A Short Story
Part - I
The mouth of gunny bag I was playing suddenly opened, came on to my face swiftly and took me in. We hadn't played this game before! A familiar voice and scent - think it's the maali – was holding it. My brother and sister followed, with greater force. They looked stunned! The gunny's mouth closed, tied I think. It was dark, I couldn't see. We were just then hopping around the pavers playing catch while eating lunch. We shouted, kicked, wriggled and wailed aloud, the gunny remained closed. The maali picked up the bag and started walking.
We bobbed about, too shocked to think what was going on. It was rough and not a game anymore. He walked some distance and put us on to something that held us tightly. I sensed that we started moving.
I heard noises of those big machines that generally came in the morning and went in the evening when lot of people came and went. It was much noisier now, different kinds of noises. We hung on to each other, wailing, whining. Gradually the noise around us reduced. After a long time, the bag was dropped; it didn't feel good, rather wet and cold. Calmness prevailed except for a few birds’ chirp; we stopped crying and waited with bated breath... Nothing happened for some time. Something came close, I could hear heavy rasping sound, and pushed us. We tumbled down and landed with the bag’s mouth beneath us. Then Spotty shook away, bit the damn bag where it closed and lo! The bag’s clasp gave away... Open Sky!!
The Sun wasn't harsh, rather played hide n' seek with the clouds, much like us when we played in the garden. A thorn just poked my back through the bag; I quickly turned around and started gnawing the bag to break the dirty fellow, holding it with my paws. Sandy! My eldest brother called out from a distance. I then realised he had gone round and checked out the place. Smily, my elder sister and closest to me, ran ahead and reached Spotty before me; she always did this – racing me when I was doing something nice.
I looked about; we were in a paddy field, full of dry cut plants and wet mud. No houses and people, just some trees. Just then, tip! A water drop fell on my shiny nose and I shook it away playfully. We ran to a huge tree as it started to drizzle and then rain heavily. This time there was no playing in the rain. All three of us huddled together trying to keep ourselves dry, and dozed off that afternoon.
I woke up, after don’t know how long and saw it had become dark. A certain nip in the air ran shivers down my tail; the leaves started to fall. I tried to catch one, bit it, not knowing what else to do. Smily was toying with a twig that fell on her. Sandy came around the tree, head hung low, looking sad. "What's up bro?" I asked - he shook his head and said, "we are deserted" as he plonked himself between Smily and me. He had gone around a long distance exploring while we were asleep and didn’t find anyone familiar.
Suddenly Smily stood up, went to Spotty and started to paw and lick his face, trying to cheer. But he still hung his head and rested on his paw, tired, with a sigh! A dim light came on at a distance! We quickly stood up and perked our tails; ran towards it, wagging our tails, trying to get a scent. Spotty being the eldest - by about 30 minutes - ran quickly ahead of us asking us to follow. Smily being quicker than me followed him; I tried to keep up close behind her.
We ran quite far and were losing breath; the light was still nowhere near. We kept running towards it, stumbling and sometimes falling over trying to jump over big branches and puddles of water. Our tongues hung out lose while we gasped. We were dirty, tired, wet, hungry, desperate – to go home, our box, to momma, milk, food and sleep. I couldn't understand why we were here and why we have to do all this. Why did the maali drop us in the field I repeatedly asked myself?
After running for a long long time, we reached the light. It was behind a small hut. We could hear few voices coming from inside. I could smell food and darted ahead! Spotty barked at me and held my tail with his teeth.
I was scared of his sharp teeth, but not now. I resisted and tried to pull myself away. Smily came face to face with me and growled: "These are humans and they don't know us. We will be beaten and hurt", she said with clenched teeth, even as Spotty held me. "How do you know?" I snarled back; it was my stomach talking, I never spoke and felt like this before. I finally gave up, howling. I wanted momma very badly – she took care of me; they would never dare to do this to me with her around. I always got what I wanted; I was denied, now, for the first time. Spotty ordered us to hide behind a Marigold bush close to the house. We could see the house, but couldn’t be seen. I sat licking my tail, looking around.
