'K'hronicles of Kaloo:II

I attended this Catholic school run by missionary nuns and our morning assembly consisted of a whole litany of prayers, beginning with the well known ‘Our Father who art in heaven..’ and ending with the section sister- in-charge solemnly enunciating, ‘God, please bless my daddy, my mommy, my brother and my sister ......and so on and so forth.’ With the guileless irreverence of preteens, we would snigger and giggle over this particular invocation, partly because very few of us actually called our parents Mommy and Daddy, the trend in those days being to address them in our respective mother tongues and partly because the lady had this funny accent that never failed to tickle our laughter bone. 

But there was one prayer that remains in my memory and that is the one to the Guardian Angel. It ran thus: ‘Holy Guardian Angel, protect us and keep us from all harm.”As a young teen, I never really felt the import of this tiny two-lined prayer, but over the years, when faced with difficult circumstances that life is wont to throw up at you, I found myself automatically uttering it. I also began wondering about this entity called the ‘Guardian Angel’, said to be an angel sent by God to guide and protect each human in times of need and distress. Though there is no similar belief system in Hinduism, I feel the concept has a very secular, very universal appeal. Is it not comforting to believe that there is a higher being especially earmarked for each of us, something like a tailor-made GPS tracker with the added role of protecting and guiding you through this difficult journey called ‘life’? I have got this streak of the pragmatist in me and with regards to this Guardian Angel concept I generally oscillate between belief and disbelief; meaning, that while I will vociferously tell you that I don’t believe in this ‘childish prattle’, you can find me surreptitiously murmuring the prayer when moving from the bedroom to the bathroom at three am during a powercut......!

I took to taking evening walks while at Shillong, long vigorous ones lasting more than an hour. It is very pleasant to walk in Shillong, on quiet roads lined with tall Khasia pines, the occasional stately cedar and maybe even a cypress, its branches drooping in some unknown but saintly sorrow.  The roads where I walked were generally devoid of traffic and pedestrians and I took to plugging on my Ipod to my ears. I would begin my walk at around five thirty in the evening and finish by sixty thirty/seven, by when it would have generally turned pitch dark, the night coming earlier in this Eastern hill town. In the beginning I would often find Kaloo gallivanting in the neighbourhood with her gang and on spotting me she would greet me, her violently wagging tail displaying her eagerness. If I called out to her she would obligingly detach herself from her friends and come trotting after me. Soon, she took to waiting outside my door at five thirty sharp, ready for the walk. Then something really interesting happened. One day, being little fatigued after hosting lunch for some friends, I decided I would not go for the evening’s walk. I was sitting and watching television, when I heard Kaloo mewling loudly outside my bedroom door and furiously scratching on the door pane. Wondering what the problem was, I peeked outside. She gave a short jump on seeing me and then ran outside and then back again, trying to convey something. In a flash I realised what she wanted; she wanted me to go for the walk! Feeling slightly abashed at being thus reprimanded for my laziness by a dog, I promptly changed into my tracks and sneakers and soon we were on the familiar trail, Kaloo trotting behind me.  

And thus the routine was set, Kaloo accompanying me on my evenings walks following which she retired to her armchair for the night. She would only leave it to have a bit o' dinner outside my kitchen door and would be back; and I often heard her give short sharp yaps as she dreamt her doggy dreams. Like clockwork, she would wake me up at dawn and when I let her out, she would promptly disappear into the early morning mist. During this time, another black female dog joined us on our evening walks, a dog I named Julie. I think my entourage presented quite an unusual picture and am sure that the people of my neighbourhood can still recall this funny woman who took her evening walks accompanied by two scraggy looking stray dogs coloured as dark as the night in which they walked.   

One evening, I was slightly delayed by an important phone call and we began our walk rather late. It was beyond dusk and pretty dark. To top a power-cut was in place ensuring that none of the streetlights were lit. But Shillong is a safe town and I was not worried by the darkness. We traced our usual route, Kaloo and me (Julie was missing that day). At one point, I wanted to change the song on my Ipod and stopped awhile to do so. It was very dark and as I worked the Ipod controls, its sharp white glared dazzled my eyes totally and when I finally looked away from the screen, I was rendered instantly and completely blind. But I was not unduly worried and continued my walk. After a few steps, I suddenly felt my foot waving in the air. Completely lost and wondering where the ground had disappeared to, I lunged forward, seeking solid ground to place my foot on. But there was only unsupportive space and after wavering around in space, I finally lost my balance. I fell, rather gently though, almost like a ballerina settling down after a tricky twirl on one toe and  found myself seated on my haunches, on something soft and crackly. I was still blinder than the blindest bat and had no idea where I was or where the road was. I also became aware of gruff sounding male voices in the vicinity and it was then that I began panicking. I tried to scramble up, blindly grabbing for some support, my mind filled with cold dread, my thoughts frozen in icy panic. I was lost, blind and also cold now, the wet of the ground seeping in through the seat of my trousers. Fear or more appropriately, panic is a feeling that robs one of every iota of reason and I was in its clawing grip now. Through this fog of terror, I became aware of a familiar mewling...Kalooo!!! 

I reached out, still dead blind and felt the rough coat of her back. She was cooing and mewing and the familiar sound of her voice, her doggie smell and the warmth of her coat doused my panic in an instant. As reason returned, I realised, that blinded by the glare of my iPod, I had lost my sense of direction. Instead of walking on straight ahead on the road, I had veered into the storm drain that ran alongside and had fallen into it, the dried leaves and pine needles cushioning my fall. Seeing me fall thus, Kaloo had also jumped into the drain and was now circling me, egging me to get up. The drain was not deep at all and as I had fallen rather gently, I had no injury, except for an injured ego and I rose up and was soon standing on the road, adjusting my headphones, vision restored.

As I trudged back home that night, I pondered about what had just happened, the sheer unreasonable‘ness’ of my panic reaction, the violence with which that panic had gripped me, the abrupt and complete evaporation of that panic and return of reason brought on by the awareness of Kaloo’s presence..........I wondered too of Guardian Angels and whether they wore disguises, disguises of little, scrawny, black dogs with loads of attitude......