Milan Adhikari

Finally the day came. My dad had been insisting that this dog has been hampering our studies a lot and my brother’s poor marks in his examination proved his point. On the morrow our uncle was going to take it to our village, far away from Katmandu. When my younger brother brought it to our house, none of us were convinced about keeping the dog. We were living in rented rooms and we didn’t have enough space for it. I was the one who protested the most. But my brother’s innocent tears worked. As soon as it became the part of our family, I found my views towards it changing drastically. I started loving it and being fond of its company.

When my brother went to his school, he used to lock it in the “Baranda” as there was no one in the house to look after it. I could hear its whimpers right till the main gate when I returned home after taking morning classes. When I would open the door, it turned round and round around me as if it were hungry for my company. When it did that I felt sorry for it and our compulsion to lock it up.

My brother cleaned its litter many times a day. It had torn the carpet, many pages of our books, my socks and whatever it got. Then also I felt like giving it a lot of other things to tear and watch it do just that. I simply could not stop loving it. Now it was leaving. We had a fierce quarrel about who would sleep with it that night. Finally it was beside me in my bed, sleeping with its head on my thigh. I know it didn’t have the faintest idea about what was going to happen next in its life. It had survived on biscuits and breads, noodles and eggs. Who in that new world would give it all of these? Who would let it sleep on a lap? I was tensed. Though I could not say it to my dad, I didn’t want to let it go to that unknown world. I could not even imagine what was going through his mind. But this much was sure; it was going to be missed by all. My brothers was photographing it all evening and this made me feel sadder. That day I decided that we would never keep a pet again. We didn’t want this kind of tragic separation any more. So, it’s better not to have a pet at all rather than saying goodbye with moist eyes after such an intimate relationship.