Coffee table
discussions in India about a hafu with Indian blood who having won the Ms
Universe Japan is having to fight the prejudices of a country that is still, as
it seemingly emerges, very proud of its race in all its purity, makes one
cringe because India itself is not a land that is free from prejudices, especially
of the racial kind. And this could well be because of the colonial rule that it
was subjected to. Interestingly, the racial prejudice extends to canines.
Let me talk about the
incident that happened just a few days ago, which set my mind thinking at multiple
levels.
I used to, in all my
humility think of all those people walking their dogs - the beagles, the labs,
the pugs, why, I even have a neighbour who owns a pair of Chihuahuas, though I
have never quite seen them being walked or even carried around – as pure and
simple dog lovers.
My impression of dog-walkers
took its first beating when I had, a few years ago, overheard some people
discuss keeping a dog not for the merits of the “keeping of a dog” but for the
“snob value” that it apparently carried. It was not too difficult for me to
unravel this one – it turns out that while a mongrel – the local Indian breed comes
free of cost, one would need to pay upwards of a lakh or two for the “right
breed”.
However, an off-the-cuff
remark made snidely to someone about the “Indian mongrel” that the person owned
made my eyes pop out. For the person at whom the jibe was targeted was a
genuine dog lover as had been exhibited by the very act of adopting a street
dog, a pub – an Indian mongrel of the Pariah variety – as it lay helplessly
yelping on a cold winter evening, at the mercy of inclement weather and
territorial beasts of its own species that would have mauled it to death, and
bringing it home to love and safety.
To the less initiated,
the Indian pariah is acknowledged the world over, as being highly intelligent
and easy to train – the latter is an obvious fallout of the IQ. Their survival
skills as well as adaptability, which is common about any average Indian being
I suppose. An interesting fact about the Indian Pariah is that, according to a
recent Nat Geo film, it is perhaps one of the first domesticated dog breeds
ever. Another interesting fact about the Pariah is that the Bakharwal, an
Indian Pariah variant, is perhaps the only known vegetarian dog.
But then, do the
merits of a dog really matter when it comes to racial profiling? Indians,
however much we may be in denial, but our deep rooted fetish about light-skin, and
our instant liking for anything foreign (light-skin) as being God’s boon to
mankind, saying what ‘kismat’ or in this
case, ‘dogmat’!!
Equating dogs to status
symbol, well that is an altogether different topic and a funny one at that. That
you are wont to do what you would when you see someone at the wheels of say an Aston
Martin or a Bentley, to someone holding a beagle or a lab – meaning brand the person
in your mind as “elitist”, as belonging to the upper echelons of the society or
the privileged society – would perhaps make you curl up with laughter.
Up until now my eyes,
which used to look at all those people who walked their dogs with something of
awe and admiration for the kindness that I thought they bestowed on animals now
yearn to look at the quirkiness, which atleast some of them unknowingly exhibit.
And my own walks have begun to become quite fun.
