brown; he would always be trotting in and around the park gate nibbling up titbits dropped by the fleeting crowd, nibbling dusty wayside flowers and sometimes nibbling at nothingness with perked up ears and a happy grin. A free spirit….

          As I get on to the sidewalk, Mr.Dog does the same and trots ahead. ‘That’s a cute stray over there’, I hear one of the walkers ahead of me say. I feel an ounce of resentment well up within me, but unable to immediately place it into any compartment of my brain where I could straightaway classify and justify the emotion, I let it sink back in….

          Night falls and as I lie on my bed rewinding the day; listening to the rain outside, the word ‘stray’ sprouts up through the terra firma of my mind, abruptly evoking a dripping sense of cold marginalization that has nothing to do with the sound of rain falling outside my window or the chill seeping in through the curtains.

        ...Somehow it was discourteous of them to have associated the word ‘stray’ with Mr. Dog, or for that matter, with any dog in this land. Mr. Dog is obliviously happy or that is what it seems, as I look at him chase sparrows outside the campus. Homeless is one thing, stray is another. The sentiment is just so not the same. It is dangerous when a word like 'stray' becomes normal and part of everyday conversation. It has always been so.. just that today it touched a nerve unexpectedly.  If Mr. Dog is a stray in his own land, what are we? Aren’t we as indigenous and as 'stray' as any canine or feline around us? I can see lines of grim ridicule crease pedigree jaws as they tighten in sarcasm all around. But the fact remains…

         Nobody could have said it better than George Orwell of course. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal…”

Image courtesy : www.dogpacer.com 

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