Oh My Dog!

 

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.