man's worst friend

the indian dog is a strange being. it is highly resourceful, and if u talk of the indian stray dog, those buggers are bloody mensans!!! but for all their ingenuity these canine supremos dont have much of traffic sense. how hard is it really! before crossing the road, look on either side and if there are no vehicles coming, cross the bally thing. i mean thats all u need to do. its not as if u r in some other country where u cant jaywalk and have to go looking for those crossing. this is just plain look and cross. and for all their ingenuity one would assume that these miserable nincompoops who spend a good portion of their lives on the roads would have learnt how to cross the road. look at chickens. they r famous all over the world for it!

so it was that one of the above mentioned four-legged-ill-advised beings came to stroll into the path of figo's bike. well not so much stroll as dash. now the dog, were it to present its case, would have said that there were a pack of humans following it earnestly with an ardent desire to inflict bodily harm and that under those circumstances, it didnt have time to go through the look-to-the-right-and-then-to-the-left routine. but one would argue that its precisely at such moments that one should be all the more careful. i mean pretty silly it would look if having escaped a couple of sticks, it were to be run over by, of all people, figo :-) entire generations wouldnt have been able to live down the shame. but then we underestimate how hard it is to actually get run over by figo. for if there was a brake-happy guy, then this guy is certainly that.

now many would consider this an ordinary incident. but then many werent following behind figo in another bike :-( the interesting thing about dark narrow roads is that not only are they narrow, but also they are pretty much devoid of light. so it was that the undersigned didnt really see anything of the dog. so i was pretty astonished by figo's actions! i mean one moment he was cruising along the road and the next had come to a complete stop and was looking at something in front of him. i mean, being figo we permit him a certain margin of swerve in behaviour to the other side of sanity, but this looked like a case of him taking an extreme liberty with the watchdogs of mental health. even as i was wondering whether something had finally pushed him beyond the edge, i was aware that i needed to brake fast and hard.

well to make a long story short, the only hard part about the braking was the time i hit the ground. well not i, but we. for riding with me was my roomie dixit. he is perhaps the biggest victim of this. for the bike i was riding was his and this was the first time it really got up close and personal with ma earth. and i was feeling pretty sorry for the chap. but i soon overcame that moment of weakness and started feeling sorry for myself having been a bit at the receiving end myself especially the arm and wrist. and i began to sympathize with those salt-of-the-earth people who were after the bally dog. they had their hearts in the right place. i mean i had known it for hardly five minutes and i could have strangled it with not a sound from my conscience. in fact conscience would have been right there egging me along.

well we were a bruised lot in body and spirit who came back home. and then dixit looks at my arm and says:
"man! u also ruined ur shirt."
and i look at the torn sleeves.
"yeah, but u know what. i dont think this shirt is mine."
the light seemed to die out of his eyes.
"shit! its mine! bastard!"