“MUKU”

RABIN PRASAD KALITA

Keeping a dog and taking good care of it as if it is a member of one’s own family is not everyone's cup of tea. One cannot believe how loyal and obedient these animals can be!If someone adopts it and raises it as if it were his child, then it can even sacrifice its life for its master.

Dogs have a strong sense of smell; due to their hereditary trait, they do not forget anyone, even after many years. It understands the intention behind the person coming to one’s house and changes its behaviour accordingly. A new owner learns something or the other about its characteristics every day. This animal is so intelligent that it expresses its happiness and joy by wagging its tail. Similarly, they understand someone's feelings; if someone is sad they also become sad; if someone is happy, then its happiness can also be seen by its activity.Their playfulness fills the void of loneliness by engaging everyone from children to the elderly. The prehistoric relationship between dog and man shares an extraordinary emotional bond with their owner and family even today and will continue to do so in the future.

Nowadays, some people have been seen keeping it just to show off, wearing the new cloak of wealth. They have nothing to do with its emotions.By placing food in front of them, they keep them locked inside the house from morning till evening, until they return from their hectic work.Feeling lonely, this emotional animal skips its food and even waits for its owner to return safely. As soon as it sees its owner coming, it goes crazy with joy and starts running here and there wagging its tail. And being more ecstatic, it starts eating the same stale food in front of its owner.

These animals also need someone to spend their time with. Being a regular victim of such loneliness, it slowly embraces depression and falls ill. And then, instead of treating this loyal animal, the same owner takes it away from his home and leaves it tied to an electric pole or a tree to die.It has also been observed that some people come on posting to far-off places and somehow keep a dog with them to maintain their status, but when they leave from there, they are also treated in the same way as if they are some useless objects.

Here is one such lively but sad story is of a cute young male dog.Perhaps when he was a little bit healthy, his white and black curly hair and fluffy tail would have surely attracted the attention of every dog lover.But at this time, considering his age, he was not as healthy as he should have been.He was sleeping with his head on the ground near a small roadside tea stall. During their daily walk, both Sneha and Harish saw him sleeping like that and stopped near him for a while. Sneha tried to get his attention by calling him Muku (named him lovingly). But despite not wanting to, he looked at her once from the corner of his eyes and then ignored her again.

Seeing him sleeping there sadly, both of them thought that maybe he had run away from home for some reason, and as soon as the owner would come to know about it, he would immediately find him and take him away. Saying this, both of them started walking again.

After a couple of days, a little distance away from that tea stall to the left, Muku was again seen sleeping on a pile of used coal thrown out from a black smith’s shop. This time both of them saw Muku very skinny and sick.Sneha felt like finding out some information about it. When Sneha asked some people passing by about Muku, one of them told her that he too had seen this stranger roaming around in the same area for a few days.

A boy working at a nearby tea stall said that Muku spends the entire day sitting here and there or sleeping. In the evening, when the momo seller comes, he feels pity on seeing this sick dog and gives him two to three momo to eat, but he can barely eat one or two momo and then goes for sleeping again.

On reaching home from the walk, Sneha, who loves dogs very much, started getting worried thinking about Muku.His sorrow and suffering caused her immense pain in her heart. So, she brings some food from home and tries to feed him, but he eats only one or two bites in the same sitting posture. After that, he again puts his head on the ground and does not even look at the remaining food.

After being abandoned by his master, Muku stopped eating anything and only spent his time sleeping hither and thither, thinking that his master would come soon and take him back again. He had no interest in taking food or anything, even if it cost him his life.

She tried her every possible way to find Muku's owner. Meanwhile, someone told her through hearsay that Muku's owner was a tenant of the same area who had recently gone on posting to some other place keeping Muku abandoned there. Sneha was also suspecting something similar.

Seeing his deteriorating health, Sneha tried to contact a dog caretaker NGO located some distance away. All the information about Muku was given to the coordinator of the NGO, and his photo was also sent through Whats App so that someone could take him away and also get his illness treated. But even after two-three days, there was no response from their side.

Sneha became worried seeing Muku's physical condition getting weaker day by day; she used to visit him one or two times a day with some food on the pretext of seeing him.

The next day morning, when Sneha went for walk with her hubby, Muku was not seen in the entire area.After searching around, when Muku was nowhere to be found, she got a little apprehensive and started asking her husband Harish what could have happened to him. How would he be? Is he safe, etc.?

The same thought kept on troubling Sneha again and again.Who so ever she asked about Muku, she got the reply that no one knew anything of his where abouts .Sometimes, she thought that maybe Muku had gone somewhere in search of his master, but then she also thought that he did not have that physical strength to go anywhere! Even after many days passed, there was no trace of Muku.

At this time, Sneha is praying to God only for one thing: that wherever he is, he should remain safe!

E-mail:rabin1966@gmail.com