The Story of Coffee

Coffee was one of the six puppies born to a stray doggy.

 A very matured loving mother.

 She  delivered  the puppies in a construction site on a chilly November night

in  Delhi.

 The puppies were very cute and healthy .

 Till the babies opened their eyes  everything went smoothly.

She went out in search of food , came back and nursed the babies.

   Once the babies opened their eyes ,  the mother realised the danger of keeping the

 playful Babies in the construction site.

 That is when she shifted all the six  babies  near to our house in a dry drainage pipe .

The winter was too harsh for the puppies.

I tried to help the mother dog by giving her hot milk and chappati, to which

our neighbour frowned  at me.

One by one , four  babies succumbed to winter.

 Remaining two were the most cute and chubby .

  One was a coffee coloured , he  looked like a bear cub we called him  Coffee.

The  other puppy looked  like a St. Bernard puppy.

At times the boys in the colony  threw stones at the puppies and got

 excited when the puppies cry with pain.

 Parents of the boys instead of preventing  them ,  they  just watched their wild play.

 Adjacent to our house there was a  school  with a big compound. A mama doggy gave birth to a

frail-  looking black puppy in the school garden.

 As we stayed on the top floor,  we got a good view of both the doggy families.

 Every day the three puppies with their mothers,  came on the road

and  played for some time.

One day mother dog   nursed the babies  and had gone in search of food.

 Puppies  playing,  reached  the  road .

A bike came and   hit the white puppy. There was no visible wound.

He started screaming  . He was hit on the head.  Mama doggy  came running, she was   shivering.

I ran down, coffee  was  sitting helpless.  Mama doggy shivering, panting  was trying to  nurse  and

lick. The mother looked at me. I could sense she wanted to go  on some purpose  .

I kept on telling   her,  he will be ok.

 The mother  looked  at me and she ran away.

 Coffee and I sat beside the puppy.

  Feeling   curious I went up stairs  to see  where the mother doggy  had gone.,
to my surprise, she had gone to the school garden.

She was laying down in front of the white mother  doggy,  as if she  was touching white doggy’s feet.

She was making a strange noise and the white doggy was harshly  barking at her.

What she begging for?

  I felt,  she was begging for  the  permission  to keep her puppies also in

that  garden,  for which she did not get the permission. 

She very well knew the school with a garden

and a huge compound ,  was much safer for her puppies  than a colony full of cars.

Denied permission  our mother doggy came back. The white puppy was slowly recovering.

   A December morning,  these puppies had just come out of the drainage pipe, our neighbour

brought  a huge   flower pot and kept on the opening of the drainage so that they cannot enter

again. It was growing chilly and foggy.  I put a rug down for them to  lay down. But it was too cold

and  windy  night to sleep in open. They went  inside the building under construction and slept

clinging  to each other.

  Next day morning , I was preparing breakfast, heard a loud scream .

I saw Coffee running out of the building.

 I could see the caretaker of the building,  standing there with a plank in his hand.

 There was pin drop silence,  seeing me,  the man threw the plank and went  inside.

 Coffee’s face told the rest. Mother doggy was standing helplessly.

Next day on the road side, in the garbage,  was lying the white puppy’s body.

  Coffee and mother doggy was all alone. His father dog used to come daily to meet him. Later

the mother  did not have much milk to feed coffee.

  Secretly,  I started to  give him milk and bread to which our neighbour opposed.  

Never did the mother,  try to drink from it or allow the father to

have a taste of it.  She always sat and watched him drinking.

  She started bringing parathas for coffee. He played with the crows and cows that roamed around.

Slowly Coffee got a  friend,  the school puppy. We called it blacky.

    One day a strange thing happened.  Coffee was sleeping under the tree.

Mother  doggy , came with a big piece of meat. She stood there for a while and ran to the school

Compound,  where she dug a hole and buried the meat. Then she came back to Coffee, and

led him to the place where she hid the meat.

 She wanted him to trace  out the meat.

Was it part of  his  graduation ! A wonderful mother,  teaching  her  son  all the skills she knew in life.

He grew very big in size.

 His mother stopped  feeding  him, but came everyday to see her handsome  son grow.

  Always  coffee accompanied each one of us  to the gate, and  recoganised our car from far.

Our transfer from Delhi  compelled us to leave him.

 We have not seen him since then but always

remember him and  hope  he is fine.

I  feel  pity, for the pet dogs who are chained for life as watch dogs .

 Deprived them of their family  and  social life.

 Many a times , dogs are brought home , just to fulfil  the fancy of the children, and

 abandoned  them,  when the children  lose  interest.

Pet dogs left as stray, has no  choise  but  to starve to death.

  

Potty Training and Waste Management

There is a lot of fury about the failure of waste management and the way in which plastic is ruling our lives. There is concern ,there is anger,there is awareness still there is no solution or concrete,  punishable law to tackle it. .  There is also a very alarming issue  of  hazardous waste about which we have to think seriously. Diapers filled with human excreta... Each child born to middle class or upper class, from birth to school wear it. Many children going to nurseries wear these diapers as they have no toilet training and fear of having no bowel control  As our cities often face this garbage disposing crisis, these heavy diapers which are accumulated for two or three days are tied into plastic covers and are  thrown on the road side to be eaten by dogs, cows,rats and rest to be savoured by the bacteria. At least if the filth was washed off before it is dumped ..! Tons of  filthy diapers are thrown. How much does a family spend on these diapers monthly? Are we Indians turning into a lazy lot , who have no time to  train our children simple basics ? There was a time when a month old baby was taught to pee into a basin  listening to the hissing sound made by his mother or grand mother. It saved a lot of nappies. Today's babies are also ready  to  learn and eager to    learn..   Coming back to used diapers, you will have to pour at least half a litre of petrol to set it ablaze to get rid of them. Multinationals are doing roaring  business through these -  parents at the cost of our environment,   our health and money. Can't these companies give solutions as to how these used diapers should be disposed ? Doctors and maternity hospitals should guide parents on minimal usage  of diapers and  bringing up the child in natural way. Many types of fancy potties are available for babies who are able to sit. Those expensive potties are brought home with all glamour but who will sit or make the babies sit on it ?  It is high time we reduce generating waste and manage it effectively  without damaging the environment to keep ourselves healthy.  At least start adopting good practices from the Swiss and Swedish   who recycle most of their waste. Why can't we also charge the users on each article the cost to recycle it. .?                                                                    Mini Thomas -  minithomasgeorge@gmail.com