Life and other living beings
I had some time at hand and a dear friend of mine had asked me to jot down something from my experiences. So, here is a short write up on compassion from my life experiences.
I was born into a Bengali family. Hence, eating non-vegetarian food came naturally to me. Almost everyone knows about a Bengali’s madness for fish and potatoes.
I was oblivious to having compassion towards animals. This was a lesson that I hadn’t learnt yet. Of course, things changed and I am a vegetarian now
We got a puppy at our home. I wanted to name it “Bite” , but Bhai(means brother in India) being the sweetest person wanted to name it “Tommy”. So, we all agreed to name him Tommy. He was the most special dog. Animals teach us the deepest lessons in life in the simplest way. Tommy was a very friendly dog. He was like a bundle of Joy that came in our lives. We started to understand his language of love, kindness, playfulness etc.. and he started to understand our language (Bengali).
He had a beautiful heart and the most adorable eyes. Those eyes could speak a million words and more. We got him when he was just 3 months old. He had some minor scars at the joints of his legs. This was hardly noticeable at the beginning but as he started to grow older, the patches were growing as well.
My father wasn’t very happy about it. Because, Tommy needed special care. We had to make sure that we clean the patches regularly, apply medication and take good care of it. We had to take him to the vet doc occasionally. One Sunday afternoon, I remember very distinctly that dad was furious with our schedules being disturbed because of all this. He was angry and said enough is enough and we would have to let go of Tommy. We tried to reason him out and stop him. But he was furious and wouldn’t listen to us. He opened the gate of the house and asked Tommy to get out. Tommy couldn’t understand what was going on or may be he understood. I don’t know. He looked at us and then looked at my dad then he walked towards the gate and left. He didn’t look back at us. Neither did we call him back. I was heartbroken. We all were very emotional. I could see that my dad was also a little sad after that.
I asked my dad, if he would also make me leave if god forbids I caught a disease. He kept quiet. I started to plead him to get Tommy back. It was almost afternoon, and it was time for us to have lunch. I said, I wouldn’t eat and wasn’t hungry.
Dad went outside to look for Tommy. We were all starting to get worried. The search started for our dog but he wasn’t found anywhere in the vicinity.
I stood at the gate hoping he would come back. After couple of hours, I saw Tommy, walking slowly towards our home with hesitation. I called him to come back. He timidly entered our house and lay near the door. I got him some water; he drank it and slept off. That was the first time, when the initial thoughts of compassion and empathy towards animals had started to engulf us. It definitely took much more than this incident alone to become a vegetarian, but the seed was already planted.
PS: I haven’t saved any pic of Tommy on purpose. So, here are some pics of nature instead. Everyone that is born here has an equal right to live and thrive.
