Chapter 17: Kutte Se Pyaar (Becoming a Dog Lover)

The dog arrived before the house. This was the order of things — the order that Ananya had not planned because the not-planning was the condition of the new life: the new life did not follow the corporate-planning model (objective, strategy, execution, review). The new life followed the Kiara model: things happened, you adapted, you survived, you discovered that the surviving was the living.

The dog was a street dog. A Pune street dog — the particular breed that was not a breed but a category, the category being: Indian pariah, mixed, the mixing being generations of Pune's street-dog evolution producing animals that were medium-sized and brown and possessed of the particular intelligence that street survival required. This dog was female. This dog had been living outside St. Thomas's Church for three weeks, the three weeks being the duration of the dog's particular tenancy: she had arrived, assessed the church compound's food-availability (high, owing to Nikhil's kitchen), and stayed, the staying being the street dog's version of a lease — no paperwork, just presence, the presence being the contract.

Kiara named her. "Betty," Kiara said. "She looks like a Betty." The naming authority that Kiara had assumed — the assuming being the teenager's prerogative: teenagers named things, the naming being the claiming, and the claiming being: this dog is ours, the ours being the community kitchen's, the community kitchen being the family and the family needing a dog because all families needed a dog and the needing was the instinct.

Betty was not a cute dog. Betty was a functional dog — functional in the way that Indian street dogs were functional: alert, cautious, loyal to whoever fed her, the loyalty being the street dog's economy: food = love, the equation being the simplest truth in the animal kingdom and also, if Ananya was honest, in the human kingdom. (Nikhil's dal had earned more loyalty than Karan's imported cheese had ever managed.)

Betty attached herself to Ananya. The attachment being inexplicable except through the particular logic of dogs: dogs chose the person who needed them, not the person who wanted them, and the person who needed Betty was Ananya because Ananya came to the church carrying the particular energy that dogs detected — the energy of a person who was rebuilding and who needed a companion for the rebuilding and the companion needed to be non-verbal because non-verbal companions did not judge or advise or ask "what are you doing with your life?" or say "tum kuch nahi ho." Dogs did not say "tum kuch nahi ho." Dogs said nothing. Dogs sat. The sitting being the love.

The attachment manifested practically: Betty waited for Ananya outside the church on Thursdays. Betty walked beside Ananya when Ananya walked from the church to the bus stop. Betty, on one memorable Thursday, followed Ananya onto the 154 bus and sat under Ananya's seat for the entire journey from Hadapsar to Kothrud, the under-the-seat sitting being the dog's particular bus-etiquette: make yourself small, don't attract the conductor's attention, exist in the space between the seats where the conductor does not look because the conductor is looking at tickets and not at the floor and the floor is the dog's domain.

The bus conductor noticed at Swargate. "Madam, yeh kutta aapka hai?" Is this dog yours?

Ananya looked down. Betty looked up. The looking-up being the particular dog-expression that combined innocence with calculation — the calculation being: if this woman says yes, I get to stay on the bus; if this woman says no, I get removed. The calculation visible in the eyes, the eyes that were brown and wet and possessed of the particular emotional blackmail that dogs performed without guilt.

"Haan," Ananya said. The "haan" that was — the "haan" was the claiming. The claiming that had not been planned, the claiming that was the response to a dog's eyes under a bus seat, the claiming that was: yes, this dog is mine, the mine being the first thing that Ananya had claimed since the divorce. Everything else had been: unclaimed. The flat was the divorce's flat. The furniture was the division's furniture. The job club was the community's club. But Betty — Betty was mine. The mine that the divorced woman needed: something that was hers, something that chose her, something that would be at the door when she came home and the being-at-the-door was the love and the love was unconditional and the unconditional was the thing that the divorce had destroyed and the destroyed thing was being rebuilt by a brown street dog under a bus seat.

Betty came home. The Kothrud flat gained a resident — the resident that changed the flat's status from "the divorce flat" to "the flat with the dog" and the with-the-dog was the transformation: the flat that had been defined by absence was now defined by presence and the presence was: a dog who shed hair on the sofa and who barked at the morning walkers in the park and who needed to be fed and walked and attended to and the attending-to was the structure and the structure was the thing that the redundancy had removed (the 9-to-6 structure of the corporate day) and that Betty replaced with the dog-structure: 6 AM walk, 8 AM food, 4 PM walk, 7 PM food, the structure being the rhythm and the rhythm being the life.

