My Best Friend

I think I love dogs more than human beings. No, I am not into bestiality. We'll talk about the kinky stuff some other time. I mean ell-ooo-veee-eee love. Or a form of it. OK, let's get along or I'll write a few hundred words on a topic I think I am an expert on.

Well, as far as the comparison with human beings is concerned I don't think it is that big a deal. Considering my low opinion of most people, I probably love a snail more than most human beings.

But, I somehow feel really really happy in the company of dogs. And the dogs generally reciprocate.

Two recent instances.

Last Saturday, I spent about 6-7 hours at my boss's home discussing a deal. He has recently bought a Labrador pup and he's a couple of months old now (the pup, not my boss). He was named Frodo earlier, but was renamed as Schumi soon after. And I think this name does suit him better. He is one crazy, ultra-energetic kid. All through the day, interspersed with brief moments of sleep (his, not mine), he kept trying to press keys on my laptop, tear my boss's wife's dupatta, eat the dining table off, bite our fingers off, bite my jeans off, etc. As is evident, the poor chap is teething, and needs to have something between his teeth all the time. All the rubber balls have been destroyed already. So, while my boss and a senior discussed NPVs and IRRs and debt-equity ratios and what not, I took on the responsibility of handling Mr Schumi. I would love to get paid for playing with dogs. I have been pursuading my boss to get him to our office some time soon.

The next day, after all the planning at my boss's place, I accompanied him to a client's home in Chennai. Yeah, I have to work Sundays too, on some occasions. This client's home, which was more a museum than a house, had four dogs. One of the dogs was this huge jet-black Lab called Kipper. He is supposed to be a guard dog and is not allowed inside the house. So while the other dogs - Candy (a pug (thank you Hutch)), Amber (a cross between a Lab and some other breed) and Melody (a Pomeranian) - after having their fill of licking the client's 9-year old son (whose name I can't recall) ran inside the house, poor Kipper could only follow them to the door and then stopped. I wonder how much pain he must have been subjected to to make him understand that crossing that threshold was wrong. Anyway, so I went and patted this chap (Kipper, not the kid). And he jumped on me and put his forelegs on my chest. I hugged him real hard, and we became friends. This was towards the end of our meeting there, but for the remaining 20 min that we stayed there, he kept on following me and apparently loved it when I scratched his neck and back. I know he loved it because everytime I stopped he would put one of his paws on the palm of my hand and ask me to keep doing it.

Was missing our dogs real bad. Sheru and Heena.

The first dog we 'bought' as against the stray ones we used to generally take in earlier, was a German Shepherd in 1991. I still remember very clearly when my father brought her from the Jamshedpur Kennel Club to my aunt's place where we were staying. She was just 1.5 months old (I know this is getting tiring, but I mean the dog and not my aunt) and got completely confused in that huge dupleix apartment. We drove to our place, which was around 2 hours away the same night, and on the way I named her Heena. After the RK Films Henna that I had just seen.

All my memories from that time, when I was about 9, to the time I got into engineering college are marked by her presence. She was a pure German Shepherd, and had a recorded lineage probably older than mine, and grew from a tiny pup into a huge dog in a few months.

I left home after Class XII. As luck would have it, my parents got transferred soon very close to the place I was doing my coaching at. I remember the day they first came to meet me at my hostel in Kota. They brought Heena along and she climbed on to my bed and slept there while we went out for lunch.

About a month or so before JEE, I came back home. During the next 4-5 weeks, all the time I spent preparing for the exam, she would sit at my feet. My mother still thinks I got through because Heena wanted me to.

Towards the end of my 2nd year we bought another dog. His name's Sheru and he's still with us. Being a pup and a little crazy in the head, he obviously used to get more attention from my parents and my sister. The next time I visited home, I noticed for the first time that Heena had grown old. Because she showed it. She wouldn't get excited when I picked up the chain to go for a walk. She wouldn't play. Or even when she did, it was more because it was expected of her.

At the end of my 3rd year, I ended up doing my internship in my dad's company. Stayed at home. One evening, as I was taking Heena out for a walk, a cow passed by. Heena jumped on her and the cow hit her on the face with its feet. Heena didn't make a sound, but I noticed a few minutes later that she was bleeding from the mouth. I called my mom up (my dad had been transferred and was hundreds of miles away). She rushed back from work. We took Heena to a vet. We took her to several vets over the next few days. But the bleeding would not stop. She normally used to sleep under my mom's bed. But the last night, she crawled under mine. Next morning, after my mom and sister had left, I went to see how she was doing. I sat down beside her. Took her head on my lap. A few minutes later, she passed away.


I still remember that day like it happened just now. And it feels like that. My mom drove back crying all the way. I went to my sister's school to get her. I could not tell her on the way. By the time we got back home, she had guessed anyway.

Heena was buried behind our house.

My dad was alone, and he probably felt it the most. A subordinate of his had a Dachshund couple, and they had a litter soon after this. Most of the pups got sold, but one slightly frail female pup got left out. My dad took her. And named her Heena.