living with sense of guilt-feeling responsible for death of my pet dog Goldi.

Gustakhi Maaf, Haryana – Pawan Kumar Bansal.

I have been living with a sense of guilt for nearly four decades. I still feel responsible for the death of my beloved pet dog, Goldy.

Back then, I lived in a colony near the canal bridge in Jind. A family of Bagri Lohars moved into our neighborhood, and their dog gave birth to puppies. I took one of them home and named him Goldy. I raised him with great care—feeding him milk from a bottle and nurturing him like a child. He would eat only from my hands.

Around that time, I got appointed as Jansatta newspaper in Chandigarh. I had to move, so I left Goldy with my uncle, thinking I would bring him along once I found a place to live there. In those days, there were no phone facilities to stay in touch.

One day, I received a letter from my uncle. What I read left me shattered. He wrote that Goldy had stopped eating and had passed away.