The girl was 8 and the boy was 10 (give a year here or there). Till that night, their major preoccupation in life was skipping hours together mastering all the levels and getting educated from older brother who taught them capital cities of all nations, Latin numbers (alpha, beta, gamma, delta ending with kappa and lambda) etc. and all the ‘stuff’ one needs to know. They new names like Eurasia, Oceania, Middle East and Far East because of him.
That particular night, they were sitting on the cot and the boy was showing off his prowess in jumping tricks and the girl was in awe of the rubber limbs of the boy who was contorting his body parts like a circus monkey. Suddenly there was a great ‘THUD’ and a breathless yelp and great eerie silence.
They both knew what it was and rushed out of the house. Their guess turned out to be true. That was the cruellest thing they had witnessed in their experience of a decade.
The boy always wanted a puppy and she wanted whatever the boy wanted because she knew it must be good if he wants it. Because he was the one who protected her from ‘real’ danger. He told her when they were crossing the road to School to hold his hand, he was the one who beat up the pesky boy who taunted them, he was the one who made her believe that ‘Hanumantha’ is always with them, he was the one who held her hand in the night when she was afraid of ‘Vajramuni’ coming and piercing her stomach, he was the one with real strategies to escape if there was a cattle stampede, elephant attack or an earthquake….
Their home was a smallish building which was in the fashion of a train. 5 different sized living spaces one after the other. There were six people living altogether with lots of stuff since the father was a hoarder of old stuff.
That eventful night, the boy and girl rushed out to find the puppy which they had looked at with longing, in the drainage ditch. That puppy had wandered off from the locality of its birth and was ‘claimed’ by a pesky boy who got to keep it just because he was younger and peskier. It was rightfully the boy’s and the girl’s. Pesky boy’s grandmother knew it and she kicked the puppy forcefully and evicted it out of her premises.
The boy and the girl faced one insurmountable barrier – PARENTS. The boy showed his potential to be a great negotiator by tearfully pleading and agreeing left, right and center for whatever adverse effects parents put forward and the girl told the ultimate solution, she would go with two meals everyday and the third meal can be given to the puppy. There was agreement after lots of haggling over the price the boy and girl will pay.
• No dog poo or pee in the house
• They will be responsible for dog walks
• They will make sure it is clean and will never enter THE kitchen
• It shall not be a nuisance when it grows up and should stay out of the house
Counter considerations were put up by the boy and girl team,
• There will not be any poo or pee but just in case it happened then they will only clean it up,
• They want the puppy to be inside the house now because it is winter and it is cruel to leave it out but it will go out once it grows
The puppy which looked like a starved pirate came in to their home that night. It was the founder member of the ‘Chinnu’ dynasty. It ruled the roost from that moment on.
This dynasty was founded by the boy and girl.
That particular night, they were sitting on the cot and the boy was showing off his prowess in jumping tricks and the girl was in awe of the rubber limbs of the boy who was contorting his body parts like a circus monkey. Suddenly there was a great ‘THUD’ and a breathless yelp and great eerie silence.
They both knew what it was and rushed out of the house. Their guess turned out to be true. That was the cruellest thing they had witnessed in their experience of a decade.
The boy always wanted a puppy and she wanted whatever the boy wanted because she knew it must be good if he wants it. Because he was the one who protected her from ‘real’ danger. He told her when they were crossing the road to School to hold his hand, he was the one who beat up the pesky boy who taunted them, he was the one who made her believe that ‘Hanumantha’ is always with them, he was the one who held her hand in the night when she was afraid of ‘Vajramuni’ coming and piercing her stomach, he was the one with real strategies to escape if there was a cattle stampede, elephant attack or an earthquake….
Their home was a smallish building which was in the fashion of a train. 5 different sized living spaces one after the other. There were six people living altogether with lots of stuff since the father was a hoarder of old stuff.
That eventful night, the boy and girl rushed out to find the puppy which they had looked at with longing, in the drainage ditch. That puppy had wandered off from the locality of its birth and was ‘claimed’ by a pesky boy who got to keep it just because he was younger and peskier. It was rightfully the boy’s and the girl’s. Pesky boy’s grandmother knew it and she kicked the puppy forcefully and evicted it out of her premises.
The boy and the girl faced one insurmountable barrier – PARENTS. The boy showed his potential to be a great negotiator by tearfully pleading and agreeing left, right and center for whatever adverse effects parents put forward and the girl told the ultimate solution, she would go with two meals everyday and the third meal can be given to the puppy. There was agreement after lots of haggling over the price the boy and girl will pay.
• No dog poo or pee in the house
• They will be responsible for dog walks
• They will make sure it is clean and will never enter THE kitchen
• It shall not be a nuisance when it grows up and should stay out of the house
Counter considerations were put up by the boy and girl team,
• There will not be any poo or pee but just in case it happened then they will only clean it up,
• They want the puppy to be inside the house now because it is winter and it is cruel to leave it out but it will go out once it grows
The puppy which looked like a starved pirate came in to their home that night. It was the founder member of the ‘Chinnu’ dynasty. It ruled the roost from that moment on.
This dynasty was founded by the boy and girl.
5 comments:
i am in splits- vajramuni coming at night to pierce u'r stomach!
indhu
Ha ha that was our biggest fear and next was a scene from Mugana sedu where the villain Sudhir I think kills somebody and it was shown in negative format :-))
Oh! I had forgotten..Its you two who brought the pet into our house and enriched it..I remember when it died,mummy had to be hospitalised.I searched for a similar kind of dog and brought it home for her.The name of the breed was fox terrier..It hunted rats..Second one died with a disease called distemper,horribly suffering from it..we had to put it to sleep as it had lost all its teeth due to the twitching from the disease.Then daddy brought the third chinnu..which is a German shepherd..nine years old now..
Delighted to read it... All details are so vividly captured. wonderfully nostalgic..
My early childhood dream of dogs got fulfilled when both of us took chinnu in.. After the first entry, I remember within three months that fellow managed to sleep on the same mattress of nana and amma.. Everyone could have take lessons on 'how to climb hierarchical lader in a six member family' from that fellow..
I remember all the struggles we had ..especially those funny moments with 'sonpapdi fellow'
Thanks for a lovely write up..
Gawd how we used to whack him no? I remember how he used to run after seeing us!
Post a Comment