On Saturday evenings he could sense from the picnic basket being packed that the next day would be devoted largely to him. Long before dawn he would start whimpering with excitement and wake everyone up. It was difficult to control him in the car. When we got to the open countryside near Suraj Kund, or Tilpat, we had to let him out to prevent him jumping out of the car. He would chase herds of cows and scatter them over the fields. Once he nearly got his face bashed in by the rear kick of a cow. And once he almost killed a goat.
Three to four hours in the open countryside chasing hares, deer or peafowl made him happily tired. It was a drowsy, sleepy Simba we brought back from our Sunday morning picnics. He was not so impatient now for his evening walk.
He was, again, restless for his after-dinner stroll round Khan Market, where we went to get paan. He would stop by the ice-cream man and plead with us to buy him one. He was passionately fond of ice-cream. He was also very possessive. Once somebody had two lovely pups for sale under a tree in the market. He resented our paying attention to them. Whenever we stopped by the tree he would savagely bite its bole. Everyone in and around Sujan Singh Park knew Simba. We came to be known by the children of the locality as Simba’s parents.
Simba was also feared. Once when going out with my wife and daughter in the Lodhi gardens, a cyclist slapped my daughter on her back and sped on. My wife screamed, ‘Simba get him!’ Simba chased the man, knocked him off his bicycle and stood over him baring his fangs. The poor fellow folded the palms of his hands and pleaded forgiveness. Another time, as I was stepping out of my flat after dinner, I heard a girl shout for help. Two young lads were trying to molest her. I ran towards her with Simba following on my heels. The boys tried to run away. I ordered Simba to get them. He ran and brought one fellow down on the ground. He was a big fellow and much stronger than I. But with Simba at my side, I had no hesitation in slapping the man many times across his face and roundly abusing him, calling him a goonda and a budmaash. He asked to be forgiven and swore he would never make passes at women again.
We always took Simba with us to Mashobra or Kasauli. He was happiest in the mountains. I often put him on the leash to make him pull us up steep inclines. He liked Kasauli more than Shimla because of its herds of rhesus monkeys and langoors. He waged unceasing warfare against them, and against hill crows which flocked round when he was having his afternoon meal.
Most dogs have a sixth sense. Our Simba had seventh and eighth senses as well. I will mention only one episode to prove it. My wife and I had to go abroad for a couple of months. Our children were in boarding schools. We decided to give our servants leave and lock up our flat. Simba was to be housed with Prem Kirpal: the two were on very friendly terms, as Prem was always with us on our Sunday outings and a regular visitor to our home. He happily agreed to take Simba. Being a senior government official, he had a bungalow on Canning Lane with a large garden. Simba had been there many times and sensed that we meant to leave him there. He did not seem to mind very much.
My wife returned to Delhi a few days before me. She went to Canning Lane to fetch Simba. He greeted her joyfully but refused to get into her car. Prem was very pleased over his success in winning Simba’s affections. My wife reluctantly gave in. ‘If he is happy with you, he can stay here,’ she said. Apparently they mentioned the date I was due to return, and Simba heard them. The evening before I returned to Delhi, Simba walked all the way from Canning Lane to Sujan Singh Park and scratched at the door with his paws to announce his arrival. He knew I was coming next morning. Prem was more dejected at Simba leaving him than he would have been had I stolen his mistress.
Simba aged gracefully. The hair about his mouth turned white. He developed cataracts in his eyes. Sometimes he got feverish: there were times when my wife spent whole nights with his head on her lap, stroking his head. He was then well over thirteen years old. When I got a three-month teaching assignment at Swarthmore College, we had to leave him in the care of his real mistress, my daughter Mala. She had to take him to the vet almost every day. He didn’t get any better. His legs began to give in. She sent us a cable, ‘Return immediately, Simba seriously ill.’ The next day, we received another cable from Mala: ‘Simba passed away peacefully.’
