Street dog in Chennai’s Besant Nagar ‘adopted’; habitues of the locality in shock

Can you picture a dog being stolen right under the nose of its pet parent and the latter being a mute witness to the thievery? One does not have to jog their imagination to picture that: something of this kind seems to have happened in Besant Nagar, and the “act” has been frozen in pixels.

Habitues of Besant Nagar would now be accustomed to a selfie point on their commute down Besant Avenue Road, a road that was co-opted into a Health Walk initiative by Greater Chennai Corporation. Those exhausted from a health walk could rest at this selfie point that comes complete with benches. And for the company, they have two human beings in fibreglass, glowing gold, and a dog cut of the same cloth, well, material, and similarly glowing. Of the two representational human beings, a lady holds this dog on a leash; both woman and animal are in suspended animation, frozen in mid-stride.

On September 11, loneliness engulfed her. She has no leash to hold nor a dog to walk anymore. Along with the leash, the four-legged pet seems to have been savagely sawed from its footings and taken away. The lowermost part of the dog’s legs is still rooted to the pavement.

Gayatri Nair, a resident of Thiruvanmiyur, a photographer, and a key member of Chennai Photo Biennale, clicked images of the woman robbed of her pet. The photographer had been alerted by a girl studying in a school nearby. And notably, this girl is a member of what is called the Thiruvanmiyur Changemakers Club, a children’s collective that seeks to address civic issues in the neighbourhood their parents and older relatives have given up as hopeless causes.

“This incident was brought to light by Rudra, a young Thiruvanmiyur Changemaker who studies at Adyar Theosophical Academy and crosses this statue on her daily commuter. She is just nine years old,” Gayatri points out.

To all appearances, this dog seems to have been “adopted’ by someone when it was not up for adoption, and the street, Besant Avenue Road, is meant to be its forever home. This animal has to be rescued and restored to its rightful place and its parent.

Chennai Downtown / Chennai / civic infrastructure