Sick Dog

This article about the mixed attitude towards street dogs in India brought to mind the one that was fixture for ever in the stairwell of my uncle's home. 

While working-class people and warriors often admired and depended on them, elite Brahmins and ritual specialists sometimes regarded dogs as impure or associated them with lower castes. This duality persisted into medieval times, with literature often looking down on dogs even as they remained essential in society. The article also notes that Indian dogs were exported and admired abroad for their strength and hunting skills. Today, while some elite Indians seek to remove street dogs from public spaces, many ordinary people view them with affection, reflecting a long and complicated shared history

The dog in question was jet black but his coat was dusty from neglect. He was skinny, sickly and depended on scraps of food from people in the neighborhood. My uncle's family did not feed him but the stairwell was the dog's shelter from the elements. No one tried to evict him from there. Then he started to get sick and smelt really bad. You could tell the dog was there from afar and it filled you with trepidation as that foul smell intensified as you got closer. We avoided contact with him and went into the house. Even in those days, no one felt compelled to get the dog out of the way. At some point he died. 

In my uncle's home no one ever talked about the dog when he was alive or after he passed. It was understood that he was sick and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I guess we respected his right to be as he was, where he was.