A Dog's Life
We have known Oscar for the last 6 years, he was dark skinned, had these long doleful eyes, floppy ears and his general demeanor was friendly and playful. We often heard from his Daddy that he loved to eat eggs and had three boiled eggs every day. At times he would wander into our house if our door was open, inspect all rooms, sniff around and walk out. At times he played with the children and either ran off with the balls or got them back from wherever they had landed. All the residents of the building whom he liked were rewarded with a few wags of his tail and the chosen few with licks.
Oscar had been suffering from a chronic illness for the past few months and yesterday we heard that he passed away at 4 AM in the morning. We met his Daddy downstairs when going out for a walk and offered our condolences. Any grieving person finds solace in describing the passing away and the last few moments, so we lingered on to hear about it.
Oscar's Daddy took him to the hospital everyday for the last few days but the Doctor was not very hopeful. For the past week Oscar carefully avoided sleeping at the feet of his Daddy and slept in the vacant adjacent room perhaps because he did not want to disturb the sleep by his constant shuffling. On his last day, he came to his Daddy's room and lay down before the mini temple in the room. His Daddy instinctively knew that these were the last few moments and he instructed his wife to get some 'gangajal' (holy water from the river Ganges), put a few drops in Oscar's mouth, chanted shlokas from The Geeta and the Mahamritunjaya and Gayatri mantras as he slowly breathed his last in his Daddy's arms.
He was bathed with rose water, sandalwood paste was applied to his forehead, and he was wrapped in a new sheet and taken to the crematorium for pets. All who loved Oscar tearfully said goodbye while the priest chanted passages from The Geeta.
At the end of this narration, even my eyes were misty with emotion and I wondered that a Dog's life is not so bad after all...
Oscar had been suffering from a chronic illness for the past few months and yesterday we heard that he passed away at 4 AM in the morning. We met his Daddy downstairs when going out for a walk and offered our condolences. Any grieving person finds solace in describing the passing away and the last few moments, so we lingered on to hear about it.
Oscar's Daddy took him to the hospital everyday for the last few days but the Doctor was not very hopeful. For the past week Oscar carefully avoided sleeping at the feet of his Daddy and slept in the vacant adjacent room perhaps because he did not want to disturb the sleep by his constant shuffling. On his last day, he came to his Daddy's room and lay down before the mini temple in the room. His Daddy instinctively knew that these were the last few moments and he instructed his wife to get some 'gangajal' (holy water from the river Ganges), put a few drops in Oscar's mouth, chanted shlokas from The Geeta and the Mahamritunjaya and Gayatri mantras as he slowly breathed his last in his Daddy's arms.
He was bathed with rose water, sandalwood paste was applied to his forehead, and he was wrapped in a new sheet and taken to the crematorium for pets. All who loved Oscar tearfully said goodbye while the priest chanted passages from The Geeta.
At the end of this narration, even my eyes were misty with emotion and I wondered that a Dog's life is not so bad after all...
Comments
@TCP: Grrrr....
@Kausum: Yeah - TCP is rather creative it seems
I must say, "Love keeps the world go around" was the best !