Apparently, the vet advised Mala that Simba was in pain, his legs were paralysed and he couldn’t last much longer. With her permission he gave him a lethal dose of something which put him to sleep. If I had to talk of my close friendships, Simba would be amongst the top in my list. We never kept another dog. One can’t replace friends.
Kasauli: My Mini Baikunth
I plan my summers to conform to nature’s calendar. I stay in Delhi in July and August, go up to Kasauli in early September when the mountains are well-washed and green, and the hillsides flecked with wild flowers.
By the last week of August the monsoon is usually beating a retreat. So this year I left Delhi on 1 September, relying on the weather keeping its time-schedule, prepared to spend the month of September in my earthly paradise. It would not be as warm as Delhi and not too cold for comfort. Delhi was denuded of flowers, Kasauli’s hills would still have its monsoon blossoms, chiefly the spectacular cactus, yucca gloriosa, with dozens of bell-shaped, ivory-pale white flowers suspended from one green stem and wild dahlias of various colours blazing away on the hill slopes.
But even before the Shatabdi Express had passed Sonepat (25 miles down the route), it began to rain and continued to pour all the way to Chandigarh. It seemed the rain had just been woken up after sleeping through June, July and most of August till alarm bells sounded, warning of a drought. Then it opened up its much delayed bags full of bountiful waters to make amends for its tardiness. The Sidhus, Poonam and Karanjit, were to drive us (my daughter, Mala, was with me) to Kasauli to spend the afternoon and evening with us. The downpour washed out their plans. Poonam had brought food and drink meant for four. My daughter and I ate it for four days.
We were not the only people to be fooled by the weather. There was heavy uphill traffic on the Chandigarh-Simla road, right into the heart of Kasauli. So instead of sitting out in the garden under the shade of the toon, and gazing into the blue heavens, I spent the first few days indoors by the fireside, wrapped up in a shawl, wishing I was back in Delhi.
It takes a day or two to get used to the solitude and all-pervading silence of the mountains. It takes an afternoon or two for the locals to know you are back so that they can drop in for some gup-shup. As for the total absence of the sounds of traffic and loudspeakers, I can only describe it as deafening except for the sound of the wind sloughing through the pine trees. Besides, the occasional plane going overhead, the siren from the Solan brewery and the peal of bells from Christ Church are all that I hear in the day. At this time of the year birds seldom sing. Their period of courtship is long over, the eggs have hatched and the parent birds are busy feeding their hungry chicks.
Being locked up indoors all day and all night can be boring beyond endurance. I want company, not necessarily human company because humans are demanding and talk too much. I found exactly what I was looking for—Billoo.
Two monsoons ago, when there was a short break in the downpour, I was sitting in my garden. I saw a tiny pup, black-and-white, fluffy and of no pedigree, stumbling along and shivering in the cold. I picked it up and cuddled it in my shawl. It looked up with its shiny black eyes to ask who I was. I rubbed its ears gently. It licked my hand to say thank you, made sweet moaning sounds, stopped shivering and fell asleep. There are few experiences more gratifying than to have a young thing fall asleep in one’s arms.
Then its mother came along and I put it down on the ground. She scolded her pup for allowing strangers to take liberties with it and led it back home. I found out that the bitch belonged to the caretaker of the bungalow just below mine. It didn’t take much for me to persuade them to give me the puppy as soon as it was weaned. The little one had been promised to my housekeeper, Prem Kumar. A month or so later, when it had been weaned, it was formal
ly handed over. The puppy was a male; I named him Billoo. He spent an hour every evening in my lap nibbling at my cardigan buttons, pawing my hands and nipping my fingers with its pin-sharp teeth. I looked forward to its evening visits. He was a good listener and never talked back.
When I returned to Raj Villa the following summer, Billoo had grown to his full height. He did not recognize me. I had to bribe him with buttered toast and biscuits while having my afternoon tea. He had a nose for meat. Any evening he smelt chicken or mutton, he sat under the dining table waiting for his share.
