Friendship with an almost-stranger

I’ve always thought that you can tell a lot about people from the way they treat animals. Maybe it’s what is exchanged without words that counts.

It was a brisk winter evening in Bhaktapur. The city square in I stood on, was surrounded by structures tens of centuries’ old--from a time so long ago, that I cannot fully fathom its magnitude. Yet, the figures stood unassuming, not encased in shiny bullet-proof glass but only in a marinade of sand and dust. A few steps across from me though, on that very same square, a pair was creating its own Nepal story. The first of the duo was a lean man, covered in well-worn clothes, shielding himself from the dipping temperature as nightfall approached. It was clear from his dressing and his patch-work beanie that he was not a rich man, in fact he was probably homeless. It was what was in his hand though that caught the attention of the second Nepalese in this anecdote—and eventually mine.

The man ate some bread from a paper bag in his hands. The eagerness with which he swallowed gave it away: this was a meal he had been waiting for, for too long. He was soon interrupted by a shaggy brown-eyed friend who strutted towards him, with his golden-brown tail wagging behind him. The stray dog sat at the man’s feet and looked longingly at the soggy paper bag. The man hesitated for only a second before breaking the bread in two and passing one half to his new friend. The stray, wagged its mud-stained tail, delighted for the treat and to be petted on the head.

I took a step back to take in the scene in its entirety: Before me, two beings shared the little food they had, beneath the setting rays of the cerulean Nepalese skyline. This was not a picture-perfect, romantic story. The reality was that the hallmarks of Nepalese culture continued to be painted in bird droppings and the next morning, the homeless man would still be rubbing his icy-blue fingers together to try to keep warm. For those few minutes though, the dust, dirt and poverty that lurked on the streets of Nepal paled in comparison to the humanity of the man. The warmth between the pair would not be enough to pull through the harsh winter, but it did show me that one’s humanity could thrive in the most gruelling of conditions- and still have a little left over to share with a furry almost-stranger.