Miscellaneous
Eyes wide shut
She’s dead,” she said, as I stuffed my mouth with the panipuri she had thrust before me on a tiny steel plate.I asked, who, through my stuffed mouth. And she said, “Taatey—the dog with black and white patches.”Prateebha Tuladhar
End of innocence
She’s dead,” she said, as I stuffed my mouth with the panipuri she had thrust before me on a tiny steel plate.
I asked, who, through my stuffed mouth. And she said, “Taatey—the dog with black and white patches.”
At first, the information did not register. I crushed the panipuri, the water and its spices bursting through my throat as the news sank in. It was half-way down my throat now and too late not to swallow it. So, I chewed, swallowed and sobbed. The sharp edges of the cracker, where the woman had poked it open to stuff the potato and the spicy water in, cut my palate. I made a ridiculous sight for the bystanders, my face stuffed, tears streaming down, as though the food was sheer torture.
A few evenings ago, I had stood at that exact spot, offering a packet of biscuits to the dog the woman was talking about. The dog had a name. She was called Mayalu; a name given by the staff from the KAT Centre. I shall come to that story later, but refer to her as Mayalu, hereon.
Mayalu’s brother, appeared from nowhere, got up on his hind and pounded my chest with his fore legs, whining. I couldn’t tell if he sought food or comfort. So, I asked the woman for a packet of biscuits and started to feed him.
“He was there when the car ran her over. It was early morning. And for hours, he sat by his sister, scratching her like he was asking her to get up. She died instantly. The car hit her on the head.”
At least she had died instantly, I thought. At least that, after a life of suffering.
“We got a man to bury her nearby. She had started to bloat and stink in the rain, and you were not in Kathmandu. I knew you would be upset when you heard.”
A personal tragedy
I was going to be more than just upset. Mayalu. She was mine in a small way, even though she belonged to the streets of Kathmandu, I suppose. I first noticed her because there were two of them with the same head. Around a year and a half ago, two pups showed up at the neighbourhood. They had the same face—black eyes, deep brown head with a black crown shaped like a widow’s peak. The male pup had a full black body. The female had large black spots on a white coat, making her look like two different breeds had been conjoined. This female pup was Mayalu. When I left food for the street dogs at night, the two pups always put their snouts into the same bag and ate from it without snarling at each other, the way dogs do over food. It was a partnership the two siblings kept on until the time they were finally separated. They shared food. I think it was that characteristic that made the pair endearing.
In January, Mayalu came in the heat. She was about a year old, I calculate. The neighbourhood became a battleground, as the male dogs tore each other’s flesh off like they generally do at mating season. Mayalu being the only un-spayed dog in the area, had to put up with around ten mongrels taking turns mating with her for days on end. She would limp around and sleep when the male dogs paused. When they did not, she would howl. Her vaginal area had swollen and started to protrude. She was frail.
I called up a number I had saved for the KAT Centre from a long time ago, and asked the voice if they could pick her and get her spayed. The voice gave confusing answers at first and later said no car was available to pick up the dog, but they would come by some time. I thought if the dog got spayed, she would find some peace.
My closest ally in the mission was the woman who runs a panipuri and tea stall near my house and also feeds the stray dogs. She helped me chase all the male dogs, literally beating some and then helped me carry Mayalu into our yard. It was a cold January night. It was drizzling. I laid down an old rug at the bottom of the staircase, but the dog did not sleep. She only whined and ate hungrily and peed all over the staircase.
In the morning, my family stared at the litter, but said nothing in disapproval. They could see I was losing my mind over the dog’s condition. I called the number for the KAT Centre a couple of times in the days that followed, but the voice said he had no vehicle. I offered to pay for a cab and for the spaying as a contribution to the Centre. The man showed up the next day with a friend. On a scooter. I told him it was the first time I had seen the Centre use a scooter for rescue. But it did not strike me to question or be suspicious. After spending four days on my porch, Mayalu had become stronger, playful and friends with my dog, Kanchu.
I signed a cheque, writing the man’s name and KAT in parenthesis. When they lifted Mayalu and mounted her on the scooter, her eyes looked sad again. But it was the best I could do for her. She would be back after being sterilised.
For the first one week, I called the man every day to enquire about the dog’s progress. He would say they were taking good care of her and had found someone who wanted to adopt her after surgery. As days progressed, he started to avoid my calls and I got busy in my every day and only called once in few days. And he always gave the same answer: the dog needed more time to rest.
