A "dog"ged life

A friend of mine once told me that whenever I wanted to change a particular topic while chatting I would invariably start talking about Aamir Khan (but of course!) or dogs.

I FEAR DOGS.

I guess it had all begun with our neighbour's dog chasing me. The dog who used to be kept mostly indoors was freely moving around that day and it decided to go after me. I dropped my school bag at the gate and ran to save my dear life.

In college I was once sitting outside the library writing my Physics Lab Journal. I was concentrating so hard that I freaked when this dog shoved himself right between my face and my register. I think it was God's way of punishing me for bunking a class and not completing my journal beforehand.

There are so many stories from my IITB days. My favourite is the one when minutes before an Organic Chemistry quiz I found myself stranded alone with eight dogs to my right and another eight to my left. I got saved that day by one of my classmates who was on his way to the department. On another occasion this guy whom I used to loathe came to my help. How I wish for my saviour to have been some knight in shining armour instead. On all other times I was happy to have my friend Chandrima acting as my bodyguard. Till date she hasn't been able to reason out why on seeing me, dogs which would be lazing around otherwise, would suddenly become active.

A few weeks back four puppies were born in the parking lot of my apartment building and I am already worrying about what will happen when they'll grow up. Mark Twain has said that "courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear". But for once I doggedly refuse to conquer my fear... of dogs.