Every travel abroad makes me homesick, soon I dream about myrelations, streets, people, political discourses which we do all the time.
Strange this time, my recent travel to few Europeancountries made me miss my street dogs despite knowing of their increasingincidents of bites and torments Which have resulted in many casualties.
I started to envyEuropean dogs when I found them living with families with proper home, food andcare. Even, they get birthday cards, picnic treats and gifts on festivals likeChristmas and Easter. They listen andact like humans and their loyalty is beyond any doubt.
There are no streetdogs in Europe, if any stray dog is found, local councils take them immediatelyinto care. Proper and organised agencies look after dogs and many charities ownor adopt them or pay for their life time care.
One of my friends inLondon spent a whole week buying Easter gifts for family but two weeks buyinggifts for dogs, cats and other pets for which she had started budgeting sixmonths in advance because pet gifts are more expensive than the gifts for humanbeings.
Look at our poor dogs wandering on the Kashmiri streets. They hardly get food, place or love, not to talk of gifts. Few years back, we heard that Smt. Maneka Gandhi had initiated a plan to take care of stray dogs and expressed her concern that dogs were treated badly in Kashmir.
We shared her concern and pledged to gift every single dog to make her initiative successful, but I don’t know why she lost interest very soon and didn’t give us a chance to show our magnanimity.
It is not true we treat dogs badly. It is other way round; our lives and streets are under their control. We have some curses for canines especially when we have to snub somebody like “Houn loot hui chukh” or hoon sind peth chukh khewan” etc etc. But we never use them anymore since we have become animal lovers.
Reports have been suggesting that dog population isincreasing in Kashmir but hey! Whocares? This is Kashmir?????
Street dogs have beenwell fed by security personnel since the day our streets and dwellings becametheir permanent bunkers. At times, it was not the security personnel we feared.It was the well fed and loyal dogs who made our life hell and restricted ourmovements from home to mosque to walk to office.
“Dogs are more loyal than the humans”. I have heard it sincemy childhood. It has never been true in Kashmir. Our dogs defected in no timefew decades ago. They became closer to security bunkers and threatened us ofmauling the moment they saw walking us near the bunker or even looking atconcertina wire barricades.
Who says poverty begets more children…. Again, proved wrongso far as our dogs are concerned. When our dogs were fed little left-over food,they were still under birth control. Themoment security personnel stuffed them with plenty of lentils and chapatis, thedogs resulted into the population explosion soon to outnumber us.
Many of our moderates who like the dogs, stopped to feed them including one of my close relatives who was fond of dogs and would feed them all left over food in the evenings against the wishes of his wife.
The relation between the couple became so strained and tense over this issue that elders had to be called to sort out the matter and had to whisk away all three dogs that used to live behind the shed in the house.
The wife soon became admirer of Maneka Gandhi when she heard the good news that she is taking dogs out of Kashmir. It seemed like she has become a saviour to woman to save her marriage.
Look at European dogs……
When I witnessedmillions being spent on gifts for dogs by wealthy people in Europe, I had a fewquestions for ONE whom people often say lives above the sky. “How do youdistribute wealth among your subjects? Why are millions of Africans scavengingfor food? Or why children as young as four or five must beg for few morsels onthe streets of South Asia? Why are dogs so rich in Europe????
While whispering to myself in one of the big shopping mallsof Europe, I felt very distressed which my friend took notice of and she gaveme a quizzical look.
Many governments in European countries have advised theirhealth departments to encourage people to go for long walks or join gyms forexercise or take dogs for long walk to get both fit that will have very littleburden on health services. More so, it will lessen the depression among humansand dogs.
My habit of morning walk always doubles my depressioninstead of lessening it. Going for walk in Kashmir has become more fatal thanthe bullet. I have encountered manypeople with big sticks or tree branches while on morning walk, yet some had gotbitten or mauled by dogs everywhere. Since people don’t bite back dogs, so thishas become no news for media.
When the whole population is consumed by constant bloodshed,encounters and funerals, who would care for dogs making life hell for mosquegoers or walkers on the streets of Kashmir.
We see kids dying orbitten by dogs every other day on the streets but maybe because they areKashmiri streets, so nobody seems interested.
The ongoing conflict has changed our life to such anabnormality that every normality of life or routine now seems something fromother planet. Dogs leave people mauledevery other day, but we have no time to take it serious compared to bullets andpellets that has become our normal routine.
And, believe me it is not a story of dogs only my dearanimal lovers, it tells the apathy of human rights lovers too.
(The writer is an ex editor of BBC Urdu and Penguin writer)