Caninology

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Dogs always fascinated me.

Ever since a big black hound chased me (when I was just a kid of about his age and height) on an ill-lit night in a strange alley and plucked a juicy bit of flesh from my right thigh.

The trauma of the event and its aftermath of 14 painful injections around my congested navel never left me. But, for a kid of 10, I was more philosophical than he, and used to wonder what he felt after his 'Mission Accomplished'...I still wonder.

Anyway, dogs of AP are making headlines daily in Hyderabad. Apparently they bit (collectively) more than 20, 000 (!) people this summer and many rabies deaths have been reported.

The usual recriminations are out in the open.

There is talk of a criminal shortage of the vaccine.

And recalcitrant municipal protests that all is well as always except that the number of cases reported in the newspapers has gone up due to paucity of other titillating news now that the mission has indeed been truly accomplished in spite of the usual cynics asking for habeas corpus.

But some interesting folks are having a field day and making waves in DC.

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"Astrology pundits are attributing this sudden spurt in canine activity to the changes in the positions of Rahu and Ketu" (which by the way are not even planetary bodies but just nodes in the intersection of the zodiacal and lunar orbital planes and so are related to eclipses).

"Ketu (apparently) is transiting from Gemini to Taurus" (so what?)

"People are instructed to perform abhishekams and homams to the god Kalabhairava" who is in charge of the situation (there is a temple of Kalbhairava in the outskirts of Varanasi which by the way is under siege nowadays because Ganga is apparently changing course and deserting her consort at the Dasawamedha Ghat due to the exponential rise in sins of omission and commission by the current UP Govt...surely an irrational politically motivated calumny...some say it is due to the World Class environmental ecological pollution).

"Numerologists (on the other leg) are convinced it is Rahu and not Ketu who is the culprit. Their theory is that the dog is linked to the number 4 (don't ask me why...be a good boy!) and the ruling planet of this number is Rahu and not Ketu" (nor even the loony moon).

Look now, "most of the dog bites and rabies cases commence on the fourth month April".

Besides, they say, "the nature of the dog is to come out of hiding suddenly and attack people" (ask me!). This, they say, is "akin to the sudden and secretive ways of Rahu" and not, say Brishaspati (an honest and upright teacher like me who never streaked into the class room whatever the provocation).

"As a preventive, the numerologist suggests chanting the Gayatri mantra" (doesn't reveal the Brahminical Connection) .

"He considers this more effective than running away or standing and staring or chasing the dog away with a stick".

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I thought Atticus had more sense.

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