Farhan met Betty at the park. The meeting being: Betty pulled Ananya toward Farhan's bench with the determination of a dog who had identified a potential source of biscuits and whose identification was correct — Farhan, it turned out, kept Parle-G biscuits in his kurta pocket. The Parle-G being India's universal biscuit, the biscuit that every Indian had eaten and that every Indian dog had been given and that the giving was the inter-species common ground: Parle-G, the biscuit of democracy, shared across species.

"Yeh kaun hai?" Farhan asked, as Betty consumed his Parle-G with the efficiency of a dog who understood that park-bench biscuits were a limited resource and that the limited-resource required speed.

"Betty. Church ki kutti thi, ab meri hai." Betty. Was the church's dog, now she's mine.

"Kutte achhe hain," Farhan said. The assessment being the retired professor's assessment: categorical, definitive, requiring no elaboration. Dogs are good. The statement that was the truth and that the truth was sufficient. "Nasreen ke baad maine bhi socha tha kutti le loon. Lekin mujhe lagta tha ki main sambhaal nahi paunga."

After Nasreen, I also thought about getting a dog. But I thought I wouldn't be able to take care of one.

"Kutte khud ko sambhaal lete hain," Ananya said. "Aapko bas hona chahiye." Dogs take care of themselves. You just need to be there.

"Bas hona chahiye." Farhan repeated the phrase. The repeating being the old man's method of processing wisdom — the method that said: the phrase is being stored, the storing is permanent, the phrase will be retrieved later at the appropriate moment. "Yeh toh Premchand ne bhi kaha tha, differently. Hori kuch nahi karta — Hori bas hota hai. Aur uska hona hi sabse bada kaam hai."

"Just being there." Premchand said this too, differently. Hori doesn't do anything — Hori just exists. And his existing is the greatest work.

Betty finished the Parle-G. Looked at Farhan. The looking that said: more? The more-question being the dog's eternal question, the question that was also the human's eternal question: is there more? And the answer being — the answer being the same for dogs and humans: sometimes there is more, sometimes the Parle-G is finished, and the finished is the acceptance and the acceptance is the peace.

"Kal aur laaunga," Farhan said to Betty. I'll bring more tomorrow.

The sentence that was — the sentence was the commitment. The commitment of a seventy-three-year-old man to a street dog, the commitment that was: I will provide for you, the providing being the thing that Farhan had stopped doing when Nasreen died (the stopping being: who was there to provide for? The providing needing a recipient and the recipient being gone and the gone being the stopping). Betty was the new recipient. Betty was the reason to carry Parle-G. The Parle-G being the currency of the commitment and the commitment being: purpose.

That evening, Ananya sat on the balcony with Betty at her feet. The September evening — the monsoon fully departed now, the air clear, the particular Pune September clarity that was the city's apology for the monsoon's violence (the violence being the flooding, the traffic, the waterlogging that turned Pune's roads into rivers and the rivers being the monsoon's particular contribution to Pune's chaos). The clarity was: you could see the hills. The hills that surrounded Pune — Sinhagad, Rajgad, the Sahyadri range — the hills that were invisible in the monsoon haze and that became visible in September and the visibility was: the landscape remembering itself, the remembering being: we are here, we have always been here, the haze was temporary.

Betty's head on Ananya's foot. The weight of the dog's head — the particular weight that was not heavy but present, the present-weight being the anchoring, the anchoring that said: you are here, I am here, the here is shared. The sharing being the simplest form of love and the simplest form being the most reliable.

Ananya texted Sahil: "I got a dog."

Sahil: "What kind?"

"The kind that follows you home on a bus."

"The best kind."

The exchange being — the exchange was becoming regular. The regular-exchange that couples-in-formation developed: the daily text, the checking-in, the sharing of small events that were, in their smallness, the building-blocks of intimacy. The blocks being: a dog, a bus, a Parle-G, a September evening. The blocks that, accumulated, became the structure and the structure was the relationship and the relationship was being built — one small text at a time, one small event at a time, the one-at-a-time being the patience that fifty had learned and that twenty had not known.