Our Family - The Four Legged Kind

A wonderful Guest post by Madhu Kamath

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A few weeks back I read Gerald Durrelli’s delightful book “My family and other animals”. It put me in a rewind mode, sending me down memory lane forty years back when I had my initiation into the world of four legged ones.

Sweety and Kaloo were my in-laws’ and hubby’s pet Lhasa Apsos gifted to them by Laotian friends. When I got married in 1973, they had been with the family for more than four years. My mother-in-law had passed away the previous year after a brief illness. I had been an occasional visitor earlier but despite the fact that I had become a family member, Kaloo was suspicious of me. The moment he saw me touch something, he would pounce on me. Sweety minded her own business. I had to be cautious about my movements and that kept me tense. Till that day four months later …

I had taken leave from school as I wanted to visit my gynaecologist. She had confirmed I was expecting but off and on I was getting mild cramps. After my husband and father-in-law left for office, as I got up to lock the door, I went blank and fell. It took me a moment to get up and lie down. The cramps had suddenly become unbearable and I was alone! Well, not really! Both Sweety and Kaloo jumped on the bed, emitting barely audible whines and sat on either side, looking at me mournfully. With tears in my eyes, I put my hands on their heads. I was pleasantly surprised that Kaloo did not mind. May be I was half expecting it as I had seen his affection for the other family members. He had finally accepted me although under distressing circumstances.

When the pain subsided a bit, I called out to our landlady downstairs who promptly got a cab and took me to a nursing home. I was undergoing a miscarriage. She stayed with me till my husband and father-in-law arrived. The good soul was always there for us in need.

Although Sweety and Kaloo had been there for four years, Sweety had never had a litter. A few months later we were surprised to hear sounds from our quilt. We woke up to find Sweety and six new born pups all over our quilt.

The previous night, she had been moving restlessly all over the house, whining. We thought she had a tummy upset and tried to comfort her with a hot water bottle. She was so hairy that no one noticed she was pregnant. When she sat, it was difficult to make out which was her front and which back. She looked like a huge, fluffy black ball.

The pups were so entertaining. Every afternoon, when I returned from school, it took me at least a few minutes to enter the house because the moment I unlocked and opened the door, all of them would gather around my feet, followed by their proud parents. Sweety started avoiding them when they started teething because their teeth hurt her, she could not nurse them any more.

We had a large circle of friends and finding homes for the pups was no problem. A litter of five and another of 4 came in the next one year and needless to say, there were more puppy seekers than the number of pups to be adopted. Our pets’ curiosity about the new family members lasted only a few curious sniffs when our elder daughter was born in 1975. As she grew Sweety became her best friend and playmate. Ajju, her grandpa, called her Bukul. We never asked him why. Bukul sounds sweet, doesn’t it? By the way, in their mother-tongue, it means tomcat. The way our association with four-legged beings grew over the years, her pet name seems significant.

Now ours is a family that loves travelling. When Ajju was travelling, we used to stay put. When we had travel plans, Ajju would be there to be with the pets.

As the months went by, Kaloo, inexplicably became vicious. With a small child in the house, we had to be extra careful. Sweety kept herself confined under the bed or the sofa. Kaloo bit Ajju as well as my husband. Both had to take a full course of injections after we took him to a veterinary hospital. We were advised to get him put to sleep. It was a sad day for all of us. The medication he was getting at the hospital was not helping calm him. His left eye had come out of the socket and he looked wild. Baffled by the change in him, Ajju insisted on getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting his annual shots.

Sweety also left us in a year’s time. She seemed to be fine, her usual self. She just crawled under the couch, let out a loud sound, ostensibly her last breath, and that was it. The house felt so empty!

Ajju, too, went suddenly when Meghna, our younger daughter was four months old. A massive heart attack when he was getting ready to go up to his room after a hearty dinner of his favourite fish curry and rice, took him away from us.

With Ajju no more, we could not think of keeping another pet, for, there would have been no one to look after it, when we were to travel.

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In 1993 we moved from Delhi to Hyderabad, leaving Bukul there to complete her graduation.

Meghu got admission here in class X. One day as I entered the garage to switch on the motor to boost water, I saw four kittens quickly scurry under the wooden boxes stacked there. And then I saw the mother! She spat at me to keep her babies safe from me. We had no idea this family of five had been in our garage. Gradually, they started coming out and befriended us, treating the whole house as their own.

