A Morning Dog Walk

Almost a year back my very good friend asked me to start up a blog which according to him is a good platform to express oneself. Almost a year gone by and I have not written or infact posted a single word in it. Blame it to my laziness or rather say my habit of procrastination.

So on the following day of Women's Day 2011 I sit down to write something about womanhood but not about our rights and wrongs. par jara haat ke!

After i got my new dog "Pasa", a month back, I was forced to take her for a walk everyday as per the doctor's advice. It is hard for me. Of course it is hard for anyone to get up early in the morning.Specially, when you have to check on the dog, whole night, thinking it might pee on ur expensive Tibetan carpet. Coming back to the point, we start our morning walk. And if you have a dog at home you know how difficult it is to lease train your dog. Everyday when we get out of the house, we have this tradition, which i would like to mention is developed by Pasa, that she needs to bite the lease hard and hang on it as if its gonna kill her, if she wont kill it. This ritual will go on for couple of minutes till i hit her really hard with a newspaper roll which she thinks is my weapon for her destruction.

We start walking. The first day i felt really awkward, the way people were staring at us. A puppy with a colourful sweater being walked by a FEMALE owner. Please do keep the gender part in mind. Every Tom,Dick and Harry will whistle and goes tch tch! to the dog. I have not seen them doing such actions to dogs with a MALE owner. Sorry for not mentioning this, there are couple of similar companies we encountereveryday. An old man with two small annoying obnoxious dogs who used to bully Pasa till she overgrew them, I think a police officer with a very friendly German Sheperd named Sewak ( quite a name I should say), 6-8 teenagers I meet on weekend with their respective dogs which consists of a Boxer, a Doberman, a Spitz and a small one named "Snoopy" whose breed even the owner needs to find out. Rest I have not been too friendly as the owners give an attitude that they are the superior ones.

One day when we were walking a traffic police asked her( yes he asked HER) "Where are you going with such pretty sweater?" And i was thinking you dare ask the same question to her when my brother or my dad is walking her? They wont dare. Those army platoon who goes for regular jogging in the morning they whistle which reminds me of Pluto hitting on Dinah, the Dachshund. After observing this for over three weeks, I decided to change the route and head to Tudikhel, the one and only Joggers Park in Kathmandu.

But for my dissapointment, things were worse. People would stop jogging or exercising to check a woman dog walker. What the Hell? This makes you think that even in a urban city like Kathmandu people will not accept if you try to do a little odd job like dog walking. And please walking a dog is not a male or a female specific job. She is my dog so I am the owner. A woman can be a dogs owner. A woman can be a farmer. A woman can drive a Royal Enfield with leather pants and awesome set of helmet and accessories. A woman can be a janitor. A woman can drive a truck. Why cant you men accept it?

In the end I dont see the whole point of celebrating womanhood for one day and for three hundred and sixty four days we are being treated biasly trying to make the other half, better or worse, Happy!!!