Companionship
A companion is a person who keeps company, who comfort us, who cares for us, Sometimes a companion can be an animal. This story tells us about the companionship between animals and a human being.
The loneliest years of my life
My dog and my mongoose were my sole companions, fresh from the jungle. The latter grew at my side, slept in my bed, and ate at my table. No one can imagine the affectionate nature of a mongoose. My little pet was familiar with every minute of my day - to - day life. She trampled all over my papers and raced after me all day long. She curled up between my shoulder and my head at siesta time and slept there the fitful, electronic sleep of wild animals. She accompanied me on my long walker by the sea shore. I learned what true loneliness was in those days and years in Wellawatte. During all that time I slept on a field cot like a soldier. All I had for company were a table, and the two chairs for my work, my dog, my mongoose and the boy who did the household work. Strolling up the shore I would come to the elephant's bathing hole. With my dog alongside, my companion I couldn't get lost. He was my companion, my guardian who always protected me.
In 1929, Ceylon, the most beautiful of the world's large islands had the same colonial structure as Burma and India. The English had entrenched themselves in their neighborhood and their clubs. Caught between the Englishmen dressed every evening in dinner jackets and the Hindus I couldn't hope to reach their fabulous immensity, I had only solitude open to me and so that time was the loneliest in my life.
This story was written by Pablo Neruda in 1929. He was the greatest poet in Chile who wrote in Spanish. (This was translated into English by Hard St.Martin) How many of us know that Pablo Neruda - the poet, a social thinker, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 spent some years in Sri lanka (Ceylon) as a diplomat in the company of a mongoose and a dog?
My dog and my mongoose were my sole companions, fresh from the jungle. The latter grew at my side, slept in my bed, and ate at my table. No one can imagine the affectionate nature of a mongoose. My little pet was familiar with every minute of my day - to - day life. She trampled all over my papers and raced after me all day long. She curled up between my shoulder and my head at siesta time and slept there the fitful, electronic sleep of wild animals. She accompanied me on my long walker by the sea shore. I learned what true loneliness was in those days and years in Wellawatte. During all that time I slept on a field cot like a soldier. All I had for company were a table, and the two chairs for my work, my dog, my mongoose and the boy who did the household work. Strolling up the shore I would come to the elephant's bathing hole. With my dog alongside, my companion I couldn't get lost. He was my companion, my guardian who always protected me.
In 1929, Ceylon, the most beautiful of the world's large islands had the same colonial structure as Burma and India. The English had entrenched themselves in their neighborhood and their clubs. Caught between the Englishmen dressed every evening in dinner jackets and the Hindus I couldn't hope to reach their fabulous immensity, I had only solitude open to me and so that time was the loneliest in my life.
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