A surreal and poetic tapestry of memory, magic and mortality, Randhir Khare’s Tara: The Dog Who Always Was blends the mystical with the mundane, turning a housing society in Pune into a battleground for cosmic reckonings and quiet revolutions. At its heart lies the bond between a solitary poet and his dog Tara – not merely a pet, but a soul on her seventeenth and final reincarnation, guided by ancestral wolf spirits and Guardian Angels. The novel’s lyricism elevates every scene, from protests on airfields to apocalyptic hailstorms. Life, death, rebirth and belonging swirl together in prose that borders on the meditative. As Tara transcends species and time to become the New Luna, the story reminds us: endings are not conclusions, but transformations. With a chorus of strays – Tiger the tomcat, Blackie the pug-turned-revolutionary Skandar – the novel also gently but pointedly comments on contemporary India’s conflicted relationship with street animals, echoing the divisive debates and court rulings over the ‘right to stray’. In this world, strays are not nuisances, but free spirits, leaders and warriors. A fierce ode to freedom, to the unseen bonds between species, and to the belief that love and purpose outlive even mortality, Tara will change the way we look at our relationship with the animal kingdom.

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