Change comes 'barking'

Chapter 1: Change comes 'barking'!

There was a surreal silence after Langda's death within the gang as well as the adjacent neighbourhood. There were sporadic fights off and on, but never had there been such a grim battle that cost lives.

SS pretended not to be shaken by the incident, and if you judged him by his courage; it hadn't reduced one bit. But Langda's loss weighed heavy on his conscience. Langda had been one of the earliest members of the gang and most jovial one. I remember playing with him as a pup! Instead of the jovial laughter of jokes and pranks that he used to play on us, there was a gloomy silence throughout the gang.

Tango and Charlie soon proved to be useful to the gang when it came to scouting and scavenging. All said and done, they used to keep to themselves unless and until there was work to be done. True blue mercenaries they were! Grease and i hated them for it!

This so called environment of peace seemed to go on for a while until terror struck again! This time it was something we never anticipated. SS and the old timers knew about it, but for Grease and me this was something new; and it spread not just through our gang but all the gangs in the neighbourhood.

'Hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot!!' The sound seemed just like one of the usual human monstrosities that shared our space on the streets, and occasionally mowed down a fighter or two. We kept our distance from them and they from us. But this one was something different. This was a hunt, a manhunt or must i say doghunt in human lingo!

The thing stopped at the opening of the street. Grease was caught unawares. A human approached him with a biscuit in hand. Thinking it's just another kind soul offering him a quick snack, Grease went for it joyfully. In the twinkling of an eye, the human put a leash around Grease's neck and was dragging him toward the monstrosity.

Grease's cry of terror resounded across the neighbourhood. Every member of every gang voiced out protests as loudly as possible but dared to do nothing beyond that. Nobody wanted to be caught. Nobody dared other than SS.

SS charged gallantly as before, but this time he went like a ninja assasin. The man had his back toward SS and was dragging Grease when SS quickly went for his leg. What happened next probably happened faster than you can read this line. Blood squirted and the man howled in pain as SS's deadly canines met unprotected flesh and bone. He dropped the leash and fell to the ground. Grease was far too stunned to react. A sharp bark from SS quickly got him back to his senses and he did what he did best, fled!

The man was up again when SS turned back to face him. And this time, he had something worse than a leash, and he was with a friend. They both had long sticks that gleamed in the afternoon sun. But SS wasn't about to fight alone. Mum and the others quickly started a frenzy of barking that made them crazy! They came at us with the sticks but we were too quick for them. This time i wasn't content with mere snapping!

I went for the second man as he swung his weapon at Bhoora. Bhoora was a nondescript cur except that he had brown fur that earned him the name Bhoora. Bhoora backed off quickly, and i went for his hand. Seeing this, Bhoora too went for the other hand. The man was down and grappled by two of us. A third fellow could despatch him to the Happy Hunting Grounds, but it was against the law to kill humans. So we sunk our canines deeper into his flesh until he screamed in agony. He was out of action. His comrade turned to face us, but he already had a bleeding leg. Both of them turned tail and the monstrosity was soon making its way out from our turf!

Chapter 2: Sacrifice

By now you must be thinking, we've been fighting in a lonely street in Bombay; something that's a rarity in the middle of the day in this city. The humans around us had been watching us all the while. They didn't budge when Grease was attacked, but the attack on the two assassins now turned them as a body on us. They stared at us for a while and then one of them sounded the cry.

'Maar daalo, maaro, maaro', and all Hell broke loose. There was a shower of rocks on us, and we were forced to turn tail. They were far too many in number, and the cacophony was deafening. All of us fled as a body chased hotly by those obnoxious bipeds. Some of them had weapons too! From a distance we could see the assassins returning. This time there were two monstrosities. I don't know how many poured out from them, but they were many in number. The mob was behind us and they were ahead of us. Like Hell we were caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea!


They pointed their sticks yet again, but this time things were different. Whenever they pointed a stick, one of us would fall to the ground grovelling in pain with a funny looking thing sticking out. Mum too caught one in her thigh. The wise and brave SS had one final move in his mind. He charged them head on!

This could not have been a signal for a grand final stand. We were outnumbered, and death was certain if we stood our ground and fought. Ah, death would have been a good option had we been cornered by our own kind. Atleast, we could fight on an even plane. SS surely had something else in mind, but we all charged them together!

Time seemed to stand still, and the humans on both sides too were frozen for a moment. You could just about feel the palpable suspense so as to what's coming next...

The men broke formation, and that was the exactly what SS had in mind. Scoot!!

When they broke off, we all showed them what we could do by means of a clean pair of heels! We ran through the assassins lot and we ran through the mob. Grease and i ran blindly ignoring what went past us, whether we were entering foreign turf. When we stopped, we were by the sea. The sea was far off from where our turf was. This was foreign turf, and could be hostile too!!

There was nobody behind us, and there was an absolute silence spare the squawking of the sea birds. SS and the others were nowhere to be seen. The sun was setting and we were hungry, thirsty and stranded for the first time in foreign turf.

Chapter 3: The first night alone

We cried bitterly for we were truly alone. We wouldn't have minded the company of even a hostile kinsman but there was not one in sight. Surely this was someplace dreadful to our kind.

After a while, we drifted to sleep in a makeshift bed of leaves. Dawn greeted us with the sight of Bhoora. Bhoora had traced us all the way from Thakurdwar. He was wounded, and there was a deep gash on his neck inflicted by some human. He had news for us. Bad news...