THE BOOK OF WAGS

Rain Dogs, veteran photographer Rohit Chawla's book on Goa's beach dogs, is a tale of love and longing. The pictures shot during the monsoon and the pandemic, are portraits of man and dog finding each other and dog surviving without man.

- PARAMITA GHOSH

IN between the wet rocks and a grey sky, there is a bird flying. In between the bird and a boat coming into view, there is a man. And next to the man looking out into the horizon, is a dog with his head turned in his direction.

The third pair of eyes looking at the scene is that of photographer Rohit Chawla's and as he came upon it, he took his shot. This is the cover photo of his new book RainDogs (HarperCollins) set in Goa, just out in the bookstores. A select series of Chawla's images are interspersed with notes from well-known contemporary writers and poets, including Vikram Seth, Tishani Doshi, William Dalrymple, Shashi Tharoor and Girish Shahane.

Of Chawla's photographs, many of which seem shot through with Edward Hopperian moodiness-warm colours of blue and green used muted and the stillness of isolation, this photo of a man and a dog, not together but not disconnected either, captures the life of the Goan beach dog mostly part-time companions till the holiday lasts.

With the onset of the monsoons, they are back to being nobody's dog.

"To stray, literally means to move away from a predetermined course of sorts, to find that appendaged to our own

PARAMITA GHOSH N between the wet rocks and a grey sky, there is a bird flying. In between the bird and a boat coming into view, there is a man. And next to the man looking out into the horizon, is a dog with his head turned in his direction.