The story behind Year of the Dog
Before we venture through the story behind Year of the Dog,a little description of the book:
The collection exists at a point of updrift after days without future past. It starts with winter, making snowmen out of the falling cold; strolls in parks looking for calm of spring; turns towards memories of mountains in the summer heat; looks for relief like a stray after the rains; wonders about the time when September comes along before time; and calls on old friends before the years end like one calls on old gods.
A Childhood Built on Stories
I have always been a wanderer through imaginary worlds, daydreaming secret passages through my closets, constructing castles in the sky, and finding myself in the character journeys. Ever since I realised that real people make these things up with tools as simple as pen and paper, I wanted to be a writer.
My first forays were fan fictions at best: all surface-level things with great action and no emotional layers. I had no knowledge of structures, dialogue, description, pacing, or plot, for that matter. And I misread my untrained hand for shortcomings. But that childhood dream stayed with me, always whispering at the back of my everyday musings. The words “learn to write” were as if I had rubbed a magic lamp and a jin had puffed up, looked at me and knowingly cried, “Live forever!”
All the lessons great and small I attended, observed and applied with a dancing hand. It was pure magic holding my first short story – a piece that won second prize in a university competition. The second one was funny and not worth more than a few laughs. The third kept going and turned into a novel.
Days of reckoning
On the other side of childhood, with some paper wisdom and experience that makes adults more careful in conduct and a little calmer in demeanour, I wrote and wrote, looking at the beautiful words and thinking myself wise. On an ordinary morning, reckoning came. What felt like a routine health issue, something that had arrived with no signs or at the heel of a storm, kept going with no relief for months.
I had no energy to sit. The novel sat without a final look.
The Healing Cadence of Long Walks
I took my days without much hope and started going on walks: a hobby that I enjoy other than writing. As I walked among the leaves, the happy squirrels and parrots with their beautiful songs, something started changing. On the other side of hope, a new wind passed through my broken wings.
I started recording my observations of nature and of my own longing, with a need to record my days in a journal—a few lines every so often. Little by little, I began feeling better. My health improved. I took little pictures of blossoming things and clear skies after hail, coupled them with my little musings and shared them online. I made new friends, people who saw something in writing that I never did – poetry was their verdict.
The inspiration behind the title
On a hot summer day, after it had rained in other states, I observed stray dogs basking in the slight relief from heat. They were smiling at the passers-by as if to say, “Isn’t it a great day?” All of a sudden, I felt the words on my tongue: “They are the stray. It rained in other states. But the ground is cool. Some relief they are due.” After the time I had seen, some relief I was due. The title of the poem had to be the title of the book: “Year of the Dog”. I lost and found myself, as if a loyal stray lived among my sinews, and never forgot the one who dreamed.
