Short Story
The Dogs of Dolphin Lane
artwork by sanjib das
The day the dog catchers of the City Corporation finally came and quickly rounded up, killed and carted away the stray dogs, the people in Dolphin Lane heaved a sigh of great relief--despite the sudden action and the cruelty of the catchers' technique. Those living in Dolphin Lane had been through great misery for a long time, routinely being visited by what they had discovered to be a menace. Every night just as stillness was about to settle in the lane--after the cars had stopped honking and the fog had begun to shroud lampposts -- the menace would tear through the silence. No sooner had the weary and sleepy souls of the lane crawled into their beds to press their heads upon single or twin pillows than would begin the night-long torment. First, one or two forlorn barks. Then a few more, and soon a torrent--dogs howling from every nook and corner of the darkness. Once it started, it would continue on and on--the canine attack making the rounds of the locality with rampaging fury--an organized ritual, so it seemed, as retaliation for the maltreatment they suffered during the day. The kicks, the hurled stones, or what you will. The canine population in the lane had been growing unnoticed. This indeed was not a issue to keep track of. One bitch bred as many as seven to eight puppies at a time. Some of them died due to lack of food while others were lost under the running wheels on the roads. Still, a good number survived and kept on growing. And the people in the lane, through their regular nocturnal suffering, finally realized that the survival rate was alarmingly high despite the frequent loss of lives. At the beginning, the people had thought that since dogs were dogs--alert and ever-vigilant--the barking was about something that they sensed. Perhaps thieves or something else which none but they, the dogs, would know. And although no one had trained them, masterless that they were, it could perhaps be an over-alertness of their instincts that made them rip apart the night's silence. But how could one do without a wink of sleep all night! Not even rest one's tired head on the pillow! No one had thought of a solution. Because, as the night passed by and daylight broke out, the nightly problem remained forgotten under the toilsome ratrace that ran all day long. But as soon as night returned, dark and chaotic, the howling would come crashing down on them, and all they could do was toss and turn in sleepless beds. It was when things were at such a worrying state that one morning, the City Corporation's dog-catching squad raided Dolphin Lane, and as if by sheer magic, caught, killed and hurriedly dumped the wandering packs in a truck and raced away. Had the Dolphinites not witnessed the spectacle with their own eyes, it would have been difficult for them to believe that an undertaking of this scale could be accomplished with such ease and precision. Credit indeed went to the catching squad. They had done their job with great professional skill and discipline. At first they had dispersed themselves in small groups of twos or threes to lure the dogs into catching range with pieces of bread or biscuits. The men also made inviting sounds with their mouths to further trick them into coming nearer. And as soon as a dog responded by coming close enough, one of the catchers would grab the victim with strong iron tongs, while his partner would thrust a foot-long syringe right through the upper neck, like a drill penetrating into solid earth. It was quick work, delivered with the right timing and precision. What followed within seconds was a muffled scream and faint whining until the victim choked and dropped still. The rest of the job was simple enough -- dragging the light, middle and heavyweight bodies onto an open truck and driving away. Those in the lane who had watched the scene from up close--shopkeepers, laundrymen, vendors, passers-by, 'blind beggars'--didn't have enough time to witness every little detail. The dazzling competence of the dogcatchers bewildered them. Later, when they encountered each other in shock and surprise, words got lost in their mouths. The late November sky hung overhead as timeless and distant as ever. Despite the havoc caused by the dogs night after night, nobody from Dolphin Lane had initiated the action secretly or from the backstage. The fact remained that the dogcatchers were a specially-trained squad of the City Corporation, and lest they forgot their hard acquired skills, they rehearsed their catching practices in chosen localities a number of times every year. There was a time when their method was quite crude. Instead of poison-filled syringes, they used huge wooden hammers. A single knock at the back of the head was enough to make a dog sleep eternally. In comparison, the present-day device was smart and convenient. Over and above, since it was easy to identify the wandering packs, the catchers could successfully conduct their operation in chosen areas without having to seek help from the local residents. The truck-ride of the departing dogs marked the day for the Dolphinites with a refreshing change in their daily gossips. The youngsters were more eager and they passed a busy day narrating their reactions to the event. The reactions of the grown-ups were, however, mixed. Some of them credited the City Corporation for its timely move, lauding the efficiency of the dogcatchers. They praised the role of the City Mayor, saying that dog catching (with such skill and speed) was indeed crucial to the Mayor's scheme to make urban life peaceful. They went on to hope that in the coming days, similar raids would target stray cats, beggars, footpath-occupying vendors, muggers, toll collectors, drug addicts, bribe-takers, et