What is your favorite animal?
I love the playground near my grandparent’s apartment. I have grown up playing there. When I still walk by it, I can see the little me running around with friends playing different games and enjoying the rides.
It is and will always be the most beautiful playground in my mind no matter how much better the new ones may practically seem.
In this playground, as a small boy, one day as I climbed the ladder of the slide, I heard a certain sound from beneath it. I tried to lean to the side to see what the source was, but could not see clearly. So, I climbed back to the ground and walked to find a small ditch and within the ditch were eight small puppies huddled among each other.
This was the first time in my life when I saw puppies, they were of a female dog who lived around, back then animals were quite loved and welcomed by people. The puppies were one of the most beautiful little beings I had seen.
Dogs have been the animals I have related to the most. I have been around birds, squirrels and cats but there is something about dogs you just can’t miss, the glimpse of understanding in their eyes which we find so similar to our own is something many people including me relate to.
I have had three dogs until now including the first one which belonged to my uncle and I felt that he unfairly took him away after leaving him in our care for a couple of years. I still wonder who he would have chosen to live with, if such an option was presented to him, he was a black German shepherd.
The two dogs later were stray dogs, one of them was given to us by a neighbour because I was depressed about losing the first dog and I brought the second one after my previous one passed away. I got her as a puppy from an NGO who rescued her and she is sleeping right there in front of me as I am writing.
A few stray dogs gather at the gate of our house towards the evening, as my mother has made it a habit of feeding them, and they have become quite the personal security following us around whenever we go out on foot.
I am trying to make up my mind of not having another dog after my present one because the moment of parting is never easy and the acceptance emptiness of a life thriving around the house is one of the worst experiences of life, and also as my mother says, it feels like it is unfair that they have a lifespan much shorter than ours.
But I can’t predict the future, with the two goldfish in the aquarium and a dog around, the family feels complete and the house feels warm. I hope this feeling stays for the longest time possible.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 