BANGALORE: ‘A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he'll give you his.'How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?’ These words from Marley and Me ring through one’s head as each step here paves way for memories, some sad and some happy.Set in the backdrop of lush greenery far outside from the maddening city, the Kengeri Cemetery is a place which encloses in it a part of several people’s hearts.Several people come here to bury their pets but they say that a part of them is also relinquished to this place as they make their way back to their empty homes.The birds chirp in the background and the winding, downhill path takes you to these graves. Occupying just a few metres of land, one can feel the intensity in the air with each grave embarking you on a journey filled with love, kindness and most of all, unfaltering devotion that a pet brings along with it.Abha Herur, a pet lover, said, “You go in front of a pet shop. You look at a pet. You buy it and bring it home but you have no idea whatsoever of what you are bringing with it. The journey begins with a simple desire to buy a pet and ends up being an emotional roller coaster adventure where it is there, mute, by you at all times. Nobody throughout the course of one’s life does that.”The ‘aww’ factor in the cemetery lies when one reads the epitaph of these graves.The words that are etched on reminds one of Ernest Henigway’s lines ‘All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time’.The graves are quite ordinary, in some places, just a collar indicates its presence.But the tombstones and the heartfelt words on a few make them what they are.Shivkumar was the proud owner of a German Shephard for a long eight years.He remarks, “When it died, I did not know how to deal with the grief. They give so much more to us than humans do. Even now, I just go there and sit down when I feel like. It gives me some kind of satisfaction.”Human cemeteries also have a sense of mystery and fear that surrounds them.But this is a place that has no space for anything but deep, heartfelt memories.Grieving is hard on the soul but burying loved ones helps in the process say the people who visit here regularly.A maintenance worker at the cemetery said that a common sight involves people coming here time and time again to remember that they once had a pet who loved them unconditionally.“People cry at times. But the scene of a head resting on the tombstone reliving the memories makes you weak in the knee as well,” said the maintenance worker.Kishen, the manager of People for Animals (PfA) which brought about the concept of the pet cemetery, said, “We have a clinic here. So the people here requested to build a cemetery so that they could get over the death of a pet.Burying helps, they say.”However it comes at a cost. An ordinary burial charges Rs 3,000 and a burial with a tombstone and an epitaph costs Rs 15,000.He further adds that what begun as a means to help PfA has ended up helping the pet owners. “When they say that this has helped them, it gives us some satisfaction.”
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