Street Dogs

Kakinada or for that matter any city/town/village in India has a verify basic connection with the staple of the urban fauna, the stray dog, so too here in KKD, in my life. 

You always wonder why there are street dogs that colonise every corner in your colony. In all the places I have lived in KKD or for that matter India, we had our regulars. They mark their territory, have a strict hierarchy and always suffer a shortage of bitches on heat. That something that amazes me. Are all the strays born on the streets male? You always see so many males fighting after one scared little female. I mean even those dumb second-in-line know that it is the alpha male that will get dibs anyway. The irony is that thats what we humans may be reduced to as well if some of the skewed sex ratios in India are any indication. God! Thats horrendous even to imagine.

In first year I stayed in an apartment building right opposite the mens hostel. In those days before the RMC became Raju's principality, the hostel was a shaggy wreck of ruins and the pavilion and crciket grounds next to it, a depository for refuse of the sorrounding residential colonies. And to this added were the slums of people who served the menial errands of the babus in the apartments. At this time, it was not uncommon to see the wall-less hostel grounds turn into the scene of the latest street fight for control of sniffing rights and pee poles. These dogs fought great battles all over and the land switched control all too often. The terrace of the cricket pavilion became a place from where the sentinels of the ruling pack kept an eye on their human subjects and gathered intelligence on the next showdown.

The canines often were too busy with their garbage hunting and reckless feuding to care about their bipedal neighbours. But the dark of the night brings out the fear in even the most ruthless dogs and thats when you are left to question the evolutionary hierarchy. Dogs are even more fierce when they are scared. Not something evident in humans. In school there would be a pyramid in science textbooks depicting the plant, herbivore, carnivore hierarchy and apparently on top was the human who far exceeded most other creatures in the consumption of vast portions of the spectrum of the food chain. I dont know what Darwin would say, but why does a steet dog on an empty road in the middle of the night give me the shits? Then you learn the rules of the game: when faced with the prospect of passing a fellow carnivore with surprising well preserved dentition that never seems to need a root canal or a polishing, never make eye contact and walk away from it and at no point let your body language convey confrontation. 

And then the little bastards run after your bike. You are on Cinema road at 12.30 in the night, it is kind of hard to decide what justified the 30 rupees you spent on that movie plus the 5 rupees on parking plus the usual drinks and snack. A good hundred. God! you think. How much worse can the movies get? And this insightful soliloquoy you hope to end in deep slumber is broken by a pack of bored quadrupeds that have been craving a run. They run after you like there's no tomorrow shaming your 150cc excuse for a motorbike. Often you outlast them but every once in a while one unlucky chap gets his pants ripped or worse.

In the first couple of years we only drank bottled water. The empty bottles would just keep piling in our flat. Not knowing what better to do on slow Sunday afternoons, we figured out a way passing time with our four legged friends. Fill half the bottle and aim right next to the dog and watch it bark its brains off looking around like the aliens had just landed. Stupid fun!

The dogs of the Gandhinagar neighbourhood that I moved to in second year were a different lot. Jump the gates, dig through the garbage and if you see a human, run! That was pretty much the operational code out there. Next to the apartment was a sizeable trapezium of gated land. And keeping with tradition even this open plot was the garbage dump of the nearby houses. Whatever it was you just tossed it over the wall. I did that too till it was later bought and a house was built.

In the middle of my midnight routines on the phone I could hear squeals. They werent very distant but it was surprising that I could hear those pathetic cries over the downpour outside. I leaned risking the rain from my balcony to see what it was. In the darkness I could barely make out the figures but it was puppies. A bitch had just delivered in this safe walled compund and probably had gone off to feed itself and these pups were left in the open in the pelting rain. When it rains hard in KKD its not pleasant. You dont want to dance like they do in the movies. And these things were probably a few days or may be even hours old. 

Consulting my partner in crime who herself had a pet dog about the situation I stood there wondering what could be done. My mother always would say that even though the pups are cute you shouldnt touch them till they are cared for by their mother for a couple of days. Apparently you left behind a scent and the mother would never touch the pups again. So here was my problem: pups in the rain, a mother that may be on its way back to the pups, a girl on the phone who cant stop sympathising with painful squealing, and me, wanting to help and score points with the lady.

