OF DOGS AND DOG-SENSE
Khaliqur Rahman
I can't, for the life of me, understand why after all some people should be so much hell bent upon directing their over-flowing love on dogs. Have all other human beings died? And, why pray, should they be choosing only Dobermann Pinchers or Alsatians or Boxers or Bulldogs or Grey hounds or Bull-terriers or Poodless or Pekinese to shower the so called surfeit of their love on.
The very sight of a lady -- I doubt if that's' the right word -- and the lap-dog boils my blood, and, I tell you, in the fit of my ungovernable temper I lose sight of what is what and I can never ever tell you which one is the woman and which one is the dog and which one is more bitchy.
What right, I ask, do they have to chain this beautiful animal? Having trained them to perform certain feats like taking a high jump or retrieving a tennis ball or a hidden object, they take extreme pride in talking about them to make conversation in their drawing rooms. What is worse, they take this conversation unashamedly to other peoples’ drawing rooms, too.
My evening yesterday was spoilt thus. We had gone to our in-laws'. And I tell you, my in-laws are all honourably lovable and human beings, except perhaps when my FIL chooses to turn to his majestic Alsatian. His fads at the age of seventy-plus are cricket, religion and dogs. And I consider myself to be most extremely lucky to have two-thirds of the area of his interest overlapping with mine. You can talk on cricket and religion almost endlessly and I nearly always managed to play within the safe limits.
But yesterday evening all the elements combined to conspire against me. One of my friends who I must say is extremely good and lovably honourable visited our empty house with his wife and children. Not finding us there they made a successful chase to our in-laws'.
They were greeted with nimbupani and FIL. After a brief phatic communion I just do not know how my friend and FIL established themselves into talking about their dogs. They were ably assisted by my friend's smart younger son who seemed to have read everything available on this earth on dogs.
I came to know that FIL once possessed two really great ones. One was called “Major Sa'b” and the other "Colonel Sa'b”. And, whenever FIL sat in his garden in the evenings with his family, there used to be a special chair for "Major Sa'b" who according to him was more egoistic than the "Colonel". If there wasn't one for him, he would quietly make a survey, go to the smallest child and push him out of the chair by his right paw and sit there.
I don't remember, whatever all, my good friend said about his Pincher and Alsatian who they call Phantom and Devil. I don't know how often, in my unbearable malaise I threw on them God knows how many of my nasty wintry smiles. All of them went afloor.
They were talking of dogs and dog-sense!
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