No place for Nawab: Insta celebrity husky draws ire of Kedarnath committee

Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, was blessed by Lord Indra when he refused to ascend to heaven without his loyal dog by his side, goes the myth. But today, 33-year-old Rohan Tyagi, a resident of Noida, is being accused of committing a “degrading act” by making his pet dog touch the feet of a Nandi idol outside the Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand.

Nawab, a four-and-a-half-year-old pet husky belonging to the Tyagi couple, has become the latest target of intolerance. The dog’s fault is taking part in the ongoing Char Dham Yatra along with his owners last week.

A video clip of Nawab seeking blessings from Nandi (the bull attendant of Lord Shiva) outside the temple, by touching the idol with its paw, has drawn the ire of the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee, which has deemed the act “very degrading”. Further,  it has threatened to initiate “legal action” against the dog’s owners.

It is ironic that this controversy is raised at a place of worship of Lord Shiva, who is said to be an ardent lover of animals. Shiva’s fearsome form, known as Bhairava, uses a dog as its mount, per mythology.

The irony becomes sharper as, in Hindu mythology, the Kedarnath temple was built by Yudhisthira to seek penance from Lord Shiva for killing his cousins in the war of Mahabharat.

A social media influencer

Nawab Tyagi is no ordinary dog. Pretty much an Instagram influencer under the handle “huskyindia0”, he has 72,300 followers on the social media platform. He is also a record holder for being the first pet (dog) in India to have gone paragliding.

While accompanying his owners to Kedarnath this time, several “meet-ups” were held in and around the temple and the pilgrimage route, between Nawab and his numerous followers, who wanted to meet the docile husky and click selfies with him. In other videos uploaded to Nawab’s Instagram page, temple priests can be seen smiling and putting a teeka on the dog.

Speaking with The Federal, Tyagi said he and his wife had taken not only Nawab but also two other dogs with them on the yatra — another husky named Coady and a labrador named Laila. However, Nawab is the only one seen in the videos that were uploaded on social media. Tyagi further said Nawab has been going on religious pilgrimages with him for the past four years, including last year to Badrinath, one of the Char Dhams in Uttarakhand Himalayas.

‘Nawab, a part of family’

“All this (controversy) is because of TRP…,” said Tyagi, who is currently in Haridwar along with his wife and Nawab. “Our stand is very clear: wherever we go, we take our child (Nawab) along with us. My wife and I don’t have a child. Nawab is our kid. We have always been a religious family and are pious. Every morning, when we do pooja at home, Nawab is very much a part of it. If we have to visit a mandir, he too comes along with us. If we are going to seek blessings by bowing our heads in front of God, it is our right to make our children do the same. Nawab…obviously couldn’t have touched the feet of the Nandi by himself. I took his paw and made him touch it so that he can receive blessings.”

Tyagi said the idea behind taking Nawab along everywhere with them, be it a temple, vacation, or even paragliding, is to break the public perception that doesn’t look at a pet as being a part of one’s family. “If they (temple committee) are doing something against us, we are ready to fight it,” he said.

ANI had reported on Tuesday that taking cognizance of Nawab’s viral video doing the rounds on social media, “the temple committee has expressed concern over the negligence of all priests and people present in the temple premises.”

The committee has not only directed legal action against “the person” i.e. Tyagi, but has also “warned the concerned priests and officials not to repeat this.”