A dog lover, Soumya talks of the many canines attached to him during his trips in an exclusive for Different Truths.

I have spoken earlier about how random canines get attached to me on the roads.

It became a problem when a large stray in the famous Radhanagar Beach at Havelock, Andaman’s, became extremely friendly.

He kept playing with us, splashing in the waves, running to fetch sticks, even from the sea and generally kept us entertained.

 But he wouldn’t let me go when we wanted to leave, holding my arm gently but determinedly in his teeth.

Finally, I had to run like crazy to get back into the car after making the canine run into the waves to fetch the stick from afar.

Talk about clingy relationships; this took the cake. Pet owners, who like to travel, often choose weekend getaways to pet-friendly resorts.

The Den, in Corbett, is one such, and it also boasts of two lovely dogs, which act as guards-cum-guides for trekkers.

They promptly adopted us, accompanying us everywhere.

They are excellent guides and took us to all the permitted routes, up the ridge to the village on top, to a hilltop with a snow view, down to the river, and safely guided us back to the resort. They were sufficient to scare us of leopards and would give adequate warning to us to get away if an elephant or tiger was nearby.

But their protectiveness came with a problem.

Whenever we decided to take a swim in the Rāmgangā, they would dive in and drag us to the shore, thus, according to them, saving us from drowning as they were taught.

We had to sneak away, avoiding them like schoolboys playing hooky if we wanted to swim.

Picture design by Anumita Roy, Different Truths

Soumya Mukherjee

Soumya Mukherjee is an alumnus of St Stephens College and Delhi School of Economics. He earns his daily bread by working for a PSU Insurance company, and lectures for peanuts. His other passions, family, friends, films, travel, food, trekking, wildlife, music, theater, and occasionally, writing. He has been published in many national newspapers of repute. He has published his first novel, Memories, a novella, hopefully, the first of his many books. He blogs as well.