Tomy – Faithful Dog: I live in a small village in the southern part of India. Around my village a cluster of villages are there and if one wish to go from one village to the other – the distance is around two to three kilo meters. That time (this incident happened early 70s). In those days the communication was not good and that time there was no electricity, no telephones and the condition of the roads were not good as the roads were not concreted.
My father was an RMP (Rural Medical Practitioner) and people from my village and around the villages come for treatment. Everyday my father used to go around the villages to see the patients. One Assistant accompany my father and also our pet dog ‘Tommy’. My father was very popular in the villages and so as the Tommy as whichever village my father goes Tommy accompanies and people does know about Tommy.
The color of Tommy is black, medium height. As is with many pet dogs, Tommy recognises people in the villages. Tommy is one of my family members. My father love pets and animals and we used to have parrot, cats, lamb, ducks, chicken, cows and so on.
Those days different communities with their traditional professions, migrate from one place to other for living, such as monkey play (the master of the monkey make the monkey dance, play with toys, tell the monkey to go around the crowd watching the play act funnily with them and the crowd burst into laughter. Once the play is over people offer some money. This person goes from one street to other in the villages and does the play. Similarly another community comes with cows and Oxen – we consider cow as auspicious and worship. These people come for different festivals – We call them Gangireddhulu valu (master of Oxen/cows). During the festivals they decorate the cows/oxen in such a way they look so beautiful with different ornaments and dresses covering the cows. The put jingle bells around its neck and while walking you can hear the rhythmic sound. The master also play shehnai (a music instrument like clarinet)They go to house to house and people wash the feet of the cow and put turmeric powder on cow and offers food and fruits and pay some money and the master chants mantras and give blessings to the people in the house. Another such community that we call them ‘Budabudakkalu vallu. The communities such as some of the above migrate from one village to other at different times in the year – covering all parts of India for living. In the case of Budabukkalu val Buda Budakkalu Vallu – basically this community wear lot of clothes and are of different colors and variety. They carry a lantern, a stick, a dog, some bells and also a Damru (musical instrument). they generally go to houses very early in the morning say around 3 am or so. They shout while playing the Damru. People get up to give them money, rice, fruits, cash etc and in turn they chant mantras (chants) in praise of God and these people bless the families with health and prosperity. Generally these people visit in winter season. The children wait to see them. Many children get frightened to see them. Some hold hands of their elders and see these people.sound the neighbours gets up to offer them
Now coming back to our Dog Tommy – these Budabudakkala vallu – as explained above come in the dawn so they prefer to keep a pet dog with them. In each village they stay till they cover the whole village before moving to other villages. Day time they also do some income generating activities like toys for children, stitching beds etc. When these Budabukkalu Vallu comes to house the children get frightened and the elder people hold the children and show them and after some time the children happy with the music instruments they play.
One day when they came to our house they saw our pet dog Tommy about which they heard from the villagers. They asked my father if we can give the dog to them for which they said they will remain grateful for ever. Since we treat Tommy as a family member and said no to them. Few days they came to our house in the dawn requesting for the same. When they left our village to go to some other far off places. Next morning when we got up, Tommy was not there.. we were wondering whether the Budabukkalu vallu took them or not but since they were asking we were sure they may have taken Tommy. Next day onwards we were searching for Tommy we could not locate. This news spread across the cluster of villages as my father was a doctor and Tommy used to accompany, villagers too like Tommy and when they come to know, the people were upset. Our trials continued… after a few days one of my relatives had to go to a small town on some business work and in the outskirts of the town suddenly he heard barking sound of a dog since he also know that Tomy was missing he suddenly turned around to see where the barking sound coming. Tommy saw him and, how sensitive these animals, she recognised him. This person went there seeing no one around, he opened the rope tied to Tomy and he said that instantly Tomy started running and even though its far off place from my village the dog could manage to come back home after few hours. Our relative explained this when he came back home few days later. This shows how their memory is and how faithful these animals are and Tomy is one such.