The love of my life; the apple of my
eye…………….
By Prakash Subbarao
She was beautiful.
When I first saw her, she was as small as a rabbit. Pure white, she was
the most active of the brood, and I saw her chasing her lazier brothers
all over the room. That’s the one I want for Trupti, I thought and
negotiated for her purchase. This incredibly beautiful mini Pomeranian pup
was “Kennel Club” certified.
Trupti is my daughter. She was then in the 9th standard and I wanted to
give her a pup as a birthday present.
Trupti squealed with delight when we presented her the little bundle of
flesh and fur. She now had something of her very own and they soon became
inseparable. “She is so cute, let’s name her Cutie!” Trupti said.
A year passed; then two. Time flew.
We moved to a house near that of my in-laws and because my wife and I both
worked, we didn’t want to leave the dog alone at home all day. So she
started spending half her time at my in-laws place and the balance at
home.
Cutie’s one and only enemy was Pimbi, another mini Pom in the house
opposite that of my in-laws. Pimbi reciprocated the hatred with a passion.
Both dogs soon associated the other’s families as ‘enemy’. Visitors to the
enemy camp were also snarled and growled and barked at passionately.
Cutie saw Trupti graduate from school and join college. She saw Trupti
leave college and get married. She saw Trupti suddenly vanish.
Probably the most disquieting part of Cutie’s life was the regularity with
which the people she loved vanished mysteriously only to reappear at
random intervals.
After Trupti got married, we relocated to Dubai and Cutie became a full
time resident at my in-laws place. Her battle with Pimbi escalated to a
24x7 one.
Cutie was witness to the passing away of my father-in-law. She sensed the
loneliness of my mother-in-law and took it upon herself to console her.
She was always at my her side, or under her chair, or outside the bathroom
door. When my mother-in-law prayed, there Cutie was, fully stretched out
on the floor, panting the prayers alongside.
Soon another enemy crept into her life; the vet.
She fell ill one day and the vet was summoned. She willingly allowed him
to examine her for after all she was an extremely friendly dog who loved
being around people. It was the instant that he inserted the painful
injection into her rump that she reclassified him as an enemy, not to be
trusted. Thereafter he could approach her only when she was muzzled.
“I want Cutie to experience motherhood” Trupti used to lament but mating a
pedigreed mini Pom in no mean task. She remained a virgin in spite of
everyone’s best intentions and strangely, this was the cause of her
downfall. But I digress………..details about that will come later.
After six long years we returned from Dubai to Bangalore but decided to
leave Cutie as my mother-in-law’s custodian. Both reveled in each other’s
company and were by now inseparable.
Cutie was now over eleven years old (a seventy year old woman by dog’s
standards) but as beautiful as ever. She had the most beautiful eyes,
brimming with love. She had a tongue ever ready to give a loving lick. She
always looked at me with the “shall “I-come-over-for-a-hug?” look.
One day, she suddenly fell sick. The hated vet was summoned. “She has a
uterine infection” he said “I have been telling these people all these
years that we should remove her uterus but they haven’t listened to me. I
would recommend removing it immediately”. Two days later her situation
worsened. Though she was on strong antibiotics, the infection spread to
her kidney and they started getting damaged. Almost daily blood tests
revealed an ever growing quantum of creatinine in the blood, indicating
that the kidneys were failing.
Soon she was too weak to eat. She also stopped drinking water. “This is
because of the toxins in her blood stream” the vet told us. “The kidney is
unable to clean up the toxins and she must be feeling nauseous and sick
all the time and cannot eat or drink water”.
We had to put her on life sustaining saline and other drips. She hated
those trips to the vet though she loved the ride in the car. She would
stand, balancing herself, with her front paws over the window sill, her
tongue hanging out and taking in the cool breeze. She looked so lovely and
healthy that people just couldn’t believe that she was so ill. Once when I
was buying some medicines for her, the chemist and his colleagues at the
counter were smiling at the beautiful dog in the car. When I told them
that the medicines were for her and that unless her deteriorating
condition improved, she would soon die, they were shocked. They just
couldn’t associate death with this lovely looking animal.
One day, unable to bear the agony that she was going through, I asked the
vet to put her to sleep. She had by then not eaten for nearly a month! Nor
had she taken a drop of water on her own. We had had to start force
feeding her and she didn’t like this one bit. Soon after the feeding she
would bring it all up. Her stomach was unable to accept the food though
the doctor had told us that if she didn’t start eating and drinking, she
couldn’t be sustained indefinitely on drips.
One day, she took what I then thought would her last ride. My eyes were
brimming with tears as I carried her in to the vet’s office and placed her
on the gurney.
“I just cannot bear to do it” the vet said “she is so beautiful and looks
so strong though we know that she is sinking. Let us do a blood test to
see the creatinine level in her blood stream before we take this step!” he
said. I nodded in agreement.
