DASH DEPARTED

An elegy on the death of a monk in the garb of a canine.

  Dash escaped this world before this accursed pandemic swooped upon us. Perhaps he foresaw it. He foresaw the days and months of untold miseries for the people whom he loved and the problems his existence might create for them in the extended lockdowns. He had been sick for some time and did not want to add to the troubles of his patrons.

It was snowing in Shimla when he breathed his last, six days before the first Covid19 death in India. The saintly creature as he was, he got a white grave among the flowers in our yard.

The grave of Dash on my patio with a Miranda  dog-painting                                                                                           

Yes, he surely was a saintly creature. Sometimes, I had a feeling that he was a Budhist monk reincarnated in a canine form. He could sit for hours together staring at the greenery and the cedar trees beyond the gate of our house, as if meditating upon the problems of existence. He carried an aura of perfect peace and placidness around him. Any shout of anger or bickering in our home made him scurrying to a corner or to hide beneath a table. We avoided our domestic feuds in his benign presence.

Dash lived with us for almost fourteen years. As I scroll through the family pictures on my laptop, I find his handsome figure part of almost every memory, he seems to be present in every important event of our family – be it a birthday or anniversary or a housewarming ceremony. Sadly I realise that our world will not be the same after him.

I remember the day when my daughter brought him as an infant puppy – a beauty with long, floppy ears framing an alert face and light brown silky coat. For almost one year, he did not utter a sound. I had never heard of a dumb or speechless dog. But then a vet told us that he was a pedigreed English cocker spaniel, he would rarely, very rarely yelp or bark.

He was a quiet, silent type but always understanding and quick to learn. He never growled at our visitors   but barked fiercely to shoo away the monkeys around our residence. The only person in the world that our Dash snarled at, strangely enough, was the poor raddiwala who came to the house to collect old newspapers. Perhaps Dash understood my affinity towards books and reading material and disliked anyone who would come to take away any of these.

When I took him along with me during my morning walk, Dash liked to run or stroll holding the leash in his mouth. He used to become very playful and mischievous sometimes and ran with rabbit like strides. Once, my son took him to Sector-15 market at Chandigarh. While my son was gossiping with his friends in a square and Dash was running from one person to another in the group, an English gentleman approached one of them and exclaimed, “Oh this beautiful thing is alive! I had been observing it for some time and wondering who amongst you is holding the remote for this toy!” Yes, sometimes Dash looked like a beautiful electronic toy with his long pendulous ears and shining brown coat.

Dash is seen with the members of my family

Almost two months have elapsed since the departure of Dash, but we have not become used to his absence. He is still the favourite topic of conversation within the family and with any visitor to the house as it used to be when he was alive. He enriched our lives for fourteen long years.  Every morning when my wife sits for her daily puja, she looks behind her to see whether Dash is also sitting behind her like always.

No, he is not.