True Story

Dogs are always welcome here

Revisiting some old memories

When I was in college we had dogs every time attending class with us. One of our classes used to happen in the 8:45 am slot. And, as collegegoers, we would always pull all-nighters for a variety of reasons. There was a forest at the back of the college and it was famous for having ghosts. So we went there now and then and travelled through the lush green sides which had dense cover. One of my friends knew the route to move from the entry to the exit spots. That means we would always attend the morning class as if we were Zombies. There will be dogs at the back benches completing their good night's sleep and everyone would particularly be careful around them not to step on them considering our Professor was fond of dogs.

Mam used to teach us “Rise of the Modern West” paper in 2nd year, and “Modern Indian History” in the 3rd year. She always had two tiffins filled with dog food and while discussing the content of the material available to read would use her left hand to feed the treats to the dogs and her right hand to turn the pages. I still remember while leaning on my back I stepped on one of the dogs mistakenly and she peeked a look at me and I was terrified of her. That look was projecting a message “Kill him now”. We had friends who would always bring their sanitisers with them and use them after they were done petting the newborn litter.

Mam liked dogs to death, she was fond of them so she gave names of prominent medieval kings to all the dogs. Particularly the one that I used to pet was called Dara. Dara as in Dara Shikoh was Emperor Shah Jahan the 5th Mughal Emperor’s beloved son. Shah Jahan loved Dara to death. Dara was a dutiful son, secular, took interest in the arts, and cultures and is often noted to have translated Indic Philosophical enquires of the past. He translated Upanishads which are the epitome of South Asia’s philosophical past. Darah was also Shah Jahan’s eldest son. But this love proved fatal to Dara as he got all the adulation, praise, admiration, nice things and unwanted attention. Aurangzeb or the Indian History’s notorious bigot as claimed by some centres of the political ecosystem, Shah Jahan’s youngest son always felt neglected by his father. Aurangzeb was sent to places to look after revenue collection in dry, arid and tough warring areas like the regions of northwest India which are present-day Afghanistan and Iran.

It was so contrasting to that of Dara his situation and his father treatment of both the sons. To top it off Shah Jahan doubted Aurangzeb of doing some treasury discrepancy in Deccan which made him even more mad.

Fighting multiple enemies made Aurangzeb a skilled warrior, and in the Mughal ruling system, they did not practice the primogeniture system of succession. There are always bloodied battles fought for the throne.

Aurangzeb beat all his brothers, captured a running Dara, and locked his father in house arrest in this case, palace arrest. He severed Dara’s head and sent it to his father as a special gift, this however may or may not be true, it's a contested fact.

Aurangzeb was also accused of religious totalitarianism and a king who broke many temples including the Mathura and Kashi temples. In academia, however, his persona is often reflected more as an opportunist king who used conservative religious clerics as a tool for political control and that led to the project of him being a conservative Muslim ruler.

So Dara the dog was unlike Dara the king. They had some similarities like Dara was a gentle male dog who loved eating Parle G biscuits. I liked petting him. There was a healthy dog reintroduced by Mam on our campus who constantly undermined Dara’s authority and guess what Dara scared the bejeezus out of him. So yes he is unlike the real Dara. We got souvenir cards signed by Dara it was his paw mark on our farewell ceremony. Sadly, Dara is no more now! The good dog had his last breath in a restful state.

May God make us all as fierce and as calm, patient, loving and confident as Dara. Not the king but the dog! The king is a wuss!!!!

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