(6 Oct ’13)
He came in a military aircraft,
sitting in a basket lined with old sheets, fed biscuits and tea by the kind men
in uniform. In the days before mobile phones, computers and cable television
came into our lives, we had to book trunk-calls and make ourselves heard
through moments of alternate crackle and silence before we could assure the
lady who sent him to us that he was fine. “He has ragi-roti for breakfast, and soya-bean chunks for lunch,” she
advised. “He loves bananas. He hates having baths. He loves chewing wooden
spatulas…”.
The first
night we held him close to our abdomens, because he was missing his mother. Big
mistake. He never slept alone again.
When I
served him rice for in his bowl, he howled like he was being given an
injection. “Don’t be mean, he’s so small,” my husband said. “Make him rotis, he eats those.” Bigger mistake.
For the next decade and a half, I had to roll out thick whole-wheat rotis for him every day. Stale ones,
frozen ones were no-no. One sniff and a protesting whine would be hurled at me.
“Let him
be,” my son said when we tried to discipline him and forced him to sit at the
back in the car. We let him be: third mistake. He sat only next to the driver,
all 44 kgs of him, till the day he died.
Our nomadic
lifestyle meant Lopsang, as we called our yellow Labrador, had new adventures
every other year. He quarrelled with other males, stole newly-born pups from
stray bitches, got them home and guarded them with growls if anyone attempted
to take them away from him. Sadly, the babies were fragile, and some died
because of his zeal.
He could
chew off with a single bite an inch thick rubber slipper. Yet didn’t object
when our servant’s infant groped at his tongue and pestered him with her tiny
fists. He could have broken her skull with a snap, but the child’s mother was
sure he wouldn’t harm her. “They are like brother-sister,” she’d tell me in
Hindi. “He won’t hurt her.”
Lopsang
believed he belonged to the two-legged species. Every stranger deserved a lick
and a wag. Yet, when an armed intruder attacked me in my house one afternoon,
instinct took over. He gave chase, a vicious expression on his face, snarling,
unrecognizable. When the fellow was caught and restricted, Lopsang sat beside
him. I wonder whether what would have happened if, instead of fleeing, the
thief had knelt and asked Lopsang for his paw. Lopsang might have sat his
buttock down and obeyed him!
He warned me
when the gas leaked out of the rubber tube once. And barked his head off to
warn me of the presence of scorpions and monitor lizards when we lived in a
desert area.
Whenever he
accompanied us to friends’ homes, he found his way to their kitchen store and
gobbled up a couple of raw potatoes. This fondness for raw vegetables amused
everyone. Such a huge dog and he eats peas/carrots/beans raw, they’d giggle.
He had
attitude. If he wanted something, nothing and no one could make him change his
mind. Chasing the vendors and hawkers was a favourite afternoon pastime.
Stragglers and garbage-collectors were other targets. The bulls, squirrels and
goats that perambulated by our compound wall were always taken by surprise at
his sudden, loud vocal attack. Once, in the middle of the night, he found a
mouse. My husband tried to pry open his jaws, but no, Lopsang preferred to swallow
the terrified creature live. He caught lizards and offered them to visitors,
knowing well the drama and punishment that would follow. That was the only time
he went on his own to the bedroom and sat himself in the corner without being
told.
When he wanted
to show anger, he’d destroy whatever he could sink his teeth into: curtains,
table-cloths, mattresses, leather shoes, books (my son once told his friends
that the dog had chewed “the Cosmos” by Carl Segan), and more. If one of us was
travelling the other had to force-feed Lopsang his meals.
I had to
trick him to enter the bathroom for a wash. He hated it and skidded all over,
banging into the walls, whacking off the shelf with his tail bottles and other
containers, vigorously shaking his head and muscular body every other moment.
After years
of countryside living, we moved to a small apartment in a city where he had no
place to run around in, no other animal life to connect with, the sounds and
smells were unfamiliar. Still, as long as he was with us, he was fine. Then I
took up a job and he had to be left alone a major chunk of the day. I believe
his skin condition was more due to depression than the hot and humid coastal
weather.
He lost his
fur over two years. We tried every treatment for the itching and rawness, but
failed. Old age brought with it pain in the joints and poor digestion. He
couldn’t swallow food unless it was mashed and fed.
It took me
three months to decide to put him down. I wished and prayed that he’d pass on
before the vet came home. That was not to be.
We wrapped
his body in his favourite sheet. For some strange reason the door of the car
dickey wouldn’t open and we had to place it on the back seat when we took it to
the crematorium. On the way back, there seemed to be no problem with the lock,
it opened as if nothing had ever been the matter. If there are souls and
spirits, then there is an explanation: Lopsang would never sit anywhere in
indignity, not even in death.
His absence,
that vacuum, still hurts. We did not keep a dog again.
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