Following next few series of post I am planning to pen down memories about my recent journey to two Western countries recently - Second visit is still going on. To US and to Spain.
Both visits have been instrumental in breaking my image of what to look towards in western countries in general and towards what makes a society successful.
Firstly about todays adventure.
I am in Spain's city of Sevilla. Had decided to go for a walk towards the city centre from my hotel which happens to be about 5 Km. It was a known route and I had traversed it in car on more than one occasion and on foot once with a company a couple of days back. The roads leading to the city centre and back, we found them to be isolated on most of the occasions. Same was the case today. On more than one occasion, it felt like city has very limited population. Now, I can be having this feeling because I am from India and am used to see a lot more people on the road than this place had to offer.
Coming back to today's adventure, I was walking back from city centre at a much more agreeable time than the last time I did so. The sun was still shining bright and although too few, but still there were a few more people on the street than the last time I was on this route. So, on a particular stretch, Google map showed me a left cut to move to the hotel, which was also the shortest route to hotel. We had avoided this route last time as it was late in night and there was minimum light on subject street and moved from right. This time I felt confident given the lighting condition, I can move through from the left. Route was a detour about 500 m before joining my old and known road. 200 m on the route, I mistook the Map route and took about 10 steps in a direction straight from where I should have taken left.
I quickly understood the miscalculation, turned back and moved towards the route Map showed me. It was a sharp turn to the left in a kind of a semi-circle. Suddenly a ferocious looking dog barking at a top of his voice came screaming towards me. It was a ferocious brown coloured hound, literally looking capable of some serious damage. As I turned back, I realise he was not alone and there was atleast one more dog coming just behind him. First things first, I decided not to run and tried to calm the beast down. He barked a few seconds and I literally thought I am in for a few painful injections at least, if not more. And by the look of it, the dog looked capable for a lot more. But better sense prevailed in him and he turned back. But just behind him a similarly menacing looking dog came barking aloud. It had a blue collar around his neck, so in the few seconds it looked at me, I still thought this was not as bad as the first one.
He did the same thing though. Barked a while and turned back. I stood my ground, with no self defence weapon in sight. Once these two were gone, I decided to walk back, not sure should I walk fast or slow, because their barks were still loud and clear. Then suddenly a third bark could be heard. I turned back and it was a small puppy giving me a piece of his mind. I did the same thing. Stood there till he turned back. For sure, the puppy turned back, but only to the return of first two sequentially.
I still had about 300 m to walk to my know route, so I started to look at other options. Run, stay put, look for stick or metal bar or something around, look for assistance which did not seemed anywhere near. Because looking at things at that moment, they seemed to be in mood to return. Just then I heard a shout of some people in background. Three men, most probably their owners ran towards me to isolate the dogs. They seem to reside in huts nearby. They controlled the beasts and confirmed I was OK (I hope they did that, as they spoke Spanish which I couldn't understand).
The horrible experience on secluded street reminded me of a conversation between Sherlock and Mr Watson. Both were travelling on train to an English village when Watson says that how good country side was away from all the commotion and crime of city. To which Sherlock say he is more concerned about how easily a crime can passed-by in these secluded places without being detected and how he considered safety in city crowd.
This bring to the fact that maybe there is an optimum population required for a town/ city. The figure of 2.1 children per married couple as considered minimum required to sustain a population is really the most important figure for a society. And worringly for many countries, it is going the wrong side.
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