Today, while a casual stroll with a temple prasadam in my hand, i started to walk towards the corner of my street. The prasadam got empty and the 'Dhonnai' flew down unwittingly. I bend down to pick it.
Suddenly i see an alert street dog watching me very closely. Clearly its flight or fight hormone secretion had started.As i walked further slightly towards it, it was ready to bound out or bite me. I chose to ignore and walked past the dog. Unfortunately, it seemed that me and the dog had to walk in the same direction. I am afraid of dogs, for the simple reason that it doesnt give me a letter of intent before its animal instincts take over nor we have a communication medium to talk it over before the attack.
I shooed off the dog which retraced itself by a couple of steps and the moment i walked ahead, it started following. I kept looking back to avoid any confrontation with the creature while it was focussing its attention on how aggressive or non aggressive my body language was. After all, it is used to get stones thrown at and expects the same from me. I shoo it away and it waits or moves around 5 steps back and the moment i return my back, it starts following me to its destination. The moment i turn my back, i am ready to bound out or kick my attacker in case of any signs of danger.
That set me thinking. The whole of the stretch of the road, despite me having no animosity towards this animal and vice versa, both me and the dog had felt insecure and vulnerable. It was insecure since i was seemingly more powerful than it and is used to confrontation and attacks from humans. I was insecure since i felt that it being an animal, its primal instinct could take over any time and i for no fault of mine could be bitten and affected when my back was turned. Was there any hatred between us?? Nope. Neither had any grudge against each other :-). We both had no intention to hurt each other though we both feared getting hurt.. The insecurity lasted till we both crossed to our particular destinations. But one wrong signal and one of us would be carrying an injury.
Moral of the day: The dog is a metaphor. Do I learn? No!
2 comments:
Seriously good write up! Pretty much reflects the nature of animosity between various people / groups - one based on generalized presumptions, which again is based on past experiences and the resultant distrust.
Again, too good! Loved it every bit.
Cheers
GSM
:)
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