Editor,
To the author of “Of Barking Women” (ST July 19, 2013), thank you for so eloquently underscoring my point that “dog owners get very defensive when asked to quieten their dogs” and often provide “irrational responses.” Your response to my “obnoxious” letter (ST July 16, 2013) was precisely to my point. You equate dogs to humans and give dogs “every right,” and you make it sound wrong headed to interfere with any sort of dog activity whatsoever, especially dogs’ wanton, noisy and unsustainable procreation in an urban environment. By the logic that “it is their [the dogs] planet as well,” we should not interfere with a tiger’s natural urge to come to our village and eat our children!
Then you complain about human teen pregnancy. But by the logic that “far be it for any of us to start training them [dogs] to copulate quietly” and that “men will be men and boys will be boys and dogs will be dogs,” apparently meaning they are all equally un-trainable, then neither should we try to train human teenagers to resist their natural urges to procreate and fight in the streets to “win a chance to mate.” I strongly disagree with the inhumane notion that “the only way to make a dog stop barking is to put it to sleep.” Pet dogs are domesticated animals, not wild animals, and they have been bred over millennia to be very easily trained to bark, or to not bark, by the simplest of hand movements or verbal commands.
You complain about a discussion you consider a non-issue when there are bigger problems, such as domestic violence. However, please appreciate the fact that a community’s efforts to reduce noisy nuisances (like barking dogs) is in fact an attempt to reduce domestic violence by reducing everyone’s stress levels so that we are not all on hair triggers snapping and losing control at the smallest provocations.
Ask yourself, “Why am I on edge?” Perhaps, as you describe, lying awake as dogs “bark and howl into the night” has left you sleep deprived. Then ask if it is fair for children to do poorly in school because neighbors’ dogs keep them awake at night? You say Lumdiengsoh is “high brow,” and if by that you mean Motinagar is a desirable neighborhood, then please realize that it is desirable precisely because it is (relatively) quiet compared to other localities in Shillong. If you want your real estate prices to go up – start by quieting your dogs!
I share your concern about the other problems you list, and I would add a number of items to that list, including packs of stray dogs roaming the streets and frightening women and children, and I will work with you to solve those problems, but those problems require community-wide and even multi-generational efforts. Quieting nuisance dogs and elevating everyone’s quality of life and making all our localities better places to live in doesn’t require entire communities to mobilize, rather it only requires individual dog owners to take personal responsibility and spend a little quiet time with their pets training them to not annoy their neighbours.
Yours etc.,
Rizona M. Jeschke
Shillong -14
National Population Register
Editor,
I had through a letter in these columns (ST May, 1, 2013) focused on the deliberate delay of the State Government in implementing the scheme in Meghalaya, since one of the sister states has already completed the process and more than 90 percent people of that state are in the process of being enrolled for the ‘AADHAAR’ Card. Recently the Government started the process of implementing the Scheme in the State, but it was yet again done without first creating awareness about the merits and demerits on updating the National Population Register, as required by Unique Identification Authority of India(UIDAI) for issue of ‘AADHAAR’ Card. Whether we like it or not, in the near future the Unique Identification of all citizens would be required to avail of the benefits from the Central or State Government and ultimately it will be mandatory for all bona fide Indian nationals to be enrolled.
This time, the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) has rightly resisted the implementation of the NPR process on the plea that citizens in rural Meghalaya are not aware about the objectives of the NPR. I therefore appeal to the Government to show restraint and educate the masses before any such schemes are implemented in the future.
Yours etc.,
P B Das,
Shillong-3
Where has the rain disappeared?
Editor,
The column of Mr. Naba Bhattacharjee, “Where has the rain disappeared…. (ST July 29, 2013) gave all the details for those who want to know why rainfall has declined over the last decade. In previous times it used to rain during the monsoon for weeks and even longer but this obviously is history now; it has not happened any more for many years and it seems those times will not return. Unfortunately, it appears that the homo sapiens in Meghalaya are not really bothered much or at all about the deteriorating amount of rainfall.
Rainwater harvesting should have been the answer to the declining rainfall, but unfortunately only very few are doing it in a professional way in order to have sufficient water to bridge the dry seasons from one monsoon to the next. Till today water is wasted through leaking pipes as if there is no water shortage. Perhaps we will wake up from our deep slumber when the price of one kilogram of water will be equal to the price of one kilogram of gold, but then it will be too late because gold cannot quench our thirst. Alas! the impression I get is that Mr. Naba Bhattacharjee is the lone voice in the dessert.
Yours etc.,
U Beissel
Shillong – 5