Loyal Kunta

There is this limping stray dog in our vicinity. With HK’s whistle this dog comes running to us, no matter at which corner of Ananth Nagar he is in. Prachi loves to watch him come running and screams with delight “Kutttta….dhavnu dhaanu…”(meaning, Kunta run run) till he comes close by and I scream at the top of my voice “STOP” and shoo him away. Prachi imitates me. We feed him with biscuits, chips, bread etc. This dog is of ‘high breed’ that it does not eat rice, dosa, idli and maintains its status by eating only foreign kind of food. Status factor bothers dogs as well!! I am never a fan of animals. I entertain, read feed this dog only for Prachi’s sake just to see the joy bubbling out with his arrival. I casually named him ‘Kunta’ (In Kannada this means one who limps) and now that has become his official name much to HK’s disapproval.

Over the weeks, Kunta gets fed daily by us, spoken to, scolded and shooed away as well. Prachi throws biscuits at him in all 4 directions and makes him run to different places to eat those tiny biscuit pieces. She calls him ‘kuttttta’, talks with him ‘kuttta yaaao’ (kutta come), ‘kutttta baaais’(kutta sit), ‘utttta’(get up), reprimands him ‘gaggimannni kutta…ganni pettu dittha’ (dirty kutta I will spank you) and asks him to come with her wherever she goes generally to the dettthhananna (= devstan, temple close by). Gradually now kunta has shifted his place of stay to our garage, sleeps there all day long, lazes idly and comes out wagging his tail when any of us comes out of the house. He too has special liking for Prachi and follows her instruction to follow her to the temple. So, you can see kunta lying outside the temple when we are inside or coming behind us is a limping dog during our evening walks. Prachi recognizes him and whenever she sees any dog on the road she calls out loud ‘Kuttttta’, followed by ‘Kutttta naaaiiiii….” (Meaning it’s not Kunta).

Over the last few days, Prachi has started liking him overly and runs to him, tries to touch him and I am not at all comfortable with this. I warn her all the time keeping a vigilant eye. With these developments I told HK a couple of days back,”We should get rid of him.” But, yesterday an incident changed this. As usual we were on our evening ‘dhaavnu, dhaan” walk(Prachi running ahead, with me behind her) when a herd of dogs came barking. Following them was this Australian lady who keeps feeding meat to the stray dogs of Ananth Nagar. I particularly dislike this lady who I think is causing more harm to the society than good by feeding the stray dogs. Stray dogs are a huge bane to a healthy society with dogs scattering all the garbage around the bins, barking at wrong times, scaring little kids plus adults, health risks to add. Additionally, I’ve heard feeding raw meat to the dogs make them violent, not sure if this is true. This lady came yesterday and all the dogs surrounded her making lots of noise, running helter-skelter. Poor kid in a cycle lost all his wits and came running to me. I was holding Prachi and was standing aside trying to avoid the dogs from coming near us. And to my surprise there was Kunta standing beside me as though for my guard barking back at dogs and trying to scare them away. The dogs ran chaotically towards the lady for food, but here was Kunta bothered least about her food and just stayed besides me. The lady herself came to him, wheedled him, Kunta responded nicely but none the less left my side. She left the place; I too left but with a different opinion about Kunta. I said with a broad smile to HK who was approaching us, “I am proud of Kunta.”

Note:

1. I intentionally ignored (read, showed contempt written all over my face) the stupid lady. This is unnatural of me, but I can do it if I dislike someone.

2. On introspecting, Kunta being the ‘status-conscious’ dog may not appreciate being fed among the rest of the folks or being the ‘food-picky’ dog he is may not like meat and hence the lady. Whatever be the case I have started liking him!