Karki 1

Suresh Karki

Menuka Gurung

440.1 Environmental Composition

25 January 2020

A Stray Horse in My Neighborhood

Around a year ago, a strange looking animal showed up in my neighborhood. By strange

I mean unusual in the surroundings. Stray dogs do not really attract our attention in this country

because they are everywhere. But how did a stray horse end up in a suburban neighborhood full

of concrete houses. That is something scarce. I took a closer look to make sure that it was not a

donkey, which is still not as much of a rarity. And yes, it was indeed a horse - not a full sized

stallion but nor a puny pony either. It was somewhere in between.

Although a growing suburb, the place where I live still has a few plots of land where the

ancestral Jyaapu owners plant paddy in the monsoon. Some empty green patches could still be

seen here and there squeezed between modern buildings, jostling for existence before finally

giving in to yet another proud home-builder and being trampled over. It is one of those green

patches where the horse was taking refuge. There was not much on the ground but it was silently

grazing on whatever stubs of grass it could mouth. When I approached it immediately flinched,

moved a few steps back, and became completely still. I extended a hand but it moved back even

further. I tried to have an eye contact but it averted its gaze clearly not liking my presence. For a

stray animal, it looked in relative good health. It had shiny brown hair and its tail had a thick

clump of hair attached to the end.

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Later, I came to find out from my mom that the horse had been making rounds of the

neighborhood already for a week. She was surprised that I hadn’t it noticed earlier. As for its

origin and how it ended up here, the details she gave was sketchy. Her theory was that its owners

must have deemed it useless and simply abandoned it. They chose this place because the horse

would at least not starve to death because of the relative greenery of the place. How generous!

For a whole year after that this horse became a fixture of our neighborhood and lived a

life full of torture. It immediately became a nuisance for most of the residents. Why? Because it

pooped. One of my neighbors in particular became its sworn enemy because for some strange

reason the horse made the front of his house its favorite place to relieve, and sure enough the

fresh manure along with the steaming urine gave up quite a stench. A stench so strong that it

found its way to the upper floors of his house enraging the living hell out of him, and each time

this happened he came flying down the stairs hurling insults and stones at the poor animal. Most

of the time, the horse ducked but in one particular incident, the stone landed right on its hind legs

just above its hoof. From the next day, I could see the horse limping. I felt sorry for the poor

thing but didn’t really do anything. This became a repeated spectacle. In another such incident

one of its eyes was injured, and it became almost half blind after that. Several times they tried to

get rid of it by chasing it away to the far end of town but each time it would unmistakably

resurface. Despite of all the abuse it endured, this was home for him.

The horse had no shelter of any kind from the sun, rain or the wind. I remember one

particular night when the rain was coming down heavily, so heavy that it was difficult to see

anything. The raincoat that I wore was barely holding off the rain, and the water had started to

seep in. I was walking home after a drunken night with friends and through the rain mist, I could

make out the outline of the horse. It was there as usual standing perfectly still in its signature
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posture - rain beating down on all over its body, water dripping from its earlobes. With a mixed

feeling of sadness, pity and curiosity I stood in front of the horse for a few minutes watching.

Every few seconds the horse blinked its eyes to keep off the water from blocking its vision but

other than that it was motionless. I wondered what it was thinking, or if it was thinking at all. I

went home, dried my hair, got cozy, and went to sleep.

Early next morning, I mentioned it to my wife. For a brief moment, she shared my

sadness for the poor animal and the cruelty that it was having to endure. She set down to making

calls to some NGOs. I expressed doubt that anyone would take it but by then her mind was made

up. She frantically dialed numbers of one or the other animal shelter, but just as I suspected

nothing came out of it, and that was the end of my wife’s solo attempt to rescue the horse. After

that the horse vanished from her memory and she went back to living her life. I made half-

hearted attempts of my own in trying to find a shelter for the horse but those were not successful

because they were half-hearted. Mostly I was apathetic towards the plight of the horse. In winter,

while we were all curled up inside our wooly blankets, the horse stood out in the open, almost

frozen. I briefly thought about the horse but kept on sleeping peacefully tucked under the

warmth of the blanket feeling completely secure around the walls of my house.

At last, one of our influential neighbors was able to wield enough influence to persuade a

government agency to take charge of the horse. My mom expressed relief and gratitude for the

gentleman who did this. I also felt relief but took it with a pinch of salt for I wasn’t proactive

enough to do anything sooner for the poor soul and that I was apathetic. My angry neighbor is

much relieved to be living a stench free existence again. Perhaps the children miss it a little bit.

The horse seemed to be most at ease around the children. My eight year old still remembers it

from time to time. But all in all we are all happy that the horse is gone.