Dogged Down

Not that I dislike animals, but they look good to me only from a distance (the more the distance, the better it is). I just can’t bring myself to cuddle them or play with them. With good authority, I can also say that this feeling is entirely mutual. This is especially true when it comes to dogs. We both love to hate each other. But it wasn’t always like this. I was happy to ignore them so long they also ignored me and life went on. The following instances have however made me a pucca dog hater (ok...the hutch pug is one exception, but only on TV mind you!)

Tail err... Tale 1
We were almost nearing the end of Trim 6 at SP, placements were over and everyone was just waiting for the dreaded Red Book exams to get over to do some Bharat Darshan before settling in the monotony of a job. 5 of us decided to explore Goa and off we went on a shoe string trip for 3 days. All was ok until we decided to take a walk on the Anjuna beach. Ramya, Kishore (Ramya’s then fiancée, and now husband), and I were enjoying the beautiful sunset. We were just walking back to our scooties when we saw a dog running towards us and barking furiously. I just started shouting and running. Yes, I know I broke a cardinal rule by running, but please try following this dumb rule when a dog is running behind you! Poor Ramya and Kishore tried to help, but I was deaf to all reasoning :) So now, I was running like mad to save my life (it did seem quite serious!) with the dog giving me a good chase. Suddenly I tripped and fell down. Arrgh, this is the end I thought. The dog came very close to me, then perhaps decided it wasn’t chivalrous to attack an injured adversary and moved on. I was shaking till we reached our apartment. This incident started and cemented the dislike.

Tale 2
Cut to Mumbai now where I was working after SP and staying with Richa and Mansi. While, Mansi is the fearless one amongst us when it comes to dogs, there can a very close competition between Richa and me as to who is more scared of these 4 legged creatures. But there is a slight difference...while I shout and run at the first instance of a barking close by, Richa just grabs hold of whoever is in front of her. So, more often than not, it fell upon Mansi to rescue us :) Infact, Nehal, another friend, used to wait till we entered our building whenever she came to drop us home! This incident happened when Mansi was out of town and Nehal was also not around. Richa and I were walking back home after dinner. There was a guy who was walking ahead of us and talking on his phone. Suddenly, we heard a couple of dogs barking. With our protectors not around, we did the next best thing: I started shouting and running and Richa grabbed the shoulder of the guy in front of us. The poor guy was shaken out of his wits and I can only imagine the reaction of onlookers (thank God there weren’t many, as it was about 10:30 pm)!

Tale 3
This incident, which occurred last week, actually prompted me to write this post. I was back to working in Cal, with Richa and Mansi also having shifted to Delhi. Now, Salt Lake, the area I live in, has lots of dogs. But for the last 1.5 years, we had managed to follow an ignore-each other policy, or so I thought. I was walking back home after office and was talking to Mansi when I saw 4 dogs in front of me. I narrated the situation to Mansi who told me to calm down and keep walking. But there is a slight problem of her giving advice sitting 2000 kms away and then, the inevitable happened. Barking, shouting and running, in that order. I ran to the nearest house and tried to open the gate, but found it locked. I was almost about to climb up the gate when sanity prevailed in the dogs. A couple of passersby helped me negotiate that stretch after which I reached home.

And life moves on...until the next doggy encounter...

For Keeps

My earliest memory of school is the ride to the school in the bus. A girl, studying in the same class as mine, used to get on the bus much before me. For whatever reason, she always sat in the 2^nd ‘big’ seat in the bus. The ‘big’ seat was called so because it used to seat 3 people. I started sitting beside her. Another classmate, getting on the bus much after me, started occupying the 3^rd seat. The first was Sachita and the second was Shruti. May be it had something to do with getting access to one of the best seats in the bus or something to do with studying in the same class, but we 3 soon became very good friends.

We used to go to each other’s place on birthdays & other days and our moms and families started knowing each other. Obviously, proximity to our houses helped…but these were my first set of friends in school. A year later when Sachita’s sister also started in the same school, we started to either take turns in sitting or simply made way for all 4. So, I got introduced to the 4^th seat much before using the Mumbai trains :)

Our sections in school were changed in class 8, but nevertheless, we had the bus to catch up. However, that changed when I shifted to a different place. We remained in touch till class 12, after which each of us went their separate ways. I chose Eco, Shruti chose Commerce and Sachita chose to go into fashion designing. As it normally happens, we drifted apart and lost touch over the years. We would have hardly talked to each other over the last 7 years.

Last November Shruti tied the knot. She had called up to invite me. I had almost thought of giving the wedding a miss – we have nothing in common now, I won’t know a soul there etc were my thoughts. However, 2 weeks before the wedding, I was just getting back to office from a meeting when Shruti spotted me. She was with her Mom on one of the endless shopping sprees. We stopped, caught up over a chai on the pavement and reminisced about the old times. Her Mom remembered small small instances that both of us had forgotten. It was exactly like being back in her house. And yes, I did go to her wedding :)

Last December, Sachita sent her wedding invite. She also called me last week. That’s when she told how she convinced her family for an inter caste wedding (she liked a batchmate, who was a Bengali). Today was her wedding. Having been caught up with work, I just somehow managed to reach her wedding just before the crowds came in to meet her and leave immediately. She was still getting ready and the place was teeming with the caterers putting the final touches. Suddenly I saw an old lady shuffling. I went up to her and asked her if she was Sachita’s grandmother. She said she was and then asked who I was. As soon as I told her my name, she gave me a big smile and hugged me. We then sat and chatted while waiting for the bride. What was amazing was that Dadu (that’s how Sachita addresses her grandmom) remembered everything about me. She remembered how many sisters and brother I had and enquired about each of them! She also lamented that while she was very happy with the groom and his family, the fact that they were not Maarwaaris, still rankled a bit – guess the biases will remain for some more time in Maadus! We would have waited for close to 15-20 mins for Sachita to come, but never once did I feel out of place. Maybe, that’s what they call providence and friends for keeps :)