Terrorizing Dogs....

By Tareq Adnan

Now, there I am, nonchalantly walking down a road, on my merry way to my classes. It's then that I hear the pounding of quadrupled feet. Being an extremely brave, cowardly kind of a person, I plucked up the courage to take a look behind me. That's when I started to run.

The barking, crazy populations of dogs (to me, those barbaric creatures aren't dogs, but plain, in simple Bangla, dogs) that roam the streets of Dhaka are more adept at terrorizing the masses than the demented group of militants that we've all come to know and love. Don't believe me; go ask your father about the time he was chased by a dog for over five miles (I've come to notice this, every male adult, on some occasions female, has a story to tell about The Chase, i.e. Dog literally giving them a run for their money).

It's a universal rule, dog chases man, man gets bitten, fourteen injections. It's seems that our beloved stinky canine friends are exacting revenge, although for what reason I have yet to find out.

It's a bit of a pain (literally sometimes) to be chased by a dog. It does nothing to boost your already low self-esteem; I mean if you can't escape a dog, what can you do? Then there is the painful process of telling your friends that you've been bitten by a dog and consequently can't come to your physics class. The prospect of your friends endlessly teasing you is obviously not very endearing. I know people who fall ill not because of the dreaded bite, but because of the embarrassment that they face.

Then yet again, there is the terrible prospect of telling your girl about the Bite. Nothing does more to get you dumped than the Bite. Just imagine this scene: you and your girl are making your way to a café when suddenly you hear the demonic sounds of barking. Being such a valiant guy, you assure the girl that nothing is going to happen. It's then that the Dawg makes his appearance. You being extremely intrepid, try to fend of the Dawg with a few loosely thrown rocks. The Dawg goes to business and you being fearless promptly run away, leaving your female friend to her sorry fate that inevitably leads to quite a few injections. Result: You get dumped, never to bag a girlfriend again.

Yeah, it's happened before hasn't it? I know how you fell (actually no, the scene aforementioned has never happened to me).

Then there is the prospect of making your teachers believe that you were actually bitten. Being teachers they are obviously inclined to not believe you and hand over a dozen detentions for deliberately missing classes.

Then there are your parents, who will obviously take sides with the kutta. “ Why did you go and disturb the dog? It's your own damn fault you got bitten,” they'll say. Then they will obviously enquire as to why the hell you were there where you were when you got bitten. “ Why were you there? I thought you were going to classes. Who was the girl who called us and told us about you?” they'll ask. Ah… if only students actually attended their classes, then such question would never crop up and probably they'll never get bitten.

Subsequently there is the prospect of visiting the doctor. And yes, when the doctor's face twitches, he was about to smile. Letting another person investigate parts of your body that are not for public viewing and which now have a teeth punctures is exceptionally embarrassing.

As to those of you who are wondering as to what happened to me, well the Dawg won The Chase and successfully delivered the Bite. Thankfully my jeans were just a bit too thick for the goddamn kutta's cavity ridden teeth to penetrate and I came out of it unhurt and with a story to tell my grandchildren.