Billoo was full of zest for life. Every evening his friends from the neighbouring bungalows assembled in my garden, waging mock battles. At times Billoo’s mother also joined them. But Billoo proved to be a poor watchdog. When rhesus monkeys invaded my garden, he barked at them from a safe distance. When I egged him on, he made a brave show of attacking them but as soon as a big one turned to fight him, he ran back for protection. Now when monkeys come, he pretends not to see them. As for strangers, all he does is to bark to tell me: ‘You have visitors.’ As soon as they shake my hand, he wags his tail in welcome.
This time when I alighted from my car, Billoo was at the doorstep waiting for me. He licked my hands, jumped up on my legs and made me feel welcome. The third day, when Billoo was out for a morning stroll on the Upper Mall, he ran into a car. He howled in pain as he lay on the road. Prem’s sister-in-law, Bhagwanti, and her son ran up to see what had happened. The car driver was good enough to take all of them to the vet. Mercifully, he had broken no bones.
He was brought home. He could not stand up and wailed in pain. It seemed as if the lights of Raj Villa had been switched off. For a day Billoo lay on the floor whining. The next day, he tried to drag himself down to the hill where his mother lived. He did not get far and howled for help. Bhagwanti took him in her arms and brought him back. His mother had heard him cry. She came trotting up to see him. Now she comes every morning and evening to be with her son. Billoo is on the mend. He is still unable to walk properly but manages to wobble up to my bedroom window and make his presence felt. It won’t be long before he is able to join me for breakfast, tea and supper. The lights of Raj Villa have been switched on again.
My housekeeper in Kasauli kept two dogs to keep uninvited visitors and monkeys at bay, Neelo and Joojoo. Neither could claim any pedigree and both had been picked out of litters of bitches living in the vicinity. Both were ill-tempered but their barks were stronger than their bites. Their ill-temper was more in evidence when I happened to be in Kasauli.
As is common with most dogs, they sense who is the master of the house, and attach themselves to him rather than to those who feed them. No sooner had I arrived than the two would vie with each other to claim closeness to me. Neelo being the younger and the tougher of the two would sit by my chair and snarl at Joojoo if he came anywhere near me. But Joojoo found ways to get around his rival. Neelo did not like to go for a stroll in the evening and would wait for me at the gate. I did not like Joojoo coming with me because he was prone to pick up quarrels with any dog we met during our walks. While going through the small stretch of the bazaar, Joojoo would fight with half-a-dozen dogs belonging to shopkeepers. However, over the years, I got used to the temperaments of the two dogs and stopped fussing over them.
This went on for fourteen years. Both Neelo and Joojoo aged but not very gracefully. White hair sprouted round their mouths, they became slower in their movements. I noticed the signs of ageing in the two dogs but refused to admit to myself that I, too, had aged and was now reluctant to step out of the house. When I last came to Kasauli in June, Neeloo was missing. My servant told me that the dog catchers employed by the cantonment board had fed him poison because he wore no collar. Joojoo, who had spent his lifetime quarrelling with Neeloo, looked older than ever before. His skin sagged over his bones, his genitals hung like a dilapidated sack under his belly, his legs trembled as he walked and his eyes looked bleary and unseeing. He would join me at tea time to beg for a biscuit or two because he could not chew anything harder.
One morning he came and sat by my side while I was having my morning tea. When I got up, he stood up on his trembling legs and looked pleadingly at me. I spoke to him gently: ‘Joojoo tu buddha ho gaya. Joojoo main bhi buddha ho gayaa.’ (Joojoo, you have grown old, so have I.) He looked at me with uncomprehending eyes and slowly went away. An hour later one of the boys living in the house came and told me: ‘Joojoo mar gaya.’ (Joojoo is dead.) I saw him lying by the club house. The cantonment board took his body away in a cart. So ended our fifteen-year-long friendship.
