Daily Times

I am one of the various creatures of God. I am a dog and my name is Bliky. I heard that I was adopted by Tajuk for a short period of time and then he threw me out of his home. Since then I have been living at Guleen’s home. I eat something here and pass my days. My place is the doorstep of Guleen, throughout the day. However, in front of Guleen’s house, there is the biggest road of the society and a mosque. Beside them, there are two ditches between the mosque and Guleen’s house; Kahosi and Rahesi. I, Bliky, don’t know much about Kahosi as I was not born when it appeared.

I don’t like most of my society’s residents because they don’t like Guleen. People call her fornicator and characterless. They call her a prostitute; they say that unknown men keep coming at her home. But in my opinion, no one is better than her in our society. I know the residents very well. I have seen their black and white from my own eyes and also the dumb dogs of the society told me their secrets because they all are afraid of me. Therefore, the residents have always prepared themselves to fight with me. One day the boys of the society threw stones on me. That was a very tough day for me. I lost all respect for them. This was the day when a female dog of another society came and I went on back of her thigh. After a moment a group of boys, from the society, reached there and caused my failure. While they saw that it was Bliky, they felt they had got an opportunity and called out loudly, ” Hay, it is Bliky who is on the back of the thigh of the dog. Let’s beat him with stones. He bites us a lot.” One got extremely angry and took a big stone. He threw it at my face. My eyes got wide looking at the big stone. I muttered in heart, ” Bliky, today your escape from death is impossible.” Thankfully, that was not a stone; it was just a clod. Its dust entered in my eyes. In the meantime a pilgrim was moving from there. I thought in my heart that he might scold the boys but the unfortunate Pilgrim said, “Didn’t you get anywhere else that you are on her thigh on the way!” This man calls himself a religious person. We are animals but you are human beings and consider yourselves as the best creature. For animals what difference does it make if its road or an open area! “You, Pilgrim, won’t let me, Bliky, in your bed,”I said. But alas! Human beings can’t understand dogs’ language. At that time Guleen appeared and scolded the boys. I was safe. Now why wouldn’t I say that Guleen is the best!

Two or three days had not passed and my injuries were yet fresh, an unknown dog bit a woman named Zulekha’s goat. The goat was bleeding and she took her home. She didn’t ask, neither searched that who had bit her goat and started abusing me that it was Bliky. She took four or five boys and turned towards Guleen’s home. “Cover Bliky.” I protested and asked for my fault that and what my sin is. One of them said, “Terrible dog still barks on us, rascal.” They could not understand that my barking was my language. They didn’t attempt to pay attention and started abusing me from the bottom of their hearts. Well, they terribly beat me and returned. When will the human beings understand our troubles and when will they quit brutalising us? They do such acts that even the devil is ashamed of them but we dogs are the dirt of this world.

I had two wishes till I retained my conscious; to take bath in Rahesi before death and go to mosque, repent for my all mistakes and whenever I die, cleric Lal Bakhsh could announce my death news from the loudspeakers of the mosque. The time kept passing and society’s problems and clashes with me were much of a muchness.

One day, I took bath in Rahesi in order to go to mosque. While I reached at the doorstep of mosque, Cleric Lal Bakhsh insulted me and made me run away. I came back but, may God kill the Satan inside me, I abused the residents of the society a lot that day. Whatever came out of my mouth, I uttered, “You should know that I, Bliky, know you people very well that in whose homes robbers come and in whose homes their friends come.”

I dreamt that I had died. I became very happy in my heart that I would be the first dog whose death’s news would be announced from the loudspeakers of the mosque. Guleen was also standing beside me and uttering, ” Maybe someone had given poison to it. In my memory, last night, Bliky was alive.” She added, “The residents of society must be very happy that Bliky has died.”

Guleen gave 20 rupees to a drug addict and ordered him, “Take a rope and drag it to a well outside the society.”

Published in Daily Times, March 21^th 2018.