Muttmoiselle

Bitch is a life. 

Posthumous glory is easy – you don’t really work on it. It is something like Hugh Hefner’s last marriage to Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris, 26, when he was 86 – the world knows you have a good thing going but you aren’t really there. Posthumous glory is a sort of karmic correction – we all have a top favourite author whose life didn’t do justice to the misery endured. There might have been some placation in the one good friend or family member with an eye for good literature. Emily Dickinson and Franz Kafka would have been merely tormented souls – like the rest of us – who just lived their lives behind shut doors had their friends listened to them and set fire to their works after their death. Discerning buddies or not, this supernal spotlight is a cruel joke. Just when you are beginning to earn some new, well-needed dosh, you are dead. I could be talking about Philip K. Dick. Or Herman Melville. Or…

For reasons my Mother will never agree, no writer has anointed me their literary guardian. No complaints – if I were Lavinia, I might have brought out Emily’s private correspondence as well. Some colour to the Duchess of Death. While this absolves me of a great burden – when I couldn’t land myself a publisher, imagine approaching one for a dead friend – I am not happy about foregoing the exaltation attached with the exposure either. I once met Nicholas Shakespeare at the Jaipur Literature Festival and it was the closest I came to licking Bruce Chatwin. While we aren’t talking fame or money, I am sure there are many others like me out there.

If not a record-keeper of events past, I could be a chronicler of the current. There is dignity in documenting a life, any life, as long as it is well-lived. It is equally an ode to courage, and, as is the case here, to compassion as well. Where, by living out each day in the face of all odds, they help you realise the preciousness of each moment. Even though they could be snoring in their snuggery most of the time, you can see the ghoulish glow of their sprightly soul. The survival spirit seeps in the drool that drips from their loose jaws, their breath that will knock you out or fart that will peel off the wall paint. Their rheumy-blind eyes and arthritic-stilted legs all go a long way to make you grateful that you are alive.

Near and superhuman feats

Hauz Khas is an affluent colony in South Delhi with its own first world problems: Is it safer to park the Q7 nose in? Will it be more prudent to rent your floor to the staff of the Ethiopian embassy or Tanzanian? Why should we go all the way to GK for Forest Essentials? My girlfriend stays here; I live here too but in its Max Black part; the less sophisticated quarters, across the street. Whenever I come to visit my girlfriend, I bump into her neighbour, an old lady called M. M, like the rest of the residents here, is a gem – her dulciloquence is matched only by her panache for finding oblectamenta in the pathetic. I can think of no other valid reason why she would one day decide to give a pye-dog shelter.

Okay, she was no ordinary mongrel but an old, germy, smelly, barfy, burpy, staggering, bark-less, fur-less, peri-blind mongrel. Give the bitch away to the Blue Cross, we pleaded with M repeatedly. This was soon after the old dog shat whole fields of mitrogen-pumping material all over the staircase landing everyday for an entire week. But M would have nothing of it. M would immediately set out to clean up the assaulted areas with a vengeance – sometimes herself or through the driver cum help. She would apologise profusely, close to tears, and even promise that it would never happen again. More than convinced, you were left wondering how could she be so sure.

Each time I would pass the old mutt on my way up, she would stagger towards me, spittle-ponds and entire air-borne colonies in her wake. After it dawned on me that the mutt was almost stone-deaf, I began to move stealthily. This created a small problem though: some apartment door would open and the person would give me a sinister look and then peer up to the camera pointed my way making sure my immorality and identity were duly recorded. One day stealing past, I saw M’s door was slightly ajar and heard distinct moaning sounds from within. The old dog had positioned herself right outside, a fierce matron, protecting the private life of her mistress. As much a decent guy I am, I couldn’t resist to pause and listen for a moment. Just to make sure, er, things were alright. The fucking dog lunged at me – the upper torso heaved heavily as her legs remained attached firmly to the ground arthritically. The jaws were yanked open and I could hear the early gurgles of the bark swelling up from somewhere deep within the recess. I ran the rest of the way up. Just as I was about to knock, I heard a long, low, yelp.

M’s husband was older, of a foul temper. Several times I have heard him shout vile things at her and poor M would emerge from the apartment a train wreck. They had a driver of a robust disposition who would tend to their plants on days M stayed home, which were most days. The days they fought he had to take food to the dog who would snivel about the landing and not budge as well as bring back the husband who would walk out before Alzheimer made him forget the way home. He also had to shoo away potential hook-ups that came calling. One morning returning from a run I saw him just about managing to disengage a rascally swain who was veering towards the plunge while the poor mutt stood quivering in anticipation. I have never mulled strangling anyone so intently.

Agent of togetherness

Despite all her physical challenges, it seemed that her olfactory senses were working in perfect condition: on days my girlfriend had her periods the dog would literally grab her by the knees, begging her not to go. I had to valiantly intervene which would make the blood-thirsty mongrel snarl at me with a ferocity I never imagined she could muster. I would walk in the front with a cosh till the cab during the rest of the period days. The dog would still stagger towards me, dithering whether to pounce or let me walk. For all the danger, I knew I could outrun the mad dog even though I still held my ground for love. I would shut the cab door with an Indiana Jones-like flourish and wave the cab away. My act of courage made me indispensable to my girlfriend.

Our arguments over whether a movie was worth the Director’s Cut pricey recumbent tickets or Jamie makes his pizza crusts too thin or the camera in the lift would have caught us at it have been cut short by the old mongrel dawdling towards us from around the corner with all her intangible and tangible retinue.

All these were nearly a year ago when we started dating. Nowadays she prefers to sit quietly by her corner and room-serviced. Sometimes when the sun is out she will walk till the gate; her daintiness still gets admirers but she has chosen to ignore all. Even we are left to resolve our bickering between ourselves. She has become one with her surrounds.

A Muttmoiselle.