THE DEATH OF A DOG

Unni sat in the living room waiting impatiently for his aunt to stop talking. She had been talking all about herself for more than an hour. She talked without stop about herself, her baby-son, and her ailments. As the appointed time for the meeting with the King approached, Unni began to feel restless. He knew that the king would be displeased if he was kept waiting.
Fortunately for Unni, the telephone rang and the lady rushed to it. Slipping out of the back door, he ran to the wood shed. He whistled three notes as usual, and His Majesty the King appeared before him promptly, from where Unni did not see.
When they had greeted each other, Unni asked the King whether he knew any of the domestic animals like dogs and cattle.
“Of course I do,” said the king,“Even during my life in the woods, I used to meet a number of domestic animals. Most of them lack the purity of the animals in the woods. Still many of them were brave and broad hearted.”
“Will you tell me a story about one of your domestic animal friends?” Unni begged of his royal friend.
“Yes,” the King said, “Today I’ll tell you the story of Tiger, the dog.” And he proceeded to tell the boy a most moving story.
In the north of Kerala, close to the foothills of the Western Ghats, there lived a young farmer. He had been rich and powerful until bad days began to hunt him down. Adverse climate played havoc with his crops. Moreover, there was a steep fall in the price of his produces. Immersed in debt, the farmer began to be hunted by his creditors.
He had no choice other than disposing of his assets including large estates in the country and buildings in nearby towns.
To make matters worse, his wife died of cancer after a prolonged and painful period of hospitalization.
The young widower now lived in a small cottage on a tiny piece of land with his two little children. There was no servant in the house and in the place of prosperity and laughter, gloom and poverty reigned over his home. All his friends and relatives had abandoned him in the same speed in which he had lost his wealth and properties.
The only friend left was Tiger, his faithful dog.
The ruin of his master made him quite unhappy. After the death of his mistress, days of poverty invaded the once happy home like unclean spirits. It pained Tiger to watch helplessly, when his master rebuked and thrashed the children very often.
Besides Tiger, there was a cat in the household. Though beautiful, Kurinji, the cat, was self-willed and vane. It was long since the two animals had spoken to each other.
The reason for the estrangement was very simple. One day, Tiger had seen the farmer whipping his son for standing on the sofa with muddy shoes. Barely fifteen minutes later, in came Kurinji after an expedition in the rain and began to lick her coat of fur, lying peacefully on the sofa. Little wonder, Tiger grew enraged. In rushed Tiger, and at Kurinji, barking angrily. The frightened cat made her escape by climbing up into the attic.
Some months had passed and now Tiger wanted desperately to talk to the cat. But she would always take to her heels as soon as the dog approached her. Tiger followed her in vain in the courtyard and in the garden. The beautiful cat never paused or as much as looked at the dog.
At last, Tiger found the fair cat sitting on the beam of the verandah at the rear of the cottage.
“Kurinji!” called Tiger as softly as he could.

The cat opened her left eye and watched the dog. Then she closed it and opened her right eye, and, after a while closed it also. After a few minutes she opened both her eyes together a bit and gazed at the dog, standing below, looking up.
“What do you want?” she asked him quite curtly.
Tiger was quite enraged to see how rude she was but he restrained himself with a great effort.
“I would like to have a few words with you on something urgent and important,” Tiger said with all the politeness he could muster.
“Yes…?” she said.
“We live under the same roof like strangers. This isn’t good,” he said. “Let’s forgive and forget and fight the common enemy.”
The cat looked at the dog with a mixed feeling of curiosity and mistrust.
Tiger explained her briefly the great danger the family was facing.
The position of the farmer was quite precarious, he said. He did not have money even to buy food. Of the vast properties he had had, nothing was left except the small piece of land on which the cottage stood. He had planted a few hundred tapioca plants around the house. In September, when the incessant rains stopped, and the sun shone once more, he hoped to sell the roots and manage the affairs.
But a group of rats had come to the tapioca garden. There were pig rats and tunnel rats among them. Tiger had managed to kill some of the pig rats and scare away most of the others. But he had been quite helpless with the tunnel rats that always lived and operated from underground.
If the cat helped him, he said, he could save the plants and thus the farmer and his children.
“Otherwise something might happen to the darling children,” Tiger’s voice quivered as he spoke.
But the cat had a different view. She said, “We don’t have the responsibility of safeguarding the farmer and his crops. But it is his duty to look after us. At any rate, I’m not his servant, but his honored guest. I kill every house rat and cockroach. In return what he gives me is a morsel of rice and a few drops of milk. As for the children, they are, both of them, naughty. The brat once pulled my tail. I gave her something she is not likely to forget very soon.
“As soon as I find that the farmer can’t feed me, I’ll leave the place immediately. There is any number of decent people in this world who would warmly welcome a good looking cat.”
Tiger was at a loss. If Kurinji did not help, the rats would plough up the garden in a few weeks.
