More about the same topic... Dogs!

Bangalore:
"A man runs fastest when chased by a dog!" This was the response from an athlete who clocked his best timing in the Bangalore International Marathon on Sunday. Just as the participants approached the 20-km mark on the service road in Kalyan Nagar, it was not the cheering crowds that greeted them, but barking dogs eager to snap at their heels. The first to bear the brunt were athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia, who were in the lead. "It was very scary. Never in my career had I come across such a situation. It took me a while to recover from the shock," said Kenya’s Makau Nzioka, who finished second. "

From: Dogs, traffic halt marathoners , Times Of India, Dec 17th 2007.

Imagine-- people from even a highly poor and war-torn African country like Ethiopia, and even those from Kenya, a nation that hosts part of Serengeti, havent faced such a situation!

Hail the Dogs of Bengalooru!

The 'Dags' are back!

Sheep Killed (The Hindu, Dec 04, 2007, Bangalore):

A pack of five dogs attacked a herd of sheep and killed them, early on Sunday. The pack of dogs entered a sheep’s pen in Vasanthapura, near Uttarahalli.

The Subramanyapura police said that 15 sheep were bitten and killed by the pack of dogs. Sources said that the dogs had attacked two children in the same area earlier. However, the police were not able to confirm it.

Any ideas on how the police can confirm if it was the same pack of dogs? Also, 15 sheep in a single sitting by just 5 dogs! Thats something to ponder. On the lines of what the great Brick Top said in Snatch, I will be wary of any man who keeps a pack of such 5 dogs!

Dogs Ahoy!... Again!!

Snatch again:

Mickey: Good dags. D'ya like dags?
Tommy: Dags?
Mickey: What?
Mrs. O'Neil: Yeah, dags.
Tommy: Oh, dogs. Sure, I like dags. I like caravans more.

So continues my association with dogs (or is it 'dags' this time?) on this blog. It turns out that my juvenile phobia of dogs, which I wrongly used to characterise as cynophobia, was only that-- juvenile phobia of dogs. As it turns out, I am no longer affected by it. When I actually sit to think about it now, there are few kinds that still terrify me urging me to leg it when I encounter them:

1) The really really large ones of the kind of German Shepherd, etc
2) The really really lean and tall ones like the hounds, etc
3) Huan, the hound of Valinor in whose baying, the horns of Oromë himself are heard.

The others, esp. the street dogs, I can handle pretty well... (I think). Sometimes, when I am in a really bad mood, I have wild fantasies of me chasing the street-dogs and dealing unto them, their deserved doom--the death (Exactly how is another story.. mail me for more details!)---
And lo!
Poyinde!!
poye poche!!!
chole gaachi!!!!
All my anger is gone... just like Lord Narasimha's anger dissipated when he thrust his long nails into Audumbar tree (Ficus racemosa). Come to think of it, the street-dogs are doing a great job as my stress-busters.

The whole point of this post is that yesternight, I had a strange dream---
I suddenly ran out of my home, and three dogs started following me. I knew they were running after me, and suddenly I stopped, turned around, and killed one after another, all the three in three totally different dramatic ways, and came back home.

Now I know freudian psychoanalysts will not waste a single moment to attribute this to some sexual encounter in their childhood that they were desperately waiting to attach to somebody,but hey.. as they say, "whatever floats your boat..."

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Finally found the poem I was looking for since years, with an interesting story to go with it:

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene’er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

– Oliver Goldsmith

The story:

Snake dies after biting priest.
Indo-Asian News Service
Ranchi, July 11, 2005

A snake bites a priest. The snake vomits blood and dies. The priest recovers — it all happened in a Jharkhand village and is being attributed to Lord Shiva’s blessings. The man who was bitten and lived to tell the tale was the priest of the Nag Devta (Snake God) temple in Badapaghar village of Dumka district, 450 km from here. “Lord Shiva’s charisma saved me,” the priest was quoted as saying in local newspapers after he was bitten by a five ft snake in the temple premises. The snake vomited blood and died immediately after biting the priest, who is recuperating in hospital. “Usually a person does not survive if the snake dies or gets killed after biting. The priest has not only survived but is also behaving normally,” said a villager.

For the author's explanation of the tale in context : http://greatbong.net/2005/07/12/snake-bites/

A plea to save natural habitat

Long ago, I had a minor revelation about bangalore. Now, lets look at a different scene.

Magrath Road is supposed to be a posh locality. It is home to a couple of very high-class hotels in the hub of the city--in close proximity of Brigade Road, Residency Road and MG Road (every city has one, if you dont know the rule). Other than the everlasting road construction work and narrow one-way street, a very curious phenomenon is the presence of a pack of a species called "Stray dogs".

My own meditations on the presence of this species in this area told me that this is not very surprising-- a one-way street (did I mention "narrow"?) with a dead-end has very low traffic. If that street has a restaurant, then naturally it will have a lot of trash. This is a perfect place for dogs. If someone asks me what is Magrath Road most useful for, my answer will be-- to breed Stray dogs.

The only problem is a species called "Homo sapiens". What if someday, the road opens to free-flowing traffic? Or what if the authorities decide to clean-up the road? Or what if some American guy (a species very close to Indian guy, but is higher up the heirarchical ladder of economy-chain-- while he makes or breaks the economy of the world, his Indian counterpart can only get chained) finally decides to take action against stray-dogs, given the fact that there is a heavy interspecies competetion between the species of American guy and Stray dog, both competing for the same resources.

Given the jeopardy Stray dog is in, will someone not come to the aid of this mute being?

A thought

Something to think about--
As I walk to the bus stop everyday, a caucasian lady stands in the front of the gate of a posh hotel on the way and feeds three dogs from her hand. One fine day, it dawned on me that I actually knew those dogs-- one of them looked exactly like one of my friends returning from US and working in an MNC, another one looked like my undergrad friend from computer science presently in a software company, and the last one (which was doing its best to impress the white woman by rolling over its belly and licking her feet) looked exactly like that beef-eating guy on my trans-atlantic flight who was so proud of his achiement of getting a job in US of A that he didnt mind letting me know of it.

Cant wait to join them to get my share of morsels!!