Wagging Love

Some babies are born with silver spoon in their mouth, some are born with golden spoon. I was born with doors of my house open. Love came in from all doors and windows. Even before I was born, at the first signs of my arrival love had started filling our house and our hearts. We welcomed it with open arms and wide smiles. So much of love started arriving that we had to break open the walls and make news widows. Wide big windows, from floor to roof. Our family was blessed with all that warmth and love. We kept on welcoming it.

We kept on welcoming it till one evening love followed me in the form of tiny woolly ball with wagging tail. We were all snoochy-moochy to receive this ball with a wagging tail and seducing squeaks. As time went on, my mother started realizing side-effects of love. With incessant slaps of wagging tail, woolly ball jumping through her legs during household chores, and cute squeaks asking for attention all through the night, she started feeling like love is sort of started overflowing for her. She had more than enough of love. She tried to keep that woolly ball out but it bounced back in. All efforts to get rid of this live ended in vain. So she did the next best thing she could do, that was to ensure no more love could come in. She closed all doors and windows and sealed them with latches and locks. Now nothing could come in. And nothing could go out either!

Woolly ball was naturally called Wuly. With no way to go out Wuly showered all her love on me. I used to be wet with love all the time. This wetness percolated inside to my heart and too became full of woolly love and I was always smiling, cheery, lovey. From Wuly I learnt to wag, I learnt to move my ears. When I entered a room I would know beforehand who were inside and who had left, merely by their smells. By their smells I would know who is happy or who is angry. I became so adept in these expressions that my family would lovingly call me Wulo. In school my antiques were looked at with some fascination, some fun and some ridicule. Some boys were called girlie or sissy, while I was called doggy. I did not mind it, rather I was enjoying all of it. It went on well till I went to high school, where I took fancy of girl. Soon she was called as girlfriend and I was called her dogfriend. Then I realized that things are going a bit too far. It was all alright about me but I would not want my girlfriend to be ridiculed, though she herself did not mind it. But now I was grown up and I have to take care of my girlfriend. I need to be a man.

It was very difficult for me. I needed to close doors and windows of myself. My feeling could no more flow out freely as and how they wanted. I had become man and feelings would have to walk out of me only in a manly way. That was the first jolt to my young and lively heart. Destiny had enabled me to learn all the nature's wonderful ways of expressing and receiving feelings, but now I would need to sacrifice all those in order to be a man! Ooooff!

In the early stages of evolution as man started reaping benefits of developed mind, its focus shifted more and more towards mind. In the process all other facets and abilities got neglected. Today we have reached such a stage that we have hardly anything to fear from the external world. The biggest threats to mankind are from its own kinds, from its own selves. So many of conflicts, so many fights arise out of misunderstandings that if man had been able to communicated better his life in turn would become a lot better. A man would not have to doubt about his girl-friend or a woman about her boyfriend. She would not need to ask him, "Do you love me?". She would know herself by his smell, his sound, his so many bodily actions. When a person is trying to feign his emotions, others would immediately know what he is really feeling. People would not need to go around uttering "I love you, dear" so many times as to make those three lovely words a cliché. Our expressions, our smell, our sounds, our touch, our actions, anything and everything would clearly speak out our love, our anger, our sulkiness.

We have reached a state where most of our basic needs are getting satisfied with minimal of efforts and time, and we have left with lots of time to do nothing. This is pushing us to contemplating, to look deeper into ourselves, to seek to find out 'why's of our actions. And what we are seeing is surprising many. Most of our seemingly rational, logical actions arise from emotional, completely irrational roots. Rationality is seeing to be inadequate to satisfy our emotional needs. And we are seeing the changes. The old time heroes with stony faces and inhuman actions maybe bygones. Today's heroes are more explicit in their expressions. We are seeing many of hard-nut sportsment openly giving out their intense emotions. We see them shout aloud, see them kiss ground, see them laugh or cry, cry both in pain of loss and in pleasure of winning. Just yesterday a young Chief Minister of an Indian state said publicly, "If I react with a bit of emotion, good. For too long, politics has been dehumanized in this country". Well said, Chief Minsiter. My whole hearted applause to you. I too am looking forward to the days when I can muster enough courage to raise my ears and to wag my tail openly and to the days when my friends too can gather courage to respond to me with wagging their tails.