There would be nothing left for the children to eat. The farmer would be forced to sell his cow to meet the urgent expenses of the household…. The little darling children would starve…
“Your attitude isn`t correct,” said Tiger after a while, “Besides, consider how the cats in the neighborhood would think of you. Even now most of them are envious of you. A beautiful female is always viewed with envy by the women folk around. I won’t forgive them if they laugh at you. ‘She is certainly pretty, all right. But she is afraid of even a mouse. It’s better to be brave and practical minded than to be a pretentious and good for nothing doll of a cat…’ This would be the sample talk between two females when they meet.”
Kurinji sat up. Her eyes blazed and the velvet hair on her back bristled up.

“They would talk ill of me, would they? Sir, where are the rats? I’ll show them whether I am a good for nothing-pretentious girl…” she said with emotion.
Together they went to inspect the garden. The dog showed his fair friend the moll hills and holes from which the tunnel rats operated.
“I’ll manage the rats, don’t fear.” Kurinji assured her canine friend.
At the end of a week Kurinji had caught and killed as many as forty tunnel rats. What was left of the army of rats that had come invading the garden were a handful of tunnel rats and a few pig rats that lived under a boulder.
Tiger was happy that his struggle against the rat menace was approaching success.
One day Tiger was keeping vigil near the hole of the pig rat under the boulder. The red nose of a rat appeared at the mouth of the hole and Tiger was astonished to hear a deep voice addressing him.
It said, “I’d like to have a few words with you Mr. Tiger!”
It was for the first time in his life that a rat was speaking to him!
“Whatever might be the topic?” Tiger asked contemptuously.
“You have an accomplice, the beautiful cat. Let her also come, I have something important to tell you,” said the rat.
“There is no need for any talk,” said the dog, “As soon as you come out of the hole, I’ll kill you, that’s all.”
“Admittedly you are an outspoken fellow,” said the rat, “But I must say that you are an upcountry dog who has seen little of the world. You have wasted your life licking the boots of a worthless man. Have you ever heard of the organized move of the animal world against the human race? Come at five. Don’t forget to bring that fair cat of yours.
“We try to destroy the tapioca garden. You two try to annihilate us. I’ll convince both of you that what you are doing is a great crime. If, on the other hand, you can convince us that we are involved in a sinful scheme, we’ll leave the garden today itself.”
A dismayed Tiger left the garden to look for Kurinji. When he found her, he reported to her the strange conversation he had had with the big pig rat.
The two domestic animals arrived at the appointed place well in advance. The delegation of the rats made their appearance sharply at five.
The pig rat began to speak without any introduction or even greeting the two.
“We had reports from the house rats living in hiding in your attic that there was scarcity of food in your house. We also gathered that the ruined farmer would commit suicide if the tapioca crop were destroyed. If a man and his offspring are removed from the face of the earth, that would be a great victory for the animals.”
“What harm has our master done to you?” asked Tiger in a voice choking with emotion.
“I’ll tell you,” said the pig rat. “We don’t have any ill will for your master or any other man. But haven’t you thought of the cruelties that the human race is committing against the beautiful earth, the home of us all? How beautiful she used to be! Once she looked like a big garden. Everywhere, there were big lush green trees and rivers filled with, clear, cool water. The oceans lay majestically in which floated the continents and islands, like chunks of butter in a tumbler full of milk. And above was the sky bluer in colour than the oceans below.
“The woods and jungles man has cut down. He has polluted the sacred rivers, the arteries of life that Mother Earth proudly sustained. He has wiped out the organic diversity, both on land and at sea. He has dug great pits on the breast of his mother. He has piled up weapons capable of destroying the earth many times over.
“If we don’t check him even now, this unique planet in the wilderness of barren globes will be reduced to a single desert very soon.
“There are so many reasons that could wipe out the last throb of life and the last spot of beauty from the face of Mother Earth. Each of these causes has been the making of man. For example, the blanket of air over us has a thin outer lining called the ozone layer. This thin lining protects the life on this planet from harmful rays coming from the outer universe. Man and his greed have ruptured even this protective layer.
“The only enemy of life on earth, you see, is man. In order to wipe out the human race so that life may continue to flourish on the earth, a world organization has been formed. Rats, insects, ants, bacteria, virus and flies, are some of the members of this organization.
“The only animals unaware of this great and historic movement are those like you who live deep in the country.”
“Why does man commit all these crimes and sins?” asked Kurinji.
“Man is by nature selfish,” said the rat. “Pleasure - that is his only aim in life. Who else but man could cut the arms of a tree that not only gives him food, but also enriches the air with oxygen? He believes that Mother Earth with all her beauty and diversity was created for him. Do you know what he calls himself? - The Crown of Creation! What a paradox! He should be actually called the Error of Creation.”
“Can you tiny animals hope to destroy man?” asked Kurinji who was not fully convinced.
