2023TheHomelessManAndTheDog

Somu was a single homeless person with no siblings who was once a manager in a large restaurant in town. He developed depression and could not keep working. Soon, the savings dwindled to nothing, and he found himself living on the sidewalk of a street near a waterway with polluted water. He took his body wash in the public fountains at midnight when the traffic was low and no one was watching. He used public lavatories for personal hygiene. Sometimes, his erstwhile coworkers brought him food meant to be thrown away as waste. People who knew him brought him some old clothes. He put up a corrugated aluminum sheet over his head to shield him from rain and the harsh sun. Days ran into months, months into years, but there was no change. Living in desperate conditions, one night a stray dog with three puppies showed up at his doorstep when it was raining hard. Since he was a kind man, he let them in and fed the dog with what he had. The pups were nursing. Remarkably, the dog and the pups appeared healthy and well-fed. They became his responsibility to feed the nursing dog. Pedestrians and drivers tossed some coins and currency notes their way as they passed by. That helped quite a bit, allowing him to buy some dog food and grub for himself. One day, as a luxury car was passing by, the dog barked. The car stopped, and a man got out of the backseat and approached the dog, recognizing its bark. The dog wagged its tail, barked, and jumped into his arms. He began talking to the dog, and the driver joined the rest. His face lit up upon seeing the dog that once belonged to his boss. It turned out that while the dog was pregnant with the pups, for some reason, it ran away from home. The owner had been looking for the dog ever since. The homeless man, in rags, was the manager of the restaurant owned by his boss. He did not know that the homeless man was living on the sidewalk because of his bout of depression. Since the dog came into the homeless man's life, he was getting better. Soon, the boss made arrangements to take the dog and the pups home, arranged an apartment for his former employee, and provided medical care. Soon, the homeless man was back at work, and the dogs were home. It was a mystery why the helpful restaurant employees did not inform the restaurant owner about the manager living on the sidewalk. All ended well.