Yeah, I sleep here. Like a king.

"Yeah I sleep here. Like a king! When sometimes they would let me. Not a bad place yeah?

But sometimes some people don't like me here. They probably find it very audacious on my part. It's not my place afterall. So I leave and sleep on the road instead. It's summer. So road is a better place to sleep anyway. It's cool, it's wide. You can roll around any which way you want and people don't mind as long as you don't come in their way. It's a bit hard and somewhat risky, but you sleep better on a hard surface they say. And what's life without risks.

The winters are different story though. Those are the times when I really wish they would let me sleep on this couch. Cold is biting here in winters, and this couch can be warm sometimes. Sleeping on road or a pavement is very uncomfortable. I sometimes go sleepless whole night. But then sleeping in the cozy sun the next morning is the silver lining I keep looking forward to, during those nights.

They wake me up and shoo me away all the time if I sleep in the day though. But I have learnt to live with that. It must be causing them some kind of trouble, otherwise they wouldn't do that. People are nice here.

Also rolling in the sun, when no one's watching, and then going to sleep again in the warmth is such a nice a feeling.

I don't mean it bitterly, but I am not used to warmth and that makes those wintery mornings very special for me. The warmth reminds me of my mom. She used to look after me so caringly. She would sleep on the road herself and would let us (me and my brother) sleep in her fold. And then she would lick us till we slept. It was such a warm place. And we would sleep without a care in the world.

I don't know where she is these days. Some people took her away when I was couple months old. She was very restless when they caught her. My brother said they took her away because she was ill. I don't know. They took him away too. He was not ill.

Anyway, time to sleep now. Just give me a shout if you don't like me sleeping here, I will find some place by the roadside, no problem."

Gmail wanted me to clean up my inbox for some additional space. The junk had accumulated since Gmail came into existence; so a lot of emails. It picked up some emails with large attachments for cleaning, and this particular email was one of them - a short prose, emailed to myself for backup, with a photo attached. 

It was from 2012 - i.e. almost 11 years ago. The photo is mostly from Kothrud in Pune, probably Paramhans Nagar, Shikshak Nagar area, where I used to live during those days. Someone had abandoned a sofa on the roadside, and a timid, malnourished, unhealthy looking pup had made a small corner of that small sofa, its own ... until someone shoo'ed it away, that is. That photo galvanised this write up. The email backup was done couple of weeks after the photo was taken. I don't know how I forgot it later.

I read it intrigued by the title and recognising the photo, and it hit me like a train. I didn't know 10-12 years back I was capable enough to write something that would break a 12 year older me down. Having adopted a small pup, which is four and half years old now, and which was probably picked up from the streets in very similar conditions, I choked on emotions knowing how well it fits a dog's thinking. Given how unassuming, undemanding and extremely innocent dogs are - especially the timid ones, heckled at on the streets - if they could talk they would have said these very same things. 

It especially hit me hard since how prudish and aggressive people have recetly become towards street dogs. Please remember, many of them may not even get something to eat for the entire day. One extra-ordinary thing that our ancestors did was they domesticated the wolves and foxes, giving us the adorable dogs we have on our streets. That domestication has made them dependent upon us though, it's not nice to ask them to go figure on their own, now that there are too many of them. 

So here's my heartfelt teary-eyed appeal to whoever is reading this - if you are in a position to bring a dog home, please don't shop for one. Just pick one up from amongst the litters on the road-side, get them neutered/spayed as needed and give them a well deserved place they can call their own home. That bundle of joy will turn your life around - I can guarantee that.