Dr A S Bhatia
It was the fifth day of Lockdown 1, I came down the stairs to lock the front door of our home , when I saw two sparkling dots in the dead darkness of the late night. Once a while I stood motionless, the glowing dots moved few steps away from the gate, when the head lights of the police patrol vehicle bathed the street with light, in that few seconds I could see a brown coloured street dog standing in the middle of the road and looking towards the gate which I had gone to close it. In those few seconds I had an eye to eye contact with the brown dog. The eyes were speaking a lot, there was a request for help, the body language of the Brownie was speaking more than what could be penned down on paper. I am failing miserably to find exact words to express those few seconds of interaction with that voiceless animal with lots of words in her eyes. Yes, she was a brown coloured malnourished stray dog. I stepped out of the gate and moved towards her, but she quickly stepped back but kept staring at me, and this happened two to three times. “Papa, She is very shy,” shouted Sapneet my daughter who was watching all this from the top of the roof. Sapneet is a Dog lover and has two dogs, The Labrador, “Sultaan” and second a German Shephard, “Sahib.” Unfortunately a tragedy struck Sultaan during the lockdown. Yes, the stray dog was very shy, was trying to communicate with me but at the same time was very hesitant in allowing me to come close to her. Meanwhile Aakashdeep , my son who was also standing with me at the gate brought milk and bread in a bowl and kept it in front of the gate. The Saasha, the name given to the shy dog by Sapneet, was watching the food from a distance but was not daring to come to eat it. I understood her fear and slipped back inside the house and closed the door. We were watching her movement from inside the gate, she walked slowly and slowly with very cautious steps and in no time finished the bread and milk indicating the level of hunger, she was facing during the lock down.
With announcement of Lockdown in the country, all eateries, restaurants, meat shops, dhabas were closed all of a sudden, and these being the favorite eating spots for stray dogs. Media was flooded with the stories of poor people, migrant workers taking to roads by foot to reach their home towns miles away. Better sense prevailed among right thinking persons and arrangements were made for free ration distribution by various Non Government Organizations including RSS, which activated all its block presidents to help the poor in the lock down period and somehow the situation was not allowed to deteriorate, but at the same time, the situation was also not good for the stray animals, as is evident from the statement issued by Delhi based animal activist Raina Kapoor who lamented, “The lock down has affected all of us but has a very big impact on the stray animals and birds , especially near the markets and near corporate set ups. The strays have no meaning of feeding themselves as all offices, restaurants, road side eateries are closed. The stray and birds are starving. They will die in such scenario”.
That night ,while back in home, after taking a glass full of milk along with Haldi, as being practiced in India since thousands of years back and is a traditional medicine, although some western firms also tried to get Haldi patentented. Corona pandemic has made the world to realize the rich traditional knowledge of Indian systems of medicines, I told Harleen, my wife, about the starvation being faced by these stray animals during this lockdown. She looked towards me with a big question mark. I smiled and tried to mimic the innocence of Raj Kapoor, “Can you arrange food for these animals? With no dhabas and eateries, and no remnant food coming from , these stray dogs are facing the brunt of the pandemic.” I asked. As usual, I was expecting her to support me, as she has been doing during the last twenty five years in my each and every, off the road, endeavor, she smiled and said OK, go Ahead !
In the scenario, when the availability of the food remained difficult for the stray animals, these poor helpless innocent animals were further ostracized because of rumors linking them to be the carriers of the corona virus. I have witnessed many rumors in my life time leading to social conflicts and even riots, but to the surprise of my intelligence, I saw once in a while, in my life the misinformation leading to the miseries of animals. The news papers were flooded with the news where the family members had abandoned the dead bodies of their relatives, even on the road sides suspecting them to have died of Covid-19. Such events revealed the extent to which the corona fear psychosis has percolated into the psyche of people. Things were also not so good for the pet dogs also. As the corona spread around the globe, social media was flooded with the misinformation linking dogs with Covid -19. People started abandoning their pets. This created a peculiar situation all over the globe. The pets could not survive like stray dogs. They were not trained to hunt for food nor did have self defense skills, thereby were exposed to more risks. An animal activist Bhadra has rightly said, “Abandoning a pet is as good as writing its Death Certificate.” So in my opinion the pandemic has been cruel on both stray as well as pet dogs.
Back to home, I along with the support of my wife started feeding the stray dogs in Bakshi Nagar. To my utter surprise more than ten stray dogs started to recognize the sound of my whistle in the darkness of night. Saasha, the shy dog was my favorite as it was due to her unspoken words, I took the task of feeding stray dogs. Most of the stray dogs were very punctual and used to gather in front of our gate at a fixed time of the evening, showing the strong interrelationship between their thoughts and the biological clock.
It was in the month of August when much of the relaxations were given and steps were initiated by the Government for unlocking process. Most of the eateries and dhabas were opened with the option of home delivery of eatables. It was about noon, I was going through the market when I noticed Saasha along with other stray dogs present in front of a dhaba. Just, as I was about to blow a whistle to call Saasha, the Shy dog, and my favorite during last about five months of lockdown, the dhaba owner threw some roties ( Loaf of bread) on the road. About four to five stray dogs present in front of the dhaba ran towards the eatables. I was shocked to see Saasha , the Shy dog jumping aggressively, Grueling and snatching the roties from another more bigger dog and then running away along with the roties. This change in behavior of Shy Saasha was a bigger surprise for me as a doctor. My father is always telling me that a hungry man is always an angry man. I could see this in animal world also. Food scarcity has brought a change in the behavior of the very shy stray dog to one, full of aggression. They have become more aggressive among themselves. Now the question is, has this lockdown induced a major behavioral changes in the stray dogs? This may become a matter of research during Covid -19.
But the more important, relevant and worrisome question is whether the economical depression induced by Corona pandemic has also succeeded in inducing similar behavioral changes in the underprivileged strata of the society. Do we expect a surge in the crime in the city of temples? Will loss of Job in private sector derive our youth to unlawful activities or aggression in their behavior? Should we expect the youth with little family and financial support to suffer from severe depression? These are the few, among many, aspects to look after in addition to hand sanitization and social distancing.
Food scarcity during lockdown has made stray dogs to suffer. But as every cloud has a silver lining, this pandemic has created more awareness about stray animals and made many people to develop love for stray animals, which is becoming a social movement. Covid -19 has succeeded in bringing the homosapiens, once again close to nature and has forced the human to behave more humane, as Mirza Ghalib said,
“Kitnaa khauff hota hai, sham kay andheroon mein,
Pooch un parindoo say, jin kay gharr nahi hotay.”
(The author is Vice President Indian Academy of Biomedical Sciences, India and Professor and Head Department of Biochemistry, Government Medical College Jammu.)
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