Our Bestie

Jimmy was a riot of colours. His back literally had a palette feel as it boasted most all colurs. His tail was a beauty. Curved like the crescent moon, it was billowy white, his soft fur undulating in the gentlest breeze. Barking away to glory was his hobby. Quite mild-n-gentle, he was a terror for the strangers. Always at the front gate he would be, except during the Diwali when he would slink beneath the bedroom cot, afraid as he was of the crackers.

When first he came to us, he was just a bundle of bones and skin. Someone had poured kerosene on him. Sanju loved him the moemnt he saw the helpless puppy. He got him home holding him in a hand while riding the bicycle. He cleaned him up, nursed him back to normalcy. May be, that was why Jimmy literally worshipped Sanju. Even in deep sleep, he could hear Sanju's vehicle a lane away and he would start wagging his tail so vigorously that at times you would wonder if it were going to fall off.

Jimmy adored Sanju, my affection he tolerated, with Raju and Papa he was at a respectable distance though he used to be very sensitive to their moods, but it was Aai who he thought he could bank on. We would all go out, Papa to office, we to school/college. That was okay by him. If, however, Aai were to wear a new saree, he used to get terribly upset. He would guess that he would be alone at home. Literally he used to howl, openly showing his displeasure. As he would keep on wailing till she or one of us would be back, our neigbours used to throw stones at him. If he were kept locked in, his anxiety at being left alone used to find an expression in chewing up my books!

As dogs do, he understood every word spoken at home. He loved kids. Amar used to put his entire hand, palm to elbow, in Gimmy's mouth (as a child, he could not say Jimmy, so it was always Gimmy), but there would not be neither a scratch nor a bite. May be, he loved Amar because all of Amar's left over baby food, dipped in ghee and milk, was his to lap up.

Though we lost him tragically, he is forever there for us. Memories of him waiting for Sanju to return from hospital while Papa was in hospital due to a scooter accident, the way Sanju and I took him to Katraj zoo as the Diwali that year was to be celebrated in Mumbai, the way he was excited when he saw us ready to take him back home (it was the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated and yet both of us managed to get him back in a basket), the way he would insanely scamper around after a bath, the feel I had when I bought him expensive tonics many a children would not get, the way he would gobble up a laddo and behave as if he never knew anything at all but with guilt written all over him, he was our best buddy.

Equally a great bundle of joy is Sanju's Tasha, superbly intelligent, highly emotional and with a great memory. When Sanju gets him to Mukund Nagar, there is a set routine he has to follow. More about him, later.

And, Manu? She would need an entire chapter devoted utterly to her. She loved nestling next to Aai, and purring away, her ice-white tummy softly undulating in deep sleep.

What a friendship indeed! Enriching  and making me realise that the same soul inhabits all, the biped's or the quadruped's. No wonder, the great sage Dnyaneshwar could make a he-buffalo rattle away the Vedic richas!

pratima@ `pet' friendship is an ideal camraderie