It was on a morning in early March, when I was pillion riding on a speeding scooter to work when I saw her on the street again. Even as the scooter sped, I noticed she looked thinner than ever and had developed a paunch. Something did not seem right. I would have to wait until I got home to find out. My temples throbbed as I waited to arrive at work to call the man up.
When I called him, he told me the dog was recovering and he would bring her back on ‘Sunday’. At that, I blew my top. I demanded to speak to the KAT authorities. He hung up on me. Furious, I looked up the emails for different people on the KAT board, including Jan Salter, the founder, and sent an email explaining what had happened, and attached the bank statement evidencing the cheque had been cashed.
I immediately received a call from the KAT Centre. It was this conversation that revealed to me that I had been dealing with cons all along. The KAT Centre had new phone numbers after they moved to a new location. Their previous numbers had been moved to a fancy department store with green logos, of which the conmen were staff members.
When KAT staff set up a situation and called the men about rescuing a dog, the cons offered to pick the dog for two thousand rupees. Police was informed and arrests were made. The men were behind the bars for barely two days before the police inspector from Budanilkantha station called me to ask for permission for their release. They were under a lot of local pressure, he said. The ‘boys’ were local residents and the crime ‘wasn’t major’. They were released after the police assured the money I had donated to KAT would be transferred.
The police told me the cons, once they picked Mayalu from my place, had taken her to Pashupati, tied her under a bridge and left her there to die. What the dog must have been through to break free of the leash and find her way back is unimaginable. She was at the start of her pregnancy then and there must have been dozens of dogs to fight along the way, and days without a morsel, and vehicles and weather and a hundred other hurdles. It took her more than a month to get home, even though home for her was only the streets in a section of Maharajganj.
Return to innocence
The KAT Centre offered to spay the dog. Their white van brought her back in two weeks with half a dozen other dogs from across the city. She was clean, smelled like medicine, her tummy had been shaved and stitches showed along it. She wore a red ribbon on her neck that read: Maharajganj. As the KAT staff released her outside my house, they said: la jau, Mayalu. And I understood she had found a name.
I decided to keep her indoors until she became stronger. She stayed a few days, but constantly whined asking to be let out. But she started showing up most nights for a meal or when it rained. In fact, if she showed up, I could tell it was going to rain. She would wake me up with whining at 4 am. With my eyes half closed, I’d drag myself downstairs, let her out and go back to bed. It became a routine on days when she came in to stay. Regardless of whether or not she stayed, she always showed up for dinner.
Over time, she became something like the ‘alpha male’. She towered over all the male dogs, led the attack against strange objects and led the party to our gate for meals. My feeding session had gone up from one to six dogs. She would lead the pack, but saunter right into the yard to eat from her own bowl, then leave. When timings didn’t match, I’d leave her food in her bowl. An emptied bowl in the morning was an indication that she’s been there.
A couple of months ago, I began a new routine of taking Kanchu for evening walks. Religiously. And it seemed like Mayalu tried to keep up with my commitment. She showed up every single evening. We would walk around the neighbourhood, Kanchu would piss and poop on the only wasteland in the area. Sometimes, Mayalu would also soil the wasteland with her landmarks. We would make a run to safety when the gang of dogs from the other territory gnarled at us. But mostly, we were a happy team of three, sprinting home.
For the last few days, Mayalu had not shown up. It rained hard every evening. The food in her bowl had been left untouched. Every evening, I got rid of the stale food soaked in rainwater and refilled it. But the next morning, the food would still be there.
The mystery of the untouched meals unraveled before me in a heartbreak, as my teeth crushed the panipuri, the spices stinging my insides, making me want to weep. I wept for Mayalu and for the likes of people in organisations like KAT Centre, who put their energy, emotions and faith in healing dogs on the streets that are only considered an eye-sore by most Kathmandu residents. I wept because it only takes one insensitive move by a reckless driver to bring all of that to an end. I wept because there is no law that protects animals in this country. When they’re too old to ‘guard’ you, you leave them on the streets to die. When you’re done drinking their milk, you leave them on the streets to die.
Kanchu and I resumed our evening walk the other day. And I continue to leave the bowl at the gate full. In case Mayalu happens to return from another long journey in some other form, I want her to know I haven’t forgotten her. Also, the food has started to disappear. Mayalu’s brother has started making sure I remember to remember.