last year naveen beypore had made news when pictures of an indian dog accompanying him on his journey to sabarimala went viral that was malu who is now officially naveens pet dog and lives at his home in kozhikode this year too naveen decided to make his sabarimala trip on foot from parassinikkadavu since people had told him that malu was parassinikkadavu muthappans blessing and guess who accompanied him again a fourlegged friendmanikantan joined me somewhere in vadakara he has a slight deformity in one leg but for the next 400 km till i reached sabarimala he walked with me says naveenso how is it that dogs seem to find him or vice versa i think they know that i like animals dogs and cats always follow me even socalled aggressive ones there are many swamis who feed dogs on the way with biscuits but they dont follow everyone mani decided to adopt me i guess he saysnaveen a kseb meter reader has been visiting sabarimala every year for 22 years but its only in the past five years that he started going on foot last year he covered a whopping 800 km by foot where malu was his only companion while the journey took him 15 days last year from mookambika to sabarimala it was a 10day trip this timebut i never felt i was making the trip alone as i would keep talking to mani every morning by 330 am i would start out and walk till 93010 am i would then rest in some temple and start again by 3304 pm i would walk again for another 56 hours and retire for the night in a wayside temple most temples allowed mani to sleep next to me if they didnt i would sleep outside with him beside me says naveenlast year malu travelled back to kozhikode by bus with naveen i was waiting at the ksrtc stand thinking i will walk back since malu was with me but a bus driver who had seen malu in the news informed the ksrtc officials and they welcomed both of us he recalls if not her who should we take in as a passenger they asked malu slept happily through the 12hour journeythe story was the same this year except it was mani instead of malu he was waiting at the foot of the hill when i came down from the sabarimala temple and identified me from the milling crowd since we already have malu at home i had to give mani to a friend on the way he took him in his carnaveen plans to make his pilgrimage by foot next year too i believe that i will get a new canine companion next time too it will all depend on ayyappan naveen signs off