A few days later another cat (we named her Mausi) coolly stepped inside our garden and she her two kittens also made our house their home. And then came Chutki, all by herself, spending long hours on the swing we had in the verandah. We had names for all of them but after all these years, we remember only wink-eye and Satan; the first because it always seemed to be winking and the latter because we changed its name from Satin to Satan when we realised it was a male. Surprisingly , one by one, all of them disappeared in the next few weeks. It was as if they had a premonition of what/who was to come!

Bukul used to come home during vacations and one such visit, just a few days after the last of the cats disappeared, we were about to go out in the evening, when she saw a black rag near the main door. As she bent to pick it up, she jumped up with a shriek. It was a new born pup, black and brown. Tiny, barely able to move and bleeding from the rectum. Where had it come from?

Thankfully we knew of a vet in the neighbourhood and rushed to him with the pup. He treated him and refused to charge us for the treatment. The pup was soon out and about, prancing, chewing socks, shoe laces and eating well. Needless to say, we could not have left him out on the road.

We had to keep on telling him, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” With all the don’t do’s in the air, we ended up naming him Dhondu. He grew up to be a handsome, loving, much loved family member. The most endearing thing about him was putting his chin on our knee when he wanted what we were eating, imploring!

One evening when Meghu had taken Dhondu for a walk, she heard a whining sound coming from some bushes. On closer look, she found a tiny brown pup probably trying to feel the presence of its mother but not being able to find it. We brought it home and gave it milk with a dropper. Its eyes hadn’t opened and it looked doped. The vet confirmed it was a female and named it Dopey. Like Dhondu, Dopey also stayed. He was five and she, may be ten days old.

Babli was our colony dog. Apart from us, two other families used to feed it. It was amazing how, whenever she had a litter, it used to be raining. Thus for every litter she produced, our garage came in handy. After the 5th or the 6th (not sure!) we got her sterilized.

In the last litter, Babli had three male pups. Meghu named them Pumpkin, Munchkin and Coffee. They too would have ventured out with their mother but father dear had a wish! He wished to keep the white one, Munchkin, for himself. His reasoning - “Bukie has Dhondu, Meghu has Dopey, what about me?” Amusing! A fifty two year old sounding like a kid.

To let you in on a touching family trait … it all started with the time when father dear himself was a young child. His mother was no less an animal lover. They had a dog and a cat, both got along well and were looked after by them. Tiki and Tik-Tik sure had loving hands and hearts to care for them. So, you see! It runs in the family.

And thus Munchy stayed. Babli had free access to our house to come and play with him. We gave away the other two compassionate families after Babli stopped nursing them.

Now Dopey did not trust anyone. Not even us. God knows what trauma she must have endured when she was alone in the bushes. The day after we found her, we took her to each and every house in the neighbourhood to look for her mother and her siblings, if any, but in vain. Still, we all existed under the same roof, in a some what peaceful co-existence, wary of her snapping at anyone who came close to her.

Dhondu left us when he was 11, afflicted by age related ailments. Although Dopey growled at anyone who even touched her by chance, she had a way of saying sorry by lowering her head and raising her paw. She lived to be 13.

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And then came additions of the feline kind to our family when Bukie found a tiny kitten, eyes not yet open, almost in the middle of the road. She brought it home and fed it with a dropper. Fortunately, we have a gate separating the ground floor and the first floor so the dogs would not be able to reach the cat. She was named Daisy.

Daisy started going out on her own and stayed out, for long hours, but by the time we started thinking of getting her spayed, it was too late. One night she got into one of the cupboards in our ground floor bedroom and delivered a male and a female kitten. Our grand daughter Aari was delighted. Her soft toys and dolls took second place. Chutki and Bheem (that’s what she named them) became her companions. The two used to roam around with dear mom and occasionally brought back mice to devour. That was the only problem we faced with them.

Tragedy struck when Bheem came under a vehicle and got crushed. No one saw how it happened. I saw his inert body covered with a newspaper outside our house. We burried him in the small mud patch in our garden. Aari missed him the most.

