Hi all (Please tell me there are people reading this other than me! :P)
Long hiatus(nothing new there), and a lot of new stories to tell, if only I had the patience to type all of them out. A lot of my time in the past 2 months has been spent in Kolkata playing music. A total of 12 shows in 1.5 months, including opening for MOTHERJANE. Good times, but that is not what this is about. As almost all of you know, I hail from Jamshedpur, nice clean and green. And there are stray dogs, but the time spent in Kolkata makes them look like chipmunks. I mean, these Kolkata dogs are like massive beasts, and it seems everyone in the city takes great joy in feeding them.
On account of my curiosity returning after an extended hibernation (Thanks NIT), I decided to delve deeper into this mystery. Why would people take profound joy in feeding creatures that are essentially non-loyal and exceedingly loud, and rationale suggests that the stronger they are the worse their bark and bite?? Well, I got at least one version of my answer, and the person to solve this mystery for me was none other than the vocalist of my band, Kaustav. Now, I could call him a slew of other names, but that requires a certain knowledge of the bengali lexicon, so that stays for another day.
Anyway, Kaustav has a uniquely twisted mind, and his answer was also singularly gifted in the sense that once you hear it, you wouldn't want any other answer!
So here goes.
The reason why the dogs of Kolkata are well-to-do are because of the massive numbers of extra-marital affairs in the city. ??!!?? How'd you figure that one genius?? Well, this is the reasoning for it. I'll try and tackle it step-wise.
Step 1: Man has extra-marital affair.
Step 2: As collateral damage for banging another chick, he has to take care of her fooding and clothing and so on to show that he cares for the fact that he is doing her. So in this noble endeavour, he spends more and more time out of home, eating at restaurants. This leads him to develop a taste for food cooked with a whole lot of oil and spices. Life is good. :)
Step 3: Man returns home. :(
The one predominant feature of being a housewife is that she will always think for the benefit of her family. With all the new cholesterol related diseases that abound these days, to diabetes to what not, she takes great care in choosing the oil that she cooks her food in, manages to keep the fat content really low, and everything, so that she does not get nagged by her mother-in-law if her husband is suddenly fatter than Yokozuna or has suffered from some or the other heart-condition. Normally this would lead to certain appreciation by the family members, who are willing to make the small sacrifice in taste for a longer life.
But in the case where the man of the house is not exactly the man of just his house, then this same caring nature just leads to him feeling that the food at home is not upto the quality which he is normally used to. So a feeling of discontentment creeps in.
Step 4: Enter stray dog (or cat or pigeon or whatever man)
At the very opportune moment that the husband is feeling blue and doesn't want to eat his lunch, there is a dog outside the house, his savior for all things culinary. All he needs to do is simply toss his lunch to the canine when the missus is not looking so he can make another plan to eat somewhere else, which involves taking the mistress out.
Step 5: There are a lot of extra marital affairs in Kolkata. You do the math.
Step 6: What!!?? I proved it already.
Since I have already seen entire lunches been thrown out to these strays with increasing regularity during my time spent there, I won't dispute Kaustav's claim. Man's most faithful friend gets to eat when man is not faithful. :P
If you guys have any thoughts after reading this. Please let me know.
Till next time
