Human spirit in all its glory!

A lot of good things have happened over the few months and I am smiling. However, with all the good things in life, also come the retrospective things. Those which remind you of who you are, of what things could be, of how one should be.

My didi had a baby this month and is staying with us. So it became important that my pet Gucci left for some other place for the time being. We couldn’t find many takers because Gucci isn’t keeping well and needs medicines twice a day. The kennels are freaking expensive, to say nothing of the fact that I will be shit worried keeping him with a bunch of strangers.

So yeah, after seeing our plight, our house help came to the rescue. She loves Gucci and volunteered to keep him for a few months at her own place. She lives in Govindpuri (theres a cool little jhuggi down there) and I asked her if I could come see him sometimes. She happily agreed.

Yesterday, I was told Gucci refused to eat twice and my alarm went off. In the evening I rushed with my maid to her place, only to be told that while she was at our place, she kept Gucci at her mamaji’s house, which was only two doors away. So we crept up in thin alleys, crossed open drains, walked over two cats’ tails due to the darkness and finally leapt up a steep set of stairs where she knocked on a small chipped green door. And Gucci’s barks bellowed from inside. After two minutes, a much hassled mamiji opened the door and the sight my eyes met with, is probably life changing.

The room was as big as a Maruti 800 car’s interiors. More than half of the room had a high wooden bed that had a lot of space under it. That is where they kept all their clothes, utensils, paper, odd objects etc. Next to the door was a small gas, and in one of the gas corners, Gucci’s leash was tied. On the bed sat a tall lanky boy and a tall girl, the kids of the family I am guessing.

It was amazing. There lived four people inside this mousehole. And they cared enough to take a dog with them! To feed him, to give him medicines, to take care of him the whole day. If Gucci went wild with happiness, he could rip that room apart in just five seconds. And yet, this family laughed, told me tales about what Gucci was upto lately and also made a sad face when I told them I will take him home by the end of the year.

I had gone to meet Gucci cursing my luck for keeping him apart, for having to entrust him on people who are, least said, not doing so well themselves. And if I may add, I was upset for having to keep him at my maid’s place.

But all that vanished when I left that place. I was instead overcome by how great the human spirit can be, if the heart is in the right place. I realized Gucci couldn’t have been more loved than this. A family low on rice and roti was sharing theirs with him. Ofcourse I gave some money to them for his weekly kharcha, but that didn’t add an ich to what they were doing for me in return.

I sort of sat in between, very close to everything that was on the floor including the kids who were now standing instead of being on the bed. I cuddled Gucci for a while and they looked very anxiously at me for a reaction. I only gave them grateful smiles. Because they deserved that. And God knows, so much more than that.