All about a dog...

I dont know how I start this. I had this urge to write something but I had no idea what I should be writing about and BAM! You have yet another rant :D

I feel blissfully idle these days. Nothing doing except FB, TV shows, novels, walks with Arpita and the yummy mummy ka khana. Life is good sometimes :) All my worries vanished as soon as I saw my mother's sweet smile and those incredibly, incredibly warm eyes and troubles?? Pfft. What are they? :P

So today, I was like hanging onto our front gate. Yeah, I still do that :P I seem to have this curious relationship with gates. I apparently used to hang onto our front gate when I was like 1 year old and speak whatever gibberish that came to my mind. One thing I should make clear here is that I started talking when I was just 9-10 months old and by 1 year I was a total chatterbox. The mini version of what I am right now. This gate incident is one of my mother's favorite anecdotes and she embarrasses me with these stories in front of everyone. And apparently, all the aunties of our neighborhood used to flock near our gate to listen me going jabber-jabber.

And NOW, when these very aunties see me on the road somewhere they stop to make the usual exclamation of oh-how-she-has-grown-she-used-to-be-so-little and then they broach this very embarrassing subject. Yeah, in the middle of the road. They would be like "Ki bok-bok korto. Gate diye jhule jhule shudhu kotha shudhu kotha". (She used to talk so much. Used to hang from the gate and chatter non-stop.)

OK, so I am a congenital chatterbox. Big deal. Accept it. Move on.

Anyways, so I was hanging onto our front gate today and I was suddenly aware of the gaping void Bhola's absence has left in my life. Bhola was the stray dog of our street and in more than one ways, he was my companion when I needed one. I love our front gate in the night, the streetlights on the two ends cast such a lovely glow over everything and if the moon is out, it feels like heaven. There is always a breeze and you can think things over in the peace. But along with the peace and beauty, I used to have Bhola with me because he used to come leaving whatever business he was doing(he used to have a  pretty busy time keeping other strays from the street) when I used to stand there. He would stare at me for a while, waving his tail, addressing my presence and then he would curl himself up on the cemented ground before our gate and look at me occasionally. That was our relationship. Me inside the gate, he outside the gate, doing nothing, just being a presence for each other.

I used to talk with him sometimes and he proved invaluable to me during that class 12 phase where I had this frustration out of uncertainty, nerves and what not. He would be a silent listener to the words I couldnt say to anyone else, he would be a companion in my loneliness, and he would be the sufferer of the tuneless songs I sometimes sang. I mean how could anyone, Homo Sapien or otherwise go through the ordeal of me trying to imitate Mike Shinoda's rap voice is beyond me :P

The best thing I liked about Bhola was the way he reacted whenever I used to give him something to eat. Whenever he joined me for these a-moment-of-introspection-by-the-gate sessions, I used to get him a biscuit or a roti but he never used to eat in front of me. He used to just ignore the yummy smelling food before his nose and listen to my mindless talk. It was after I used to leave, he used to quietly take the morsel in his mouth and go away.

I dont know what he meant by this gesture. I dont know why he did that but I loved him for it. And the morning after my dadi died and her body was about to come home, he slipped in our gate and sat in one corner and the tears I couldnt shed in front of anyone came pouring before him. I think he could understand what was happening; people around me were shedding a sea of tears and a person like me who cries when her coffee mug breaks was choked to the extent of dry eyes. And when I got him a biscuit that day, he left without eating it.

Bhola is gone now. A few dog catchers caught him last year and took him away. I had lost a friend and I could do nothing about it.

I miss Bhola. I miss him in a way I miss my dadi. Some things cant be expressed even in words. Some things just cant be replaced and nothing, nothing can bring back the ambiance of me standing at our front gate again.

I wish Bhola were here now, I badly need someone who would listen to me singing without complain!

Talk about nostalgia, I seem to be drenched in a pool of one :D

I started writing a story and I got diverted to this one :P So much for being fickle headed :D

Will try and make a rant-less post next time, I promise :D

Doubtful about keeping promises,

Kirti