Tomy

Here I say a close to heart true story of Friendship and Betrayal.

Tomy, our dog was my favorite. He was an ordinary Indian dog and not of any special breed but his off white color was nice and beautiful brown eyes, were full of soul that I fail to see even in Humans. It is almost, like we grew up together. When I returned home from school, as soon as I got down the bus at 3:00PM, I saw Tomy waiting for me near the main road and he would lead me home, almost every day. No matter where he was in an audible surrounding, he would run towards me if heard calling.

As a silent child, number of friends I had, were limited. I compensated them with Trees around my house on which I sat for hours, plants in my Garden which I nurtured and of course Tomy. At times, if Tomy would be busy with his friends and very rarely ignored me, I would get angry and taunt him by saying – So now you do not need me? I would not talk to him for some time but he kept following me.

Everything was nice, until one day a mad dog bit our neighbors dog Julie. Julie retrenched to a silent mode, which they say is one of the symptoms of the contagious disease. Tomy having spent most of his time with Julie was now feared to have the same disease. So the elders decided that Tomy must be killed along with Julie. Was this a wise decision? I don’t want to comment on that and at that age, I did not know a thing about decision making.

I do not recall, how I reacted to all this; did I know this was coming? What was I thinking? I recall none at this point but what happened next, remained with me forever.

One evening, two men from Municipality were invited home. After Julie, they came for Tomy. But Tomy active as ever, sensed the danger and began running in all directions. The two simply could not catch hold of him. At this point the elders asked for my help, they asked me to call Tomy and they knew he would not disobey my call. I did as told. The image is, me standing in the middle of dry paddy field and Tomy came running to me. The two men attacked him from the back and held him hostage in a sack. They carried him towards the end of the paddy field and disappeared behind the bushes. It is years later that I realized what a grave mistake I had done. I recall crying as I heard Tomy’s last cry at only one blow that was enough to end his life and our togetherness.

This scene haunted me for years, I never told this to anyone, not my family or friends. I felt guilty and may be this is the reason, I never had another dog. A small black dog that replaced Tomy did not stay with us for long. Whenever I see a dog today, all I can recall is this incident and it never allows me to love a dog as though I am undeserving.

Had I known then, what I know now, I would have stopped this from happening, taken him for medication or a checkup. If not anything else, I know one thing for sure today that the first line of this post needs to be corrected. Tomy was not my favourite, but I was Tomy’s favourite.