There was also Yuki who appeared out of no where and used to sit behind the fridge. She disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

We got Chutki spayed well in time but another tragedy was waiting for us. My husband, Meghu and Aari had taken her to the vet a day after her surgery, when Meghu, realising that she was urinating, put her down to prevent herself from getting wet. The moment she put her down, Chutki took off like lightening, jumped over a wall and disappeared. In the growing darkness, they were not able to locate her. The vet’s staff also failed though they searched high and low. She was wearing a huge cone shaped E-collar round her neck, so she must have been noticed, we hoped. The next day, Bukie, Meghu and Aari went back to enquire in the neighbourhood but with no luck. That is how we lost Chutki. We still hope that she is safe wherever she is.

Aari is great friends with Daisy also, the occasional scratches not withstanding. Another small baby kitten Aari noticed outside our house was infested with ticks and fleas and her breathing was very shallow. We took her to the vet. He put her on a drip but was doubtful of her survival. The poor thing breathed her last in Bukie’s arm later that night. She too, rests in peace in our mud patch.

Life carried on with Munchy downstairs and Daisy upstairs. In April this year (2013), on hearing mournful mewing from some where around, Bukie and Aari went in search and found three kittens, a couple of weeks old, scrawny, but moving around, at the back of the vacant house next door. For a couple of days we fed them milk there but doing that several times a day was very tedious so we brought them home.

Meghu’s bedroom was lying vacant as she is posted overseas, so with a food bowl, litter tray et al, that’s where we lodged them. Aari took it upon herself to mother them and named them Kittoo, Grey and Minnie. She treats them like her own babies and spends a lot of time talking to them. Of course, she does not mind getting scratched.

Soon after we brought the latest additions home, we got them their shots. Just like Daisy had started going out on her own, we assumed that these three will do the same. But no. Whether we lock up Munchy in the bedroom and let them roam around or put them in the bedroom with the windows open, they rarely go out for more than ten minutes.

Coming back to the meaning of Bukul’s name assuming such significance, we are convinced that some unknown factor was at play when her Ajju gave her that name. After all, it was she who was instrumental in bringing the helpless Daisy home. Her daughter Aari pointed out the presence of the dying kitten to her. It was she who first heard the piteous mewing of the three siblings who have now been with us for almost eight months. Connects? Doesn’t it?

There is a tom cat roaming around in our colony. A few days back it attacked Kittoo near our main door. Bukul rushed out and drove it away. Male cats are known to kill male kittens so we are really scared. Minnie will soon be able to conceive. Must get them all spayed. There isn’t room for more additions. Sorry, house full!

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My dog’s Contribution to My Photography

In 2004, when I bought my first digital camera, I discovered that I loved clicking pictures. I had had other non-digital cameras before that and while I had always liked clicking pictures, it was just a hobby. After I started using the digital cameras, I discovered the passion for photography. This article is about the way our dog Brando influenced my relationship with photography.

Brando, our dog for 18 years, died last month. I still miss him. Looking at the corner where he used to sit and sleep, brings a lump to my throat. His pictures make me feel like crying. I have talked to other persons who had dogs and who tell me that after so many years, how much they still miss their pets.

If you live in an apartment, like we do, and if you have a dog, you need to take him/her out every day, at least two times, but sometimes even more. Taking out Brando for a walk in the mornings and evenings, was my responsibility. That is where he taught me things that were so important for photography.

If you like taking long walks, when you start going out with your dog, you learn that your dog has his/her own ideas about the walk and often they do not coincide with your ideas of taking walks.

While walking, we humans usually want to walk and at the same time, talk to friends or talk on telephone or listen to music on walkman or Ipod or even day dream. Dogs are not interested in only walking, they want to stop, follow the smells, bark or say hello to other dogs, run after cats, pigeons and rabbits, and mark their territories by leaving small amounts of their pee on the plants and trees. Some times, if they like the smells, especially when the bitches are in heat, the male dogs become difficult to control and they can stay in the same place for a long time with their nose buried in some place where they can smell some chemicals.

BRANDO'S LESSON 1: STOP AND SEE

When Brando stopped somewhere for any reason, if I tried to pull him, it usually provoked an indignant reaction. He usually gave me an annoyed look and pointed his feet at that place. Though he was a small dog, in such moments, it was impossible for me to pull him and make him move even an inch. It made me think about that episode from Ramayan where Angad, the monkey cousin of Hanuman, goes to the demon king’s court and challenges him to try to move his foot.

