THE GINGER TRAIL …

Her name is Ginger Einstein Bhatt! Does it raise eyebrows? That is the name of our female dog, or rather, 7 month-old pup. Why such an odd name? Ginger brown is the colour of her four paws. Her middle name is Einstein because, like her namesake, she has bushy eyebrows, again ginger in colour. For the rest, she is black. Her surname is Bhatt, because she is of doubtful paternity, like a famous Bollywood director’s frank admission. The lady who gave Ginger to us 5 months ago told us that she was a mix of a Labrador and a Terrier. She looks like neither. That is why the “if and but” (Bhatt) comes in. Infact she looks like a miniature Doberman, with the ribcage, tightly tucked in torso and long legs of a hound. Boy, can she run fast. Our family has always been fond of dogs. When our two Boxers, Rocky and Pebbles, died in quick succession, we were heartbroken. My wife and son (our daughter was away) were not ready for another pet, only to suddenly lose it. But I insisted that we needed a dog in our house, more as a watchdog and a companion, than a pet. That is how Ginger came into our family, a day after Christmas 2011. She was fragile, frightened and puny. I kept her in a small carton near my bed. But we were in the midst of a severe and extended winter. She would shiver and whimper, so I gave in and allowed her to sleep under my blanket, her tiny head resting in the crook of my arm. When winter receded, despite my wife’s protests, I put her out in the compound for the nights. She initially howled in protest, but ultimately accepted her fate. This was the first time that I had reared a pup with so much tenderness. The grandfatherly instinct perhaps. Ginger was growing into a sweet little doggy (it would be politically incorrect to call her a bitch), clamouring for our attention, and chasing the squirrels and bloodsuckers in the garden. Because she was so timid, my wife did not permit her to be taken for a walk outside the house. The only world Ginger knew was that of the four walls of our compound. Then last Saturday morning, while my wife and I were away at work, Ginger disappeared into thin air. My son phoned me to convey the bad news. He and the watchman scoured the locality for two hours, but there was no sign of Ginger. I steeled myself to accept the inevitable. I also phoned a neighbour, who told me that he had seen Ginger standing outside the gate, that was ajar. So one doubt was cleared, she had not been stolen. When my wife got home in the afternoon she was shocked. A mother’s heart is different from us heartless men. She is the Director of the Spastics Centre, whose theme song is “We Shall Overcome”. She was unwilling to accept the inevitable, and stepped out alone in the scorching summer sun, looking for Ginger. A mother’s love is not easily thwarted. She met some roadside hawkers who told her that they had seen Ginger in the vicinity. She was afraid, gasping for breath, and was being chased by a pack of street dogs. Hope was rekindled, as also the fear that she may have been torn to shreds, or picked up by a passer-by, and we would never see her again. My wife kept saying that we were so anxious about our puppy, what about those parents whose little children are lost or kidnapped by cruel “humans”? For two days we searched high and low; in middle class, lower middle class areas, slums and hutments. Nobody had seen her since Saturday morning. Hopes began to recede; she could not have survived in the big bad world out there. However, my son observed that since she was a fast runner nobody would be able to catch her. One of my employees said that the street dogs would not attack her because she was a female! Wow! Would that we humans learnt some lessons from street dogs. On Monday morning my son and I hit the Ginger Trail again, constantly calling her name. Initially it felt odd walking through strange by lanes calling out “Ginger”. No “self-respecting” person would do that. What is pseudo self-respect before the force of love and separation? To hell with what anybody thought of me, I was searching for a loved one, and that was all that mattered. Finally, the dawn broke. A man and his daughter, sitting on a cot outside their house, said that they had seen Ginger about an hour earlier. Our hearts thumped wildly as we pressed forward with renewed earnestness. I noticed that the poor and lower class people showed greater concern. Some took our phone numbers with the assurance to inform us if they spotted Ginger. . Two hours passed. Only one narrow lane remained. As I kept calling out an old man in a decrepit hut said that he had seen Ginger about an hour ago. We ran in that direction, and suddenly I spotted her in the middle of the road, about a hundred yards ahead. Excitedly, we called out to her, but she was so disoriented that she ran away from us. Then my primordial hunter’s instinct took over. Stalk her, don’t rush her. She came bounding into my son’s outstretched arms. She was haggard but surprisingly unscathed. The street dogs, unlike us “civilised beings”, had respected the law of the urban jungle – not to harm a defenceless female. A lesson for life. After getting back home we returned to those areas with two boxes of pedas, to thank all those who had helped. They accepted the unexpected prasad. As I said to my family, “Gratitude must be expressed, and expediently so”. It would also be an encouragement to such persons to take another step forward to help somebody in distress. While on the Ginger Trail I had been into an area where pigs, buffaloes, goats and humans all co-existed. There was squalor everywhere. I cannot blame the BBC reporter who said that India was dirty. India can never be “shining” as long as there is squalor and abject poverty in our shadow. While on the Ginger Trail many Biblical images flashed through my mind; Jesus the Good Shepherd leaving the ninety nine to look for the one lost sheep (cf Lk 15:4-5), the father anxiously awaiting the return of his Prodigal Son (cf Lk 15:20), and the ingratitude of the nine out of the ten lepers that had been healed by Jesus (cf Lk 17:17). The Prophet Nathan’s rebuke to King David after the latter had killed Uriah and taken his wife Bathsheba, is worth recounting. Nathan tells David about a poor man who had nothing “except one little ewe lamb which he had brought up and nourished; and it grew up together with him and his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him” (2 Sam12:3). But a rich man, who had his own flock, robbed the poor man’s lamb and served it to his guests. David was furious when he heard the story and asked Nathan who that heartless man was. Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man … You have killed Uriah … you have taken his wife” (2 Sam 12:7,9)! A warning against covetousness. I sure love my Ginger. But I am deeply touched by the concern of the common man to an absolute stranger. It will help me to be a better human being, or should I say, “A Street Dog”, for I have learnt many lessons on the Ginger Trail.