A mother’s love

By and large, people think human beings are the pinnacle of evolution (or homo sapiens). From this, they assume that of all the species, human mothers are probably the best. While I have nothing but admiration for human mothers, I cannot help feeling that animal mothers too are amazing. Indeed, in the animal kingdom, animal mothers have shown their maternal instincts, displaying love that is pure, undiluted and unconditional. I will recount the following incident which proves my statement.

Let me start at the very beginning as it’s a good place to start. In our apartment, two or three dogs had displayed a very tried and tested loyalty to the apartment, they also stayed in the vicinity. One was a brown, phenomenally good-natured female dog named Moti, who had just given birth to five diminutive puppies. Sometime last year, it was a dull dreary grey monsoon day. The sky above threatened to open up. Moti approached me at the gate making a series of grunts. Even the security guard posted at the gate and the gardener nearby noticed Moti’s agitated state. It is a well-known fact that Moti is normally a dog who is only seen and not heard.

We stepped just outside the apartment area and were subsequently aghast. We noticed that in the previous night’s downpour, some of the blocks near the drainage area had caved in, sloping into the gutter. Immediately, Mary, the lady who irons clothes said, “maybe, her puppies are trapped underneath the rubble.”

That seemed to be the scenario, so the security guard and gardener, aided by Moti, who ran hither and thither to where she thought her puppies were, set to work. They took a screwdriver and using as a lever managed to dislodge a small stone until they could figure out how to retrieve the puppies. Meanwhile, Moti was running in circles trying with her paws to prise open the muddy block pieces. She was a bundle of nerves. After all, the lives of her puppies were at stake!

Soon, the feeble cries of the puppies could be heard. Moti’s olfactory senses were perfect for she had guided the security guard and the gardener to the exact spot where she expected the puppies to be.

The security guard and gardener tentatively reached out for the tender puppies, their fur was matted with wet mud. It was heartening to see that of the five puppies, three had survived thanks to the efforts of our heroes. Two puppies had perished. I thought of the heart-wrenching movie, `The Sky is Pink’ where the offspring dies in front of the parents.

Indeed, this incident made me tear up. There is something beautiful about motherhood, about the undying love of a mother dog for her puppies. She just wanted to give her offspring the very best.