A bond unsaid

Years and decades of Army life has engraved certain habits on my DNA which are so indelible and so much beyond change, I feel these will go with me all the way till I fade into the sunset.

One such habit is the morning regimen of running (now a brisk walking) followed by a course of rigorous ‘old style’ exercises learnt  early in the training years at the NDA and followed through for a lifetime. Soldiers among the readers will identify with some of these clichés of Physical Training (PT) ustads during our PT periods. I say these to myself everyday…

• Age wale ko message pass karo
• Bend stretch, bend stretch, bend stretch…………….bendddddd 
•  Mota muscle kaan ke se touch.
• Toe touch… heave… down, heave.. down

Decades have gone, it is ten years into retirement but somehow PT Table No 11, and 13 have remained with me.

Lucky me, I stay at a beautiful place in Delhi where our Apartment is surrounded by parks on three sides. The big one in the front is my morning thing.

It has been months now, a strange thing happens every day. As I get into my exercise regimen, this stray dog comes along from nowhere  and barges right into me with his tail wagging unstoppably to gesture a friendly call!

He makes it impossible for me to proceed unless I break routine and pat him for nearly 5-7 minutes. During my patting his eyes are in a trance as if trying to recall something/somebody.

Once that is done, my friend simply beats a retreat till I see him the next day and then again the next day. He waits for me quietly somewhere. There are a number of other stray dogs resident in the park, none of them do it, only this one. Strangely, only to me, not to other walkers/runners?

Having been a pet-parent for 12+ years, I know this one is different from other stray dogs. He has once had parents who gave him love and affection. They probably have abandoned him now. He finds that love in my pat.  May be I (or my touch) resembles his parent’s and reminds him of them.

I have never fed him anything…yet? I know he is not looking for anything from me but only a pat of affection that was once his. Something which many of his breed in the park never experienced.

I say, love endures…affection endures…years of abandonment can’t kill that longing. 

I oblige my friend every single day; stopping exercise for sometime is no matter. Between us is a connect of affection … a bond unsaid.