Rajeev Khanna, Solan
Jhau surely is a stupid name for a pet dog. But for once I felt that the name was justified for this canine tamed by my neighbour thirty years ago. At the same time, I must say that I am yet to come across a more beautiful specimen than him.
Jhau was a mix breed and had the face of a Spaniel and the body of a Labrador. But nature doesn’t make everything beautiful to perfection and that is why he had a bit of a disability which I was told resulted from a small attack of paralysis when he was very young. Add to this was his amputated tail, but he was a trained fellow for hunting. For the child in me, it was a delight to watch him with a tail that resembled a small ball. The belief in the hills is that Hyenas and Leopards often prey on dogs and drag them from their tail, hence the amputation.
But coming back to the point, I must admit that Jhau was plain stupid and also dumb. This was the reason why he was often punished. How can one explain his stupidity? He would chase a cat with all his might and then somehow forget that leaping from a wall or a roof would result in a severe injury. And this was what often happened. It was nothing new finding him with a plastered limb or a bruised face every few days.
How could one also explain his tendency to take the back of any woman sitting on a cement stair for a wall and happily lift his hind leg for peeing? What followed was a hilarious event for us with the aunties of the neighbourhood screaming and Jhau getting a spanking from his owners. It was not only the women who bore the brunt of his stupidity. He would not let an opportunity go if he found an open door in the locality. He would walk in, look for the tables with television sets on them (there was no fad of having cabinets in the mid-eighties), and gleefully raise his hind leg for watering the damn sheets.
For us little kids he was a rival of sorts as he would run away with the balls we used for playing cricket, hockey and throwing the ball. Thereafter, it was a slugfest with him teasing us. He would drop the ball for some moments and run away with it whenever we tried to take the ball back. This made us very tired and we somehow tried to ensure that he was locked inside his house when it was our playtime. The worst was when he raced away with our table tennis balls not realising that the ball with its thin plastic was simply slaughtered the moment he put it in his mouth. So, it meant playing with the door of the hall bolted.
But he also had an uncanny ability. Throw a bunch of stones of consumed plums and apricots and he would break and consume only those whose kernel was sweet.
I never knew that I would soon develop a different kind of bond with this dog and realise how he nurtured feelings of gratitude and love. I just knew that dogs are loyal which was pretty evident by the way he wagged his ball of a tail before his masters or even those who called him with affection despite receiving a beating for his stupid antics. At times he was the target of anger of his master for no fault of his. I still remember how he received a kick from his master the moment Javed Miandad had hauled a full toss from Chetan Sharma for a six on the last ball to win one of those famous Sharjah cricket tourneys.
All this apart, I was soon to see another side. It so happened that I entered his owners house to get something that I was told was lying on a corner (neighbours were more like families at that time unlike today) and Jhau happened to be all alone inside. I was shocked to see him lying on the floor writhing in pain and cooing like a child. The poor dog had experienced a fit. I could witness convulsions in his body with froth coming out from the mouth. I still wonder what possessed the child in me at that point that despite it being a repulsive scenario, I approached him and massaged his chest. He recovered after a few minutes and quietly went to have a drink of water before going to the gunny sack where he slept. I still recall the look of gratitude in his painful eyes at that point. By that time his mistress was there to attend to his further need. I returned home to wash my hands with dettol.
Thereafter the two of us became good friends. Perhaps, I started drawing parallels with him for being often labelled as a no good by some of my teachers and the elders around. We followed a set pattern. Since the place where I lived was a factory premises where sirens would go off at 7.30 am, 7.45 am and 8.00 am, signifying the prayer time for labourers at 7.45 am and work to start at 8 am. The dog understood my routine and just when the second siren blew, he would be out of his house knowing that it was time for me to go to school. Thereafter, he would walk beside me right to the school bus and at the third siren when the bus left, he would return. I do not know what drove him to do that day-after-day, but the routine continued until the time his owner was transferred elsewhere. From that day on, I used to frequently play with him by throwing balls for him to chase and then try to get the ball from him.
I still do not know why I am writing about that dog today. He must have died years ago, must have been buried under a few kilogram of salt as his master used to tell me the trick about burying pets. I always used to convert his age into the human years as I was once told that a year of dog’s life is equivalent to seven years of human life. It is perhaps the memory of an old friend that has driven me to remember him on a keyboard today.
(Rajeev Khanna is a veteran journalist with over thirty years of experience across print, broadcast and digital media. He has worked with leading media organisations, including BBC, Asian Age, Indian Express, Times of India and Tribune, and has contributed to digital platforms such as The Citizen, The Wire, Scroll, National Herald and Down To Earth. An avid reader since his student days in Solan and Shimla, he maintains a deep interest in literature and occasionally ventures into fiction writing. His other passions include cinema, music, travel and sports, reflecting his wide-ranging intellectual and cultural interests.)
Nurturing Creativity – Keekli Charitable Trust, Shimla