To everyone’s amazement her creatinine level showed an improvement!
The next day, the level had fallen even lower.
By day three we were even hoping that she may recover! “This is a miracle”
the vet opined “I have never seen anything like this before!”
They say dogs know things much in advance of humans. Cutie knew something
that we didn’t.
That Trupti was returning to Bangalore from Canada.
It actually had nothing to do with Cutie’s condition. There was a sudden
change in Trupti’s status there; she quit her job and, since the Canadian
government would pay her 50% of her salary for up to a year of
unemployment, she decided on the spur of the moment to visit India.
A day before Trupti was to arrive, Cutie’s condition started suddenly
deteriorating. The energy was draining out of her body.
Cutie was waiting to see Trupti one last time before dying.
The next day Trupti’s flight was to land at around 4 p.m. and she was
expected to be home by 6 p.m.
The vet had confirmed that the dog was sinking. “Please bring her over to
my clinic at 6 p.m.” he had said. Apparently he had an operation to
perform on another dog at 6.30 p.m. and had to leave by 6.15. p.m.
The whole family had gathered together for Cutie’s last moments. Trupti
had landed and was on the way to the house.
5.30…….5.35……..5.40……5.45……..there was no sign of Trupti. She finally
arrived at 5.55 p.m.
Cutie was dying by then. She could hardly stand but she made a valiant
effort to get up and greet Trupti. She just couldn’t manage it and fell
back to the ground. Trupti scooped her up and tearfully held her dog
tightly to her chest. It had been several years they had said ‘Hi” and now
they had just a few seconds for their final goodbye.
I carried the dog down to the car. It was an extremely emotional moment.
Pimbi, her arch enemy was standing on the road. Strangely both dogs
remained silent as we passed by her.
I had asked our servant, Ramanna, to come with me and help me with her
burial and he too got into the car.
We reached the vet’s clinic. The dog made no effort to growl at him. She
knew that she was dying and had apparently reconciled to it, because she
readily sat on the gurney.
Today she wasn’t fighting. She was ready to go and make her peace with her
maker.
The doctor was moving around busying himself. He took out a hypodermic
needle and inserted it into the bottle of anesthetic. “The anesthetic will
act within 30 seconds” he had told me “I will be giving an excessive
dose”.
The doctor was ready. He approached the table.
“Shall we go ahead, Sir?” he asked.
I nodded. I picked up Cutie and held her close to me. I wanted her to die
in my arms.
He inserted the needle into her leg. She didn’t react.
“Shall I do it?” he again asked, just to be double sure. Yes, I nodded and
he pressed the plunger, pushing the deadly fluid into her. As I watched
the plunger depress, I realized with a shock, that I was seeing the face
of death. “Stop!” I wanted to scream. “Let her live!”
Cutie was still in my arms when, ten seconds later the vet told me to put
her on the gurney. I stood her upright and she tried to stand but she was
already dying. Her body started shuddering and she collapsed on to the
aluminium table. A minute later the doctor’s stethoscope revealed no
heartbeat. “She’s gone” he said. “When you bury her, make sure to put a
lot of rock salt in the grave”. I nodded numbly.
When I went to pick up the dog from the table, I noticed that she had
urinated. The doctor saw me looking and matter-of-factly said “that’s
perfectly normal. When they die they lose control of body functions”. What
he didn’t realize that my horror stemmed from the fact that every time I
had brought her to his clinic, I had made her do her “potty”. This time I
had forgotten and she went to her maker with a full bladder. It was so
unthoughtful of me. And she hadn’t even brought it to my notice.
I felt terrible.
A living dog uses its muscles to stay upright. A dead dog is like a limp
rag in one’s hand.
I carried the limp Cutie to the car and placed her on the back seat.
“Where shall we bury her?” I asked Ramanna blankly. “Let us drive around
till we see an empty plot and we will bury her there” he suggested. So we
drove around. Finally we saw a residential plot that was perfect. “Can we
please bury the dog here?” we asked the watchman. “No, the owner will be
upset” he said “but there is a perfect place nearby. I will take you
there”. Saying this, he put on a shirt and hurried with us to the car.
The place that he took us to was really beautiful. It was a huge and empty
area devoid of any buildings for hundreds of meters. On the opposite side
of the road was a massive building housing a software company. “It’s a
perfect and peaceful resting place for Cutie” I thought. That’s where we
buried her.
We were on a side road and I had lost my bearings. “Where does this road
go to?” I wondered as I started the car. Half a kilometer ahead I could
see a busy main road. As I turned left on the main road I gasped in
surprise. We were at the vet’s clinic!
By some quirk of fate, Cutie is buried right behind his
clinic!
Mysterious are the ways of the lord.
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