CHENNAI: Hey you! How dare you encroach into my area? You don’t look familiar. Where are you from?” Kalu, who had a brusque demeanour and a harsh glare, asked. “I am……yes, you are right. I am not familiar with this place. I do not know….Ahem…..well, I feel kind of lost here,” said the little lady with a blue band. “You are feeling lost? What does that mean? This seems like a new trick! You are roaming around in my area. Next, you will try to snatch my share of whatever little food I have. And, now you don’t know how you came?” asked Kalu, his tone incredulous and his eyes burning with anger.
“Really, I am lost. The last I remember is I ate a nice dinner of chicken, rice and vegetables. It was a great meal. And, I also got a nice piece of peanut butter cake. I felt drowsy and slept on the soft, red carpet. When I woke up, I found myself on this harsh tar surface. Where am I? I am really lost.” “Aha! Welcome to our world! Wait…Kutty, Pappu, Raja, Gunda…. All of you, please come here,” Kalu hollered, and soon his friends congregated on the little pathway near the bridge. “Meet our new friend….Hey, what’s your name?” Kalu asked. “Never mind. I don’t feel like meeting anyone now.” “Need not wallow in selfpity,” the ever-pragmatic Kalu’s sharp voice cut across the dark night air. “Quick, come on.
What is your name? Look, my friends have come to meet you.” “Sandy,” said the brown lady with a blue band. “Hi Sandy,” said Gunda, coming forward, to allay the new friend’s fear. Gunda was the most gentle of the lot, belying his name which means a thug! “Do not look lost. Where is your home?” “I had a nice, cosy home, adorable parents and Keya, my loving sister. We used to play a lot,” said Sandy. “You are so naive, Sandy. Don’t you realise, they have abandoned you,” pitched in Pappu. “I, too, had very loving parents and two brothers. We also had a small garden, a patch of grass where I would roll over. But suddenly, I was taken in their green car for a long ride.
The car screeched to a halt near this bridge one night. I jumped out after the door opened, hoping my brothers would follow me, like before. But suddenly, the door shut and the car sped away. I ran behind it for a while but the car went too fast. That was when I met Raja, and Piku. Where is Piku?” asked Pappu, suddenly realising that her first friend, Piku, was not around. “That lazy friend of yours must be sleeping,” said Raja, rolling up his eyes. “Welcome to the real world, Sandy. You have been left here to fend for yourself. You have been abandoned!” shouted Kalu. Sandy’s eyes looked blank, and slowly turned sad. She had trusted them so much, loved them and cared for them. And, now… *** This happened on a bridge near Adyar. A pack of dogs welcomed their newly abandoned guest.
Left to fend for herself along with her new friends, Sandy has to rummage through garbage piles and leftover food, and sometimes wait for a good Samaritan with biscuits. But now, wonder how Sandy and her friends will go through the corona-driven lockdown days and curfew nights without food and water. Was she abandoned because of corona? Maybe all it took was a WhatsApp forward on the corona-dog link that may have triggered this brutal act of lacing Sandy’s meal of chicken rice with a sleeping pill?
SUBHASHINI DINESH