Just another night

It's a placid night in my colony and the streets are free of commotion. I'm about to drift into a slumber. But then, the canine residents of the colony decide to assert their dominance with prolonged howls.

Yes I'm talking about the dogs in my colony...

Dogs in India have the perfect life in many aspects. They get a sumptuous breakfast every morning from empathy driven people, and spend their day in blissful lethargy. 

And even if they don't get food from humans, our street dogs have mastered the art of scavenging to the adeptness of a hyena.

What's more?

They have singing competitions with their friends every night... 

But it's not all plain sailing!

The lives of street dogs depend on the reflexes of vehicle owners, who often perform last moment stunts to save the dogs' lives.

Moreover, their greatest peril comes from people who don't appreciate their vocal skills, especially at night! As the dog population rises, these people start devising cunning plans to eliminate the dogs. 

That's where the moral dilemma hits them!

The innocent dogs are just trying to live their lives! Just look at the sad expressions that they have mastered over centuries. Meanwhile, those who feed them daily experience a spiritual satiation of the highest order.

Moreover, (directly) killing innocent animals is considered a sure shot ticket to hell's boiling pot by many Indians.

On the other hand, being woken at 2 p.m. admidst persistent barks and high pitched howls is not the best experience (unless you're into grunge and opera music).

Ultimately,  we're left with four options. And you must choose wisely!

1. Either start enduring and slowly get used to the canine vocabulary.

2. Argue with the feeders to stop their ritual; which would probably end up in a religous debate and costly lawsuit that your distant predecessors might win. Not a prudential option, right?

3. Get a weapon and go full Rambo! Sounds like quick fix. But going for violent and impulsive solutions is tough in India as we haven't caught up with western gun laws yet.

4. Of course, a plausible option is to report the situation to animal control. But this doesnt work either in most of India and I don't blame them. 

After all, freedom of expression and mobility is fundamental to our democracy and should extend to all animals! And man's best friend would surely be first in line for this...

The end result

Eventualy, people and dogs learn to co-exist. An unspoken and unwritten truce is formed accross species!

Neither gets into the other's personal space and both learn to ignore the minor shananigans of the other with empathy in mind. 

In fact, if we widen the sample, humans have grown to love dogs as pets accross the world. And they inexplicably find it cute when their dog tears their furniture apart, often going on to post it on social media.

If only humans everywhere behaved with each other the way they behave with dogs (let's leave China out of that list)!