Soon enough a kid came out and threw out something that smelt like food a little away from us. To reach there we had to go across the well-lit-ground and would surely become visible. I looked at Spotty and Smily, their faces were full of concentration, watching the girl. We waited for her to return, while she washed her hands and cleaned the vessels. As soon as the door closed, we ran to the heap. It tasted like sour buttermilk mixed with stale rice. I crinkled my nose and looked around. I remember eating hot cooked rice, sometimes spicy or with milk given by the uniformed men standing near the gate of the huge blue buildings with garden like a forest. I once wandered in to one of the blue buildings and found a garden! Amazing, I thought – how these big ones that treat us nicely, play and feed us could create forest inside! Smily had come along and we played catch–n–bite in those big trees. Oh, I wish I was home!
“Finish eating quickly and then dream, Sandy,” Spotty’s low firm growl broke my sweet reverie. Smily had almost finished when I joined her in the stale-food-feast, while big-bro kept watch. We gobbled up as much as our empty stomachs could take; Spotty came along and polished off the rest. We crawled away to our hideout, the marigold bush, and were fast asleep, tired. As usual, I put my paws on Smily, rested my head on Bro’s tummy and snored into the night, the end of an exciting, scary and tiresome day. For tonight, neither the warmth of the carton box, nor momma’s gentle licks put us to sleep.
The cool breeze made us huddle closer. The full-moon shone bright, while Stars twinkled more than before. Today was surely not normal. Home was far, very far away.
Spotty & I
Part – II
Shanty woke up startled to a distant wailing sound. That was Sandy, she knew; what could be wrong with that poor boy, she thought and bolted towards the commotion. The silly fellow must have bit her sister, or was it that simple? He wasn’t there! She looked around the buildings, behind trees and bushes. He’s too small to climb stairs and to go into the buildings she thought and skipped looking inside (but Sandy was capable of this and much more, poor momma doesn’t know).
The realisation dawned that not only was Sandy missing, even Spotty and Smily were not traceable. Picking up a faint scent, she followed it. Darn! That damn maali watered the lawns and the scent was watered down. However, the faint scent of her kids ended abruptly behind the canteen. The half-eaten lunch was testimony that something grave has befallen them. Earlier couple of weeks ago, some kids were playing with her kids and had taken away one of her kids, and was hoping that it was not the case this time too!
A lot of people were returning from the canteen, have any of them done something? After a lot of searching, Shanty noticed that Kallappa was also missing. Could it be him? She waited at the gate for him to return. That day he didn’t. Shanti slept where she waited since noon– hungry, cold, sad and angry – tears trickling down her eyes. She sorely missed those little fellas.
Early next morning Kallappa routinely came to work. Shanty watched all day and followed him on his way home much to his irritation. Kallappa’s home was in a village about 5 kms from the Blue buildings, across the National highway. He cycled away faster trying to give Shanty the slip, while she tried to keep pace. On the way they crossed many fields and reached home in about 30 minutes, but no trace of her little ones! Shanty was inconsolable. She wailed out loud standing in front of Kallappa’s home, all night, demanding him to return her kids. But to no avail. Kallappa’s wife took notice, mistook Shanty’s wails and tried to feed her, in which she was least interested. She then decided to stay with Kallappa for some time to get a clue as to her kids’ whereabouts. She was damn sure there was a connection, only time will tell. She continued to trail him day and night, leaving him out of sight for nary a moment.
Needless to say, she struck luck one evening, when Kallappa decided to take his wife to her mother’s.
Part – III
Someone just picked me up! I half-opened my eyes to realize that I was in the arms of the kid who dropped the food last night. It was quite late into the morning; Spotty and Smily were already prancing around the kid waging their tails, and licking her feet. Warm milk and sweet round things (the girl called them Bikis) welcomed us this morning.
Patty (I named her as she kept on patting me) couldn’t keep her hands off my coat calling me Shiny! How I hated the name! But, who cares, I was busy with the warm milk and so were my bro and sis, each of us with our own cups. “Is this heaven or home?” I thought. I wanted momma to share this moment with us, and our other lost bro and sis.
Born on a piece of land across the river, along the great-wall, on a rainy night, about a month ago, while the river was in spate, were five of us! Spotty, Silky, Shady, Smily and me, Sandy! No wonder why mom named us so, true to our nature and appearance. Poor Silky and Shady, I wish the kids who took them away are looking after them.
Momma took real good care of each of us. We didn’t know what it meant to fight. I was the favorite. I had dad’s great sandy coat and momma’s dark mouth. I always got to sleep with momma, got the most milk and best long-licks. My brothers and sisters envied, but never resented.
Continued
