Once upon a time…….

The light turns on  at 3: 00 am in a house in Ajitgarh, Punjab, India. The house is colored yellow, but since most of the paint has been coming out and it looks more of a gray cemented house with yellow color patches. The high ceilings in the house made it even more frigid in the month of October. The  family is sleeping and are tucked under the substantially bulky blankets filled with pure cotton. A woman, in her 40’s gets up at 3:00 am in the cold winter with a sudden noise. She is wearing a long yellow and black color maxi gown that looked faded after many washes is covering her flabby belly, her hair is tied in a loose braid. Her face has some pillow marks and hair falls on her face. She turns the light on.

“What happened? It’s so early in the morning”, a man in his mid-40 seemed to be annoyed. He stares at her with his one eye open while a very bright yellow bulb shines on his almost bald head.

“I heard a noise”, the woman replies.

“So? Tuck your ears under the rajai (blanket). I have to open the store early. Everyone is shopping for Diwali”, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep off.

“I think it’s the dog”, she sits on the bed and tries to wake her husband up who owns a karayana (grocery) store in the town.

“oh ho. Everything becomes my problem”, he gets up and decides to go out and see what was happening.

The man gets up and wears his sweater and women covers her body with a long old shawl. They both open the door and get out. It’s an open veranda and in the corner there is a diminutive room, looks like a storage. A black colored pomeranian female dog runs out of the dark room. Blackey runs out of the room frantically as soon as a woman opens the door. A puppy is hanging out half way from the back as she is trying to deliver.

“Oh. I knew Blacky was giving birth. Listen you go back and sleep I will take care of this. She is probably shy from you or don’t know what is going on”, the woman tells her husband.

The man walks back to his room and goes back to sleep.

“puch..puch..puch come here Blacky,” woman bend down on her knees and calls the dog.

The dog is under the bed and comes closer to the woman. Blacky still has the puppy’s face swaying down from her rear. The woman fondles her dog and then assist her deliver the last puppy. Then she plunks them down together in the room where all other 4 puppies slither on a mat.  There is a lot of hay underneath the mat to protect the new family from the cold weather.  It’s almost five in the morning. A woman goes back in her room and put on the morning Gurbani that was being played on the radio every morning live from darbar sahib, Amritsar. She made it as loud as she could. Why not? After all, everyone was god’s creature and they must listen to the Gurbani. It doesn’t matter if they were lizards, cockroaches, ants, her dog, kids, or anyone who was breathing must listen to the Gurbani vichar in the morning. She felt as it was her responsibility to do so; since jiv-jantu (insects and the animal didn’t have access to the Gurbani in any other way.

Her husband never said anything about putting a hymns of guru’s from Golden Temple so loud in the morning; neither did any of the neighbors’ complaint about it. Instead, he slept right through those hymns. This was a 23 years old norm that they both followed and no one ever had guts to question it. After all, it is hymns straight from the Golden Temple, Amritsar.

After she turns the radio on, she comes to her room and turn the lights off and lays down on the bed beside her husband. Then sun shines and its time for her to cook breakfast and help her children get ready for the school.

It is a different kind of morning. The mother tells her kids that blacky has delivered the puppies. The kids get up and go straight to see the puppies. They were black with some spots of another color. Mother did not notice the color in the dark night.

Few weeks passed by. The puppies were now running around in the house. The 2 kids would come and play with the puppies.

“ we should give the puppies away now. They are little grown up”, the husband is concern about the added cost of food.

“I know. I showed it to few people, but everyone is saying they are not pure breed dogs like our Blacky”, she replies back.

“I told you to keep the eye on her when she was on heat”, The husband gets angry.

“I have no control over the street dog. Don’t blame me”, She is angry.

They both are worried to get rid of those puppies who started to look like street dogs. Angry at the situation they both turn around and go to sleep.

Puppies are five weeks old now. Kids have fell in love with them. It is a daily routine after school to play with the puppies. There we four puppies left. The maid of the house took one puppy to her house. Why not? They are free.

Humans are the weird creatures. They always go for looks first. Even though those ugly looking puppies could be trained and could be raised like a family dog, no one was adopting them. It started to become a problem for the family. Children loved the dogs, but parents knew they couldn’t keep the puppies anymore.

It is a month of November now. The weather is getting colder. One cloudy night when kids fall asleep the father and mother quietly take all the four puppies and put them in the car. It is 11:00 pm at night. The couple decides to take all four puppies and drop them off somewhere on the street. The husband started to drive and they look for the spot to drop the puppies.

“let’s drop these off close to the temple. Someone will feed them”, a woman asks her husband to drive close to the temple while she still worried about the puppies.

“ok”, the man follows what his wife ask him to do.

The couple finds a spot under the street light and drops them off. Soon they get home and get in their cozy bed.  The couple feels guilty of what they just did and try to sleep. After all the hard work of the day they both fall asleep. The night gets dark and cloudier. Soon there is the thunderstorm.

“Aa Ji. Get up”, the woman wakes her husband.

“What is it now? It’s 2 am at night”, he looks at the clock and wakes up.

“Let’s go”, she says.

“Where?”, he asks.

“Let’s go get the puppies back. They must be scared in the thunderstorm”, she insists.

“No. lets them stay there. They are probably not even there anymore. Remember they are street dogs”, he tells her and tries to sleep again.

“No. Drive me there. Right now. I want to see if they are ok”, She said.

“Ok. Let’s go. You won’t let me sleep”, the man gets up and drives to the same spot.

Both of them were shocked to see all four puppies were still sitting on the same spot as they left them close to each other under the street light and were wet because of the rain.

“Oh. How could we do that? I don’t care anymore we are taking them home”, She said and got out of the car.

“Why did I drove you here”, he said and helps her put the puppies in the car.

As soon as they get home the woman takes all the puppies to its mother and puts all of them back together. The end.

Just then Nisha breaks the silence.

“Why are you telling me this story”, Nisha asks Rubble who was telling a story.

“Did you see that woman? Who always walks around with a stroller?” She asks Nisha.

“Yes. I have seen her. She walks around with a doll in her stroller. Everyone has a different story. I think her husband left her after she gave birth to their baby. Now I see her many times in a day for past many years with a stroller and a doll in the stroller.

“That why I told you that story. The puppies were lucky enough to have their home back, but this woman had to lose her partner, baby, and mental stability”, Rubble expresses.

“So sad. How could someone be so hostile?”, Nisha replies.