My constant companions, ever since I have been coming to Kasauli, are a family of spiders. They live apart in three bathrooms. I have no phobia of spiders. So I never disturb them. But I am curious to know why they stay in dark, smelly bathrooms and what they live on. They do not spin webs to catch flies or other insects; in any case there aren’t any to catch. They hardly ever move from their chosen spots on the wall; and when they do, they only scamper along to some place where they cannot be seen. However, one evening I spotted one along the seat of my WC. I didn’t want to chance being bitten on my bum: some spiders are known to be venomous. I brushed it aside with a newspaper before I lowered my bare bottom on the seat.
My curiosity was aroused. Back in my study, I consulted my book on insects. Lo and behold, it said spiders are not insects at all but only insect-like. Insects have three parts—head, thorax and abdomen; spiders have only two—four pairs of legs and no antennae. ‘Okay,’ I said to them, ‘you are no miserable insects, but belong to the species arachnida, but what on earth do you live on? Where and how do you breed? Do you have predators that live off you?’ One day I hope to solve the mystery of the webless spider and the vagaries of the monsoon. I must also find out why Kasauli has no fireflies (jugnu) but lots of glow-worms.
After two days of absolute solitude with no one to talk to besides the caretaker’s mongrel, I begin to miss human voices and welcomed a visitor or two. I had two in succession, neither of whom I had seen before. I was lucky both times. The first was Nagina Singh of the Indian Express, Chandigarh edition. A comely, elegantly dressed young lass with a diamond sparkling in her nose pin. And all of nineteen. A no-nonsense young lady who came armed with a photographer. It was a business-like interview about the changes I had seen in Kasauli over the eighty years I have been coming here. The interview over, she shut her notebook and departed. The other was Baljit Virk, a teacher at Pinegrove School not far from Kasauli. I expected a middle-aged, blue-stockinged, bespectacled person with a schoolmarmish manner. In walked a statuesque beauty wreathed in smiles. She was an ex-air hostess, tired of seeing the world and being a glorified waitress. She decided to stay grounded and teach English (she had an MA in literature) and sociology. She wanted me to see the manuscript of the second novel she had written. ‘Just read a page or two and tell me if it is any good.’ I kept the manuscript: ‘I will read all of it. Give me a week and then collect it.’ I did not want to miss the opportunity of another tête-á-tête with the air hostess turned pedagogue. I was surprised with the theme of her novel, Jockstrapped. It was based on a young dipsomaniac who drinks at all hours, gets into scraps, smashes cars, has affairs with women and does not have to work for a living. I could not understand why Baljit chose to write about a good-for-nothing, foul-mouthed character, when she herself is a strait-laced teetotaller of the type in whose mouth butter would not melt. I’ll find out the truth on her next visit.
At tea time, a strapping sardar and his comely sardarni joined me. ‘How did you come by a name like Likhari?’ I asked him. ‘One of my ancestors was a master calligrapher who wrote with his nail. So we came to be known by that name,’ he replied. His wife said, ‘He also has a beautiful handwriting. I preserve his letters.’
‘They must be love letters,’ I suggested. ‘Yes,’ she replied with a blush. ‘From when he was courting me.’
I asked them another question that Ghalib might well ha
ve asked visitors calling on him. ‘Are you drinking people?’ Both nodded their heads indicating yes.
Among the visitors who descended on me in my hide-out in Kasauli was Rajni Walia who came all the way from Simla to spend a couple of hours with me. Rajni was colourful in every sense of the word. She was decked up like a filmstar ready to face the cameras: heavily made-up, a dupatta with the colours of the rainbow and a paisley-shaped bindi more colourful than any I had seen. She carried a handbag studded with stones and marbles of many hues.
‘Where on earth did you get that?’ I asked.
‘Baghdad,’ she replied. ‘My dad was an adviser to the Iraqi government for some years, I spent quite some time with him and did a lot of shopping.’
‘And what do you do?’ I questioned her.
‘I am the associate professor of English literature at the government college, Simla,’ she replied.
‘Why Simla? Why not Chandigarh or Delhi?’
‘My husband is in the Himachal Pradesh forest services. Simla is his base.’
Not a Nice Man to Know Page 25