ONE DOG NIGHT

I was about eighteen when I had to go to Delhi on the way to Kurukshetra. It was my first train journey to the north of the country. I left Kollam in the afternoon and arrived at Madras the next morning. I booked my ticket to Delhi and boarded the next train. I was travelling in a first class cabin. There was only one other passenger in the cabin. She was a middle aged white woman. She had a small dog with her. I asked her where she was from and she told me she was from Australia. I thought she was a tourist but she said she worked in India. Later on, I would come to know that she was a doctor working in a missionary hospital in Nagpur.

The train started moving. At one stop, she asked me to keep an eye on the dog and left the cabin. The dog ran out of the cabin and was near the door by the time I got hold of it. I brought it back to the cabin and put it on the leash which was attached to her bag. When she returned she released the dog from the leash. I think she preferred it to be free.

After dinner that night we went to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up to find the dog sleeping next to me. It was her dog. It should be sleeping next to her. I looked at her and realized that there was no place for the dog to sleep next to her. She was a large person. I was thin and there was a lot of space next to me. There was nothing I could do. I went back to sleep.