By Shruti Keskar
I had just completed my engineering and had joined a small company in Pune – nearly an hour and a half away from my home. What initially felt exciting slowly dissolved into a droning monotony – the same alarm, no time for breakfast, familiar faces in the metro and a final kilometer-long walk to reach the office. The days blurred into each other. It was as if daily, I was moving through the routine till it was time to return home, sleep and begin again.
There was an old white dog sitting in the office premises every morning – puffed face, dull tired eyes and the quiet habit of always lying on his belly and gazing at the sky. Every day he chose a different spot to rest, while the guards barely acknowledged his presence. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I found myself looking for him every morning. I’d stop to caress him whenever I could. Somehow, he felt strangely familiar—as if we were both silently making peace with the same routine.
Then one afternoon, I was told that I would be relocating to the head office in Bangalore. They congratulated me on the opportunity, spoke about career growth, and reminded me how exciting a new city would be. I smiled along, but beneath that excitement was an emotion I hadn’t expected. Somewhere along the way, I had grown attached to the life I once found painfully repetitive. The familiar commute, the familiar roads, and the quiet presence of a dog I had never even named had become small anchors in my day. Starting over suddenly felt far more daunting than exciting.
Fast forward to two weeks later – I found myself in Bangalore, settling into a PG hostel barely two hundred metres from my new office. One evening, while walking back, I noticed a cheerful dog wandering around the colony. Unlike the old dog back in Pune, he greeted everyone with a wagging tail, bright eyes, and an enthusiasm that seemed impossible to ignore. Before I knew it, I had started looking forward to seeing him every day.
Life rarely gives us the endings we imagine. It simply changes the scenery and waits. One day, without warning, you find yourself smiling at something new with the same quiet affection you once reserved for something you thought you’d never stop missing. That’s when you realise that healing doesn’t announce its arrival—it slips into your routine.
Shruti Keskar has recently completed her engineering degree from COEP Technological University, Pune in Instrumentation and Control. She currently works in a semiconductor-based company in Bangalore. Apart from writing, she loves to cook and sketch.
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