So whenever Brando did his Angad ji act, I learned that it was better to relax and look around rather than trying to pull him and getting agitated for nothing.

Have you ever just stood in a place in a park or on the roadside, relaxed, doing nothing and just looking around? Right from the time when electricity was invented and people started remaining awake during the night, we humans have continued to invent new things to make ourselves run faster through our lives.

Doing nothing and relaxing is almost a deadly sin or at least, an anxiety laden pleasure, to be hidden behind words like “Actually I was thinking about a complex problem!” And while you stand near your dog, waiting for him/her to finish doing whatever dogs do, joggers and walkers, go past you looking at you with pity.

It was while I was standing around and doing nothing in the park, that I realized that there was the miracle of life all around us. I knew of course that there were different kinds of trees, different colours of flowers and different kinds of bugs in nature, but it had been a long time since I had really looked at them.

So while I waited, I observed the patterns in the barks of the trees, the way their branches divided, the way their leaves moved in the wind. I looked at the flowers, bees, grass and birds. Profound thoughts came to me like the realization that our language is a rough approximation of the reality. For example, I could see so many different varieties of pink coloured flowers, and each had a different shade of pink. In this case “pink” was an approximation to speak of all those different shades of colours that we call pink and that our language can not specify.

All this had happened before I had a digital camera. So I had started buying books about plants, trees and birds. I looked at trees and plants in the park and learned to identify them. I also started to stop and really look at things, at times wonder-struck at the infinite variety of life all around us. Thus, there came a time, when Brando wanted to walk, while I wanted to stand and look at things, so now he pulled me while I tried unsuccessfully, to be Angad ji.

This lesson of not taking the world for granted and to actually look at everything around us, was the most important lesson for my photography. Afterwards, when I got my digital camera, I discovered my passion while passing hours peering at wild flowers, the changing shades of colours of the grass, and the patterns made by the wind in the fields.

BRANDO'S LESSON 2: DIFFICULT SEASONS ARE ALSO BEAUTIFUL 

Normally we go out for a walk or a tourist visit when the weather is good. Rain, hot winds, freezing cold and snow storms are not meant for going out but for staying at home, possibly with air-conditioning. However, it does not matter which season is it and how terrible it is to be outside, your dog needs to be taken out at his usual time everyday.

There were mornings after snowfalls, when the paths in the park were covered with a sheet of frozen ice, and walking on it was like a drunk trying to cross a narrow bridge, constantly afraid of tipping down in the river below. Brando went on unconcerned, some times pulling me suddenly when he saw something interesting and making me crash down. The good thing about it was that mostly I was alone or at the most there were other dog-owners like me, who did not laugh at me, while they tried to hold me to their dogs.

There were other days with terrible heat and a sensation of oppression, when it was difficult to breathe. Some days had gales and monsoon like rain. Others had cold wind that knifed across my fur jacket and stabbed straight at my heart. I went out with Brando on all those days because there was no alternative.

And I discovered that the world changed with seasons. I could see the tiny changes everyday as the first leaves and first buds came out and slowly grew, till one day the leafless trees standing like dark skeletons, were suddenly covered with green leaves and bending down with flowers or the flowers falling down covered the ground like a carpet.

Looking at the world in the early morning light of a foggy winter day or in the evening of a windless hot summer day, created an intimacy with nature that is impossible if you only go out for leisurely walks in good weather. Looking around those familiar and yet strange worlds was another important lesson for my photography. You do not need to go out to far away places to take pictures, you can discover the strange worlds all around you.

CONCLUSIONS

There are so many other things that Brando had influenced, like the possibility of saying hello to unknown persons. Saying hello to other dog owners, persons with small children who wanted to touch Brando and know his name, and even strangers, was so much easier. Now, without him, I will be back to my usual reserved self, finding it more difficult to talk to people I do not know. But the lessons he gave me about the nature and the way I look at the world, they will continue to be with me, as long as I will take pictures with my digital camera!

The pictures I have used with this post are from the park where I used to go for walks with Brando and show the wood horses in the children's playground during different seasons.

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