Power of canine intervention
IT’s quite common to see stray dogs chasing cars or bikes in the streets. They bark at the top of their lungs and then give up the chase, perhaps satisfied that they have unnerved motorists for a few moments. I witnessed this scene during a visit to Bengaluru, the ‘Garden City of India’, but there was a twist in the tale.
One day, I woke up early to go out for a walk. It was a pleasant day and there was no hustle and bustle at that hour. Suddenly, the serenity was shattered by the roar of a motorcycle and the screams of a woman. Three stray dogs emerged out of a bylane and ran furiously after the bike. Rattled by his pursuers, the rider lost control of the vehicle and fell down. Promptly, he was overpowered by passersby. Somebody called the police. I found out that the biker had snatched the woman’s gold chain. She was in a state of shock. Fortunately, the dogs had managed to prevent the snatcher from speeding away. I looked around for the ‘heroes’, but they had disappeared from the scene. I presumed that they had no interest in hogging the limelight, unlike humans.
My cousin brother, with whom I was staying, told me that snatchings were on the rise in the city. A judge’s aged mother had become a victim the previous month. She had been seriously injured while resisting an attempt by snatchers to take away her gold chain. Since this was a high-profile case, cops had swung into action — right from the Police Commissioner to the SHO concerned. CCTV footage from 40 locations was scanned and the culprits were identified. Ultimately, they were nabbed within just three days.
On a lighter note, my cousin said it was the snatchers’ bad luck that they had targeted an influential man’s mother. Had the victim been a nobody, the case would have been given a quiet burial. The incident reminded me of an episode from Jaspal Bhatti’s hilarious TV serial Flop Show. It narrates the story of a ‘VIP dog’ that goes missing; virtually the entire administrative machinery wakes up from slumber to search for the top officer’s pet. A rat race begins as every official tries to make the most of this opportunity to impress the boss and improve one’s career prospects. After many twists and turns, the dog is reunited with its owner. The episode was a biting satire on officialdom, which shows ‘efficiency’ when it has an axe to grind but is least bothered when the common man needs its help.
With the police usually taking action against snatchers only in special cases, ordinary victims have no option but to hope for divine — or canine — intervention. After all, every dog has his day.
