A woman lovingly cuddles her dog.

"Dogs and Cruelty: An Inhumane Tale with a Powerful Lesson"

I am riding my mother on the back of the bicycle along a hilly road with high and low hills, resembling a mountain road. The peak of the road gradually takes the shape of a pyramid. There are reservoirs on both sides, but we don’t know their whereabouts. Somewhere, logs and tree branches are lying around. I am riding the bicycle, hopping and jumping like many riders. We trampled over a crematorium, just flying past it. My mother didn’t understand. If she had understood, who knows how many more orders I would have had to make or listen to! Then we had to walk a little bit. The journey began again. After crossing a bridge, I saw that the road was full of mud. It had rained, probably a while ago. Who can say when it rained or whether it rained at all? 

Everything is possible in dreams. I have also no prevention. No stopping.

cycling…And cycling…Pedaling endlessly through the labyrinth of a dream…

A woman peeked out of the bathroom and asked, “Where are you going?” called my mother after her name. My mother likely provided a misleading answer since we wanted to keep our big task under wraps. Moments later, I fell into a well filled with water. I was meant to fall with my bicycle, but I can’t actually recall having one. Now, a new chapter has begun. A few moments later, I saw…

A man is pulling the hair off a dog with his teeth.

A hairless dog is now standing sadly on the balcony.

I am watching from inside the house, hiding the door. As if I were a small kid. It was so scary to look directly at it. The dog was silent for a while. Then it started crying. “This man has pulled my hair out. I am in great pain.” The dog said these words like a human child. I heard that clearly. Seeing the dog’s pain, I said, “Why don’t you kill him!” The man immediately cut his throat with his teeth and hung it from the rope on the balcony. The head was upside down and hanging from its neck.
That was a dream. A random dream.

I couldn’t sleep anymore. I turned on the light of my mobile phone next to my pillow and saw that it was six fifty-two. I don’t know how much fog there was outside. But I felt a heavy blanket of fog inside my mind. I started remembering some dogs and people.
No, I was wrong, I was thinking about some dogs and inhumanes.
At that time (I mean about twenty years ago now) I could walk on the street wearing just a pair of shorts. Even if someone suddenly opened my pants from behind and ran, it wouldn’t matter much. I don’t understand insults, but I would get quite angry and I would automatically say things like “sauomarani”, “bal” and all that. These are some slang words (like fuck, ashole) used in my country. I have learned all those stuff. I have learned many more things but the limit is up to ”bal”.

As the afternoon falls, everyone from young boys to old men from both villages leans on the railing of the wooden bridge or some sit on the railing. They breathe the air. My head is still level with the railing. I am afraid to sit on top. The bridge connects the villages of Dhalai and Putlokhali (now Putlakhali). The Poda (the name of the river) flows below. A young boy is holding the railing and watching the waves of the flowing water. The water is somewhat clear and salty. A couple of fish are floating frequently. 

Suddenly, something jumped into the water. And what floated up was shocking. It was a dog. Its fur was wet and stuck to its skin. barking.  swimming with both hands to get up. But it could not move forward. It was trying its best.

Dream, Dog, Journey

Sometimes this happens to people too. In dreams. Danger behind. It is trying to run but its legs are not moving. Then the throat sweats from tension. Then the nose, after that the forehead, the face. How does it feel then? You can understand it only when you get into the situation.

Everything was fine. The wind was blowing. It’s a hot day. There were a couple of dogs on the bridge. Most of the people were naked with upper parts and wearing lungis the lower. There were some children too. A man was eating biscuits. Deep black in colour. He was about six feet tall. Strong muscles, a good body shape, and little hair on his head. Only the men of the Babu(Mr.) family with the surname of ‘Ray’ in Dhalai village were strong muscle and above five feet ten. But alas! Are they all Babu and some are Kalachans (it’s the name of the man, also meaning a Black sheep) too? He was sitting in the middle of the pool. He put a biscuit behind the plank. He made a sound once or twice to draw the attention of the dogs. One of the dogs came up on his feet and started biting the biscuits. Who knew that after a while it would be barking and trying to escape from the water? Did the little boy know? He was just having fun. Now in the afternoon he was also breathing air with everyone and looking down watching the water flowing.

Even if someone takes off his pants, he can say “fuck you or at best Ashole”, but he cannot go and tell that person, “For what the fuck did you throw the dog into the water? How much it is enduring! Don’t you have the fucking feel? Let alone the little boy, Did anyone else in the two villages have such muscle power at that time to speak up over Kalachan’s nose? It is said that at the wedding of one of his daughters (he has four or five daughters indeed) he used to keep watch at this wooden pool with a stick. So that no poor man from Putlokhali could go to his daughter’s wedding.

Those who do not get regular good food appear before dinner without being invited – such people existed in that era, and they exist in this era too. People who guarded with sticks existed in that era, and still exist. The difference is that the man of that era was Kalachan himself, the father of the girl.

Kalachan threw the dog into the water of ‘Poda’ while it was eating biscuits. It was an enjoyment. Not only for Kalachan but for all the other spectators. And the dog was the entertainer. The dog’s body is drowning. It can’t swim. There is a rope tied around its neck. Sometimes he holds the rope and raises it. The dog is being hung. And Kalachan is making it laugh out loud. Ho! Ho!

There is another person finding pleasure in killing dogs. His surname is also ‘Ray’ but not a Babu(Mr). He was mostly known as a pure-hearted madman. He would also tie a rope around the dog’s neck and throw it off the bridge in the same way as Kalachan. Then he would hang it and drown it in water. The man’s name is Nirmal(meaning pure).
Now, to say is good that Nirmal is alive. Kalachan is no more. Kalachan died after enduring a lot of diseases. I pray for the forgiveness of the soul in the afterlife. RIP Kalachan!

However, Nirmal is really pure. A bit innocent. At least I have never heard of anyone being able to kill people. He climbs coconut trees like a rat. The man has curly, shaggy hair on his head, like a bat, and his body is a slob. Nirmal works as a coconut tree picker for people in different areas. I have a little connection from the maternal side. I call his wife Auntie. So I call him Uncle. He is sometimes seen lying in a strange place. Because he was addicted. I remember one day. He left the impression of a great teacher.

When testosterone starts to be secreted for the first time in life and hair grows on the base of the private parts, a special change is noticeable in the children. One of them is that they start joking with others, not understanding the relationship and not maintaining senior-junior. One day, he called me by my name and said, “Nishi(my Nickname), is that what you’re learning from school !” Everyone called him crazy, so that day I was also calling him crazy. He got angry and said that. I understood that day and learned a lot. Children are always imitators. So one should not say such things which if they use them later, there is a possibility of defamation. That is even neither in front of our own children nor others.

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