As I was walking into my building premises at 1:45 am, I found a dog lying on its side, in an odd position. The parking light wasn't bright enough for me to see the details, but I immediately sensed that it had suffered some form of brain trauma and died. Since noone would respond at the time of the night, I made a mental note to call the municipal corporation's dead animal pickup service, and walked by. As I entered the house and locked up, I was struck by how matter-of-factly I took it. Where were my emotions? How did I not feel anything at the sight of a sentient dead animal, especially a dog, when my own four-legged boy had passed away in a very similar manner just 4 months ago?
I went through the motions of changing, doing my routine journaling, brushing, etc, and slept well enough. Went cycling early in the morning, and when it was closer to the time at which the municipal corporation starts answering calls, I dialed the number. Surprisingly, a well-mannered person responded in an efficient manner--asking for my name, number, and location, and letting me know that they will arrive sometime in the day--they could't predict the exact time, but they would call me an hour before they could reach the spot. By then, it looked like noone from the neighborhood had realized that a dead dog was lying in the compound. I made a hand-written note about having called the pickup service, mentioned their contact number for follow-up, and stuck it on the ground next to the body, just in case someone was curious enough to inquire.
Even though I had no tasks to do before bathing and leaving for work, I felt inclined to lie down and rest for a while. I went out to the balcony intermittently, so I could see whether anyone else had taken note of the event. About an hour later, I finally saw a woman kneeling next to the dog, so I went out to talk to her. She--let's call her PD--was crying profusely, because, it turns out, she had been looking after the dog since she was a puppy. PD told me they called her Kaali--easy to remember because of her coloring. Kaali was a sweet, gentle dog. I took down PD's number and asked her whether I could help in a any way besides making sure that Kaali was picked up. PD wanted to bury her in an empty plot at the back of the colony, instead. So I offered to load Kaali up in the car, and deliver her to the spot.
PD went away to get the tools needed for the burial and another animal-friendly person from the colony came by to assist a few minutes later. In the few minutes that I stood alone outside the car, looking at Kaali lying on the seat, I welled up. Not with emotion--okay, maybe a little,--but mostly with a sense of purpose. It felt right. Like, this is what I am supposed to do. The instinct to stay back home and to not rush to work even though I had a bunch of tasks awaiting me, served this purpose. I was meant to do this little bit of service. I would have even stayed back and helped them with the burial if it was a holiday. But even that little bit that I could do, of making sure that Kaali was moved away with a modicum of dignity, gave my life a meaning.
If the pickup service had not come through by evening, I had planned to take the dog to the cremation facility myself. That was an obvious action that I would take, to see this to completion. But the little help I could offer to the lady and the dog made me feel like--I was, for that slice of time at least--a piece of the puzzle that fit perfectly where it should. Like, feeling a strong emotion may not really be my thing, but acting on something where it makes a difference, or being effective in some way is what I am here for. And that gave me closure.
What a morbid, weirdly satisfying way to start my 40th year on this planet.
I went through the motions of changing, doing my routine journaling, brushing, etc, and slept well enough. Went cycling early in the morning, and when it was closer to the time at which the municipal corporation starts answering calls, I dialed the number. Surprisingly, a well-mannered person responded in an efficient manner--asking for my name, number, and location, and letting me know that they will arrive sometime in the day--they could't predict the exact time, but they would call me an hour before they could reach the spot. By then, it looked like noone from the neighborhood had realized that a dead dog was lying in the compound. I made a hand-written note about having called the pickup service, mentioned their contact number for follow-up, and stuck it on the ground next to the body, just in case someone was curious enough to inquire.
Even though I had no tasks to do before bathing and leaving for work, I felt inclined to lie down and rest for a while. I went out to the balcony intermittently, so I could see whether anyone else had taken note of the event. About an hour later, I finally saw a woman kneeling next to the dog, so I went out to talk to her. She--let's call her PD--was crying profusely, because, it turns out, she had been looking after the dog since she was a puppy. PD told me they called her Kaali--easy to remember because of her coloring. Kaali was a sweet, gentle dog. I took down PD's number and asked her whether I could help in a any way besides making sure that Kaali was picked up. PD wanted to bury her in an empty plot at the back of the colony, instead. So I offered to load Kaali up in the car, and deliver her to the spot.
PD went away to get the tools needed for the burial and another animal-friendly person from the colony came by to assist a few minutes later. In the few minutes that I stood alone outside the car, looking at Kaali lying on the seat, I welled up. Not with emotion--okay, maybe a little,--but mostly with a sense of purpose. It felt right. Like, this is what I am supposed to do. The instinct to stay back home and to not rush to work even though I had a bunch of tasks awaiting me, served this purpose. I was meant to do this little bit of service. I would have even stayed back and helped them with the burial if it was a holiday. But even that little bit that I could do, of making sure that Kaali was moved away with a modicum of dignity, gave my life a meaning.
If the pickup service had not come through by evening, I had planned to take the dog to the cremation facility myself. That was an obvious action that I would take, to see this to completion. But the little help I could offer to the lady and the dog made me feel like--I was, for that slice of time at least--a piece of the puzzle that fit perfectly where it should. Like, feeling a strong emotion may not really be my thing, but acting on something where it makes a difference, or being effective in some way is what I am here for. And that gave me closure.
What a morbid, weirdly satisfying way to start my 40th year on this planet.
