Dog's Best Friend?

'Excuse me, but how dare you compare my husband to your dogs!'....

Okay hang on, I am getting ahead of myself. Allow me to explain. Am writing this entry to ask you a simple question. 'While dog is supposed to be man's best friend, can we honestly say that man is dog's best friend?'

The other day I was catching up with a friend who I haven't been in touch with for quite a while. Since we last met a lot has happened in both our lives. I went to B school, she went onsite. I got a new job, she got a new bodyguard (husband). I moved to a new city, she moved into her in-laws' place. I met new people and made friends, she made new relatives. Okay, so you get the drift.

Anyway, we were exchanging notes about the mischief one of us had been up to and the domesticated bliss the other one has been.. enjoying. She happened to say that her 'jaan' was away and that she hadn't seen him in 3 DAYS. She then went on to enlighten me about what a great guy he was and how MUCH she missed him. Now, I am a good listener and I try to get involved with the story. So I felt that I should also get into the 'missy-missy' mood. Which is when I decided to miss my dogs. Now since I thought we were having a dialogue, I decided to share with the lady the fact that I too hadn't seen my dogs for 3 weeks, how great they were and how MUCH I missed them. Fair enough?

After my own burst of doggy-woggy emotions, I expected a sympathetic ear. Instead, all I heard was the static from the crappy Airtel network. 'Hello, anyone there?'. Turns out that someone was there. Someone who imagined that her husband, and hence herself, had just been insulted. For a moment I was taken aback. I mean, why would I want to insult someone I haven't even met? Wouldn't that be a waste of my brilliant wit?

After an attempt to clear the air(tel), I decided not to take any more crap and gave it back good & proper. I can understand the lady missing her husband, but why on earth couldn't she understand me missing my dogs? Some people, I tell you! Needless to say, I don't think we'll be exchanging notes for a long time.

Now I know that you're probably thinking that I am going to take off on how dogs and husbands are the same. (Actually if you think about it, in a way they are the same). But no, am genuinely irritated by how we inflate the value of human beings and falsely raise them to the level of dogs.

Fellow homo and hetro sapiens, dogs are far superior creatures than we are. They don't go around indiscriminately slaughtering other species, messing up the planet for everyone else and then strut around claiming that they were created in God's image. They don't create value out of nothing and call it services just to get out of doing real work. They don't go around bombing and maiming each other for some goo stuck under the earth for a 100 million years when there are cleaner energy sources around. It isn't a 'dog-eat-dog' world. It's a 'man-kill-man' world. So please, lets stop flattering ourselves and thinking that we own this planet. Long before us, the dinosaurs ruled the earth. And at the rate we're mucking things up, cockroaches will rule the earth long after we're gone.

Next time you're on the road, approach a street dog and look straight at him (Yes, HIM and not IT). Chances are he'll shrink and try to avoid you. Wanna know why? No, its not because he sees your all powerful aura and senses that you are a GM/VP/Big Shot in some fancy company. It's because he's become so used to being kicked and having stones thrown at him that he assumes the worst. So he thinks that it is better to run away.

The sad thing is that if we could ask most animals what they thought of humans they would probably equate us not with other animals, but with the devil himself.

So lady, maybe I should have said.... 'WOAH, excuse me!!! But how dare you insult my dogs by equating them with your husband?'