cetera, et cetera, and that all would be dispensed with, though not necessarily through similar truck rides. There were others who spoke differently. They expressed their utter disgust and termed the event as an unpardonable eyewash to hide the authority's failure to attend to a hundred important jobs such as traffic jams, flies, mosquitoes, garbage pile-ups, water-logging, robberies, murders, and so on. They made predictions that the ruling party in its next election campaign would flaunt dog-catching as a grand achievement of its rule and exhibit some desiccated dog tails as glaring proofs of its claim. Whatever the varying reactions, there could be no denying that the lives of the residents in Dolphin Lane had been made miserable by dogs, and so after the latter's epoch-making exit through the truck-ride, the Dolphinites were fully convinced that the approaching nights would be full of peace, with sleep. This made the men, women and children joyous. In fact, they were shocked when they realized just how long their eyes had not been visited by sleep -- that they hadn't dipped into that mysterious stillness where colourful fishes called dreams danced and swirled with their resplendent fins and tails! How they had passed night after night haunted by bad dreams! They felt distressed to think how the agony of their lives lurked all day long only to hammer on their doors at the dead of night! At long last, they were going to sleep. They felt exhilarated, and to some of them, it seemed like freedom--a night-long freedom after the tiring captivity of the day. A few nights passed by. Quiet, peaceful nights. As the silence of the nights thickened, the Dolphinites were amazed at the slightest noise that passed through their ears; even the noise of their own breathing tickled them with a feeling of thrill and of mystery. An altogether new experience, they thought. They couldn't recall if they had ever been through such a wonderful interregnum of silence. After long chaotic nights, their hearts and minds were immersed in an all-pervading silence. Disorganized thoughts whirled about in their minds evoking long-lost memories. They thought of nature, of the luxuriance of nature offered by silence. They thought of their childhood, and more than anything else, they thought of freedom. They wondered if this newfound freedom could be smeared all over their bodies like sweet aromatic oil! As the thoughts hovered around, they let themselves dip more into the depths of stillness, and trying to sleep, they were again amazed by the soft pounding of their lonely and yearning hearts. They had missed this wonderful ripple--this beating of their hearts in such harmony and rhythm all these years. They thought more and more about this marvelous gift of silence but didn't know what to do with it. They couldn't sleep. They discussed their new nightly experiences amongst themselves. They felt good talking about something so different and exceptional, and as they went on narrating their intimate, personal feelings to one another, they discovered that these were neither personal nor exceptional but so unvaryingly common to them all. They could feel through each other's experiences, could see through each other's hearts. However, because of the sleepless nights, their eyes were itchy and swollen, and with their swollen eyes they looked at each other and soon found themselves as though engulfed in the contrasting shadows and sunlight of the dogless, barren Dolphin Lane. After the successful raid, the City Corporation conducted similar raids in nearby localities with the same deftness and speed. Newspapers carried front-page stories commending the good work. Life in neighboring localities too had been rendered as miserable due to the nightly turbulence, and with the departure of dogs through similar truck rides, people living in those localities heaved a sigh of similar relief as the Dolphinites -- despite the sudden action of the dog catchers and the cruelty of their technique. And just as the Dolphinites had experienced, the stillness of the dogless nights stirred up strange emotions in their minds and their eyelids too remained open all night. They too couldn't sleep. Neither sleep nor freedom seemed to be approaching. They seemed to be creeping in but then cleverly slipped past, and in the wake of the fleeting images emerged, slowly, a restlessness that held onto their bloodshot, sleepless eyes. They wondered what it was that they didn't have now! What was it that the tranquil nights failed to offer? Their hearts had yearned for this silence for so long! Was it something they missed but didn't know of? They asked themselves but failed to find an answer. Was it something that they didn't see or feel but which had lived in their heads, within the closets of their minds or inside their hearts--like the protective charms of amulets! They didn't have it now! Gone! With their puffed-up eyes they looked shattered. Day after day, they thought and wondered, got weary, weak and at times totally distraught. Some of them remembered the snouts and the eyes of the departed dogs--males, bitches, puppies in herds, some tailless, some lame and crippled, with festering sores oozing blood and pus. They were of varying shapes, sizes, colours. They were everywhere. Weren't they? In front of the houses, groceries, butcher shops, in drains, garbage bins, in all the spaces their eyes could travel. Also deep down inside the hearts of the Dolphinites--like some inseparable limbs and appendages. Did some limbs and appendages of the inhabitants of Dolphin Lane get mixed up with the dogs in the truck when no one was watching? Just about when they had thought of freedom and heaved a sigh of relief?
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