Sleeping strays have a lesson for you

There’s a pack of stray dogs at the Jehangir Art Gallery. Sixteen of them lounging peacefully, they have a lesson for the average Mumbaiite so caught up in the hurly-burly of everyday life.

There’s a pack of stray dogs at the Jehangir Art Gallery.

HT Image

Sixteen of them lounging peacefully, they have a lesson for the average Mumbaiite so caught up in the hurly-burly of everyday life.

“Stray dogs are so much a part of our daily life but we hardly take notice of them,” says Nashik-based artist Aruna Nene who has painted the canines in acrylic on canvas.

The paintings capture stray dogs in various moods at different locations that could well be any spot anywhere in Mumbai.

While a pensive-looking brown dog slumbers on a footpath layered with paver blocks, another catches snoozes on a carpet of grass.

Amidst the grind of daily life, Nene, an animal lover, says she took time to stand and stare at dogs that “know to live better than us humans”.

“Whenever I visited Mumbai and travelled by its local trains, I would often see people running along, forever in a tearing hurry to get to their destinations. And right there, these stray dogs would lounge comfortably without any trouble whatsoever,” says Nene who hails from a family of defence personnel.

And Nene says we can learn a thing or two from dogs.

“We are forever racing through life, the list of our chores never ends. But where we are headed?” she asks. “In contrast, these dogs seem so content despite the fact that they possess nothing.”

The phrase ‘dog’s life’ takes on a new meaning when you see these dogs, says Nene who will donate the proceeds of the exhibition sales to the Parel Animal hospital.

(The exhibition is on at Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda till Sunday)