So I got off the phone, went downstairs and from the compound wall strained to see for any signs of what could be my ticket to a rabies vaccine. Then I jumped. On the otherside those forsaken pups squealed louder as they saw me approach scaring the hell out of me. I was drenched in a minute and now didnt know what the hell I set out to do. I wasnt going to risk transferring the pups one by one to a sheltered corner and in the process deny their mother or deny my mother. Luckily there was a huge palm leaf nearby which I propped up against the compound walls in the puppy corner. You should have been there. The squeals almost stopped that very instant and those furballs started to grunt, snuggle or even purr. I jumped back satisfied yet doubtful of the consequences. 

It was all win-win. I got my brownie points and the next morning saw the sucklings being fed.

And The Stories Begin

Six years. Thats a pretty long time. And the funny thing is offlate many things i say start with a constant reference to this period.

I am going to tell you about my experiences in Kakinada and my world there. As when things come to my mind I will tell you about them. I dont think I will be going in any particular order, chronological or otherwise. Its just a way for me to chronicle the details of a place, of a life I learnt o love. These stories just happened and some of them are still happening. 

Someday when I am a retired old man I hope to be able to look back, read and reflect over some of the best formative years.

Kakinada. Rangaraya Medical College. Six years.

First Day In The New World

fateful days those were. i was making choices by the minute. what college to go to? where to stay? who to stay with? all these questions were answered soon enough.

october 26, 2002. after having registered the previous day at the administrative wing of the college, i walked in with a neatly pressed attire, top to toe not costing more than rs 700 (i was told expensive clothes attract the wrath of the seniors). the first class in my medical life was physiology. the class was full. the year had already been a week underway. friends were made, gangs formed. i stagger to the men's end of the gender-segregated class and make myself comfortable in the first bench, alone. enter tutor. she was this rotund woman who stood at the mike but forgot what it was for. she kept yelling to make sure she was heard at the other end of the campus. as attendance was being called, one guy sitting behind me tapped my shoulder and asked if i had a place to stay. i didnt like him, instinctively. i lied that i was living with an uncle and didnt intend to room with anyone. and an hour passed. i had fresh new notebooks to make notes in and i wrote everything, in the best handwriting i could. after all this was medicine, defining moments of the man i were to be.

soon enough the class dispersed only to file into another nearby building for the anatomy lecture. i walked in late and found a seat in a corner next to the window. the tutor there yelled too but this time with no mike to assist. i wrote and i wondered. i didnt know anything of what was going on. this was a general anatomy lecture and a glance around the hall had people bobbing their heads up and down, studiedly jotting down things they apparently understood. freak! what was i to do. the week i missed started seeming like a year. and at the end of it all, one guy went up with a copy of grey’s anatomy and asks a doubt regarding endarteries. holy crap!

classes are done for the day. i walk out and dont know my left from right. no way to know where my grandparents were. they had been on the hunt to find me accomodation. i wasnt going to stay in the mens hostel. i take an auto ride to subbiah hotel and get an ac meal. something that would anger my grandma later. i always wondered why. they too ate the hotel.

later that afternoon, my grandparents showed me the setup. the crib, pad, den, whatever was to be. it was five rooms end to end. three rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. my possessions now included a mattress, a plate, a glass, a tube light and a ceiling fan along with my suitcase.

later they got onto a bus at balaji cheruvu off to samalkot. it was a sunday afternoon. the roads were empty. it was the october heat. i forgot to ask my grandparents where i now lived. i didnt know who to ask for what and where. i walked. i walked all afternoon looking around at small shops and torn down posters of x-rated movies. where have i landed myself?

the next couple of days i would walk a circuitous route to college and lock myself up when i wasnt out for food. i would read newspapers, three or four years old, which i had borrowed from the owners to spread on the dusty shelves. hours at end i wouldnt talk to anyone. everyday was an ordeal. always lost my way and too proud to look foolish if i asked, i would walk till i found familiar surroundings and eventually get home.

october 29, 2002. physiology hall. the other nri i knew walks in. abhishek, a kid from hyderabad sharing the first bench experience with me, and i walk up to raj c. wassup!

days pass.