“We are commissioned to destroy him. This is, I admit, a long process. We will cause havoc to agriculture, spread diseases, and cause famines. Anyway, man is digging his own grave by destroying the forests, polluting the air and water and exterminating many plants and animals. We are here to accelerate his doom. Let’s act together against this unscrupulous enemy of all life on earth and wipe out the last man from the face of Mother Earth.”
“I can’t agree with you,” said Tiger although he was greatly dismayed at what he had heard. “My primary loyalty is to my master and his children. I never think whether he is right or wrong. I would be his faithful servant rather than his judge.”
“Dogs are, by nature, bootlickers of man,” shouted the rat angrily, “Besides you are a blockhead. The day when your master and his children are eaten by worms, is not far off.”
This was too much for Tiger. He rushed at the rat roaring angrily but the rats had vanished into the hole.
Left to themselves, the dog and the cat sat on their haunches, still staring at each other.
“The rats and their organization work for a noble cause,” said the cat at last. “I would like to see the last man dead so that life may continue to prosper on this planet of ours.”
Tiger squatted in the garden, frozen like a statue and watched the fair cat walk out of the garden.
It began to rain and Tiger went back home. At the verandah of the cottage he lay looking out at the curtain of heavy rain pouring down, and he dozed off.
In his sleep he dreamed. Some of the figures he saw were vague but some were strikingly clear.
He was lying at the feet of his master. Besides his master there were a group of able-bodied men and women all sitting around and talking and laughing.
The place was a riverbank full of golden sand. A number of children were playing on the sand, all of them naked but beautiful. The grownups too, were scantily dressed but all of them were sturdy and handsome.
Not far away, a herd of deer came and drank from the river. Downstream, a large herd of elephants was in the river. Soon the herd of deer was running past them in panic. Looking up, Tiger saw a tigress and three of her cubs. They too, must have come to drink from the river.
Tiger woke up and realized that the scene was from a period fifteen thousand years back when man lived in harmony with his environment, respecting all forms of life around him.
Tiger dozed off again and he had another dream.
This time, he was walking aimlessly along the bank of a river. The water was thick and black like molten tar. The trees had their branches black and drooping as though there had been a fire. There was a horrible stink in the air, and the vision appeared to him as though through a haze. Tiger saw two little children plodding on along the riverbank, tired and frightened. Suddenly from behind a man appeared, and killed both the children with a chopper. A haggard looking woman appeared on the scene. She said with a malicious gleam in her eyes, “Sufficient for a day!” There was a glow of wickedness on her horrible face.
Tiger woke up with a loud bark. Although it was only a dream, the terror did not leave him for several minutes.
Now the sound of something moving in the tapioca garden fell on his ears. Barking loudly, he rushed to the garden. Inside the garden, his bark turned into a whimper, for he saw there a herd of swine plowing up the garden. Some of the pigs were so big and ferocious that even a tiger would think twice before taking on them.
Tiger retreated whimpering, with his tail between his legs. He could easily see that the swine had taken up what the rats had failed to accomplish.
The faithful dog rushed to the cottage and began to paw and bark at the door. But despite his frantic efforts, the master would not wake up! He had gone to bed heavily drunk and the agonizing realization came to him that he would not be able to awaken his master before the swine completed the operation.
Tiger sat staring into the garden steeped in darkness and baying miserably.
A beetle flying past him heard his miserable groans and stopped.
“Why are you so unhappy my friend?” asked the insect.
“Don’t you see the swine plowing up the tapioca garden? However hard I tried, my master would not wake up!” Tiger said miserably.
“This is the part of the organized move against man,” said the beetle, “I am myself a member of the organization. The target assigned to me this year is to destroy ten coconut trees.
“If everything goes well, the human race will be wiped out in ten or twenty years. We get help from all sides. Strangely enough, man renders us more help than that from all the others put together.”
“Man! Would he be a part in the plot against himself?” asked the dog in dismay.
“I’ll explain,” said the insect. “Man massacred frogs, and the result was the increase in the number of insects. He killed almost all the snakes, and rats multiplied. The tigers were hunted down and swine go unchecked. The drains were filled with dirty water and mosquitoes bred in millions. The birds that preyed on insects were all killed and we people have now a field day. He has cut down trees apparently of no use and the fertility of the soil has vanished.”
“Doesn’t man have any way to save himself?” asked the dog with emotion.
“No my friend, no,” replied the insect, “What he eats is food poisoned by himself. What he thinks is evil. Pleasure is his only god. He has half destroyed Mother Nature, mother of all life on the earth, perhaps in the entire universe. Nature has abandoned her wayward child. Let’s destroy him before he destroys this beautiful earth which is the home and paradise of all life.”
Next morning, when the master opened the front door, he found his faithful dog lying dead on the verandah. The vet who examined him said that he had died of a broken heart.