Chapter 4: Veer

# Chapter 4: Veer

## The Dog

The cot's canvas was tight and rough under his back, the metal frame pressing into his shoulder blades.

It's the following week that it happens. That we find him.

We are out for an evening walk, no more, no less. Pallavi said she felt cooped up, which did not surprise me because she had not been outside the model flat for over a week. She had become the creature of the indoors, me of the outdoors. It was she who insisted that I come with her. And for once, she has trusted me with Kiaan. He hangs from my chest in his orange baby carrier, occasionally gurgling but quite content with observing, the observing (activity of a six-week-old who had no fra m)e of reference for what he was seeing: streets, buildings, parked vehicles, stray dogs, that emptiness of a Pune neighbourhood at 6 PM that should have been noisy with returning-from-work traffic and was instead silent.

Perhaps Pallavi feels guilty for ignoring me. Even though, in her defence, I should feel just as bad.

We have said so little to each other in the past few days that for the first ten minutes of our walk, we barely make conversation. It is the unnatural state of things that has become natural between us. Instead, we pass through the streets, the streets of Baner that were designed for two-wheelers and SUVs and that now belonged to the crows and the dogs and the two humans and the baby who walked through them. The only sounds: the wind against our faces, the thud of our chappals on the road, the distant bark of a dog three streets away. I shifted the weight. The cutting shifted too.

The sun is beginning to dip behind the hills. The hills: Pune's western hills, the hills that separated Baner from Pashan and Pashan from the university area, the hills that were the city's spine and that caught the sunset and turned it into a orange-pink that Pune's evening sky produced: the colour of gulmohar petals, the colour that postcards captured and that the real thing exceeded.

I am thinking of suggesting to Pallavi that we turn back, the streetlights no longer work, and it will not be long before we are in total darkness, the total darkness, which was new world's night: darker than any night the city had known because the city had always had lights and the lights were gone and the gone meant that Pune's night was now the night that the city had not experienced in a hundred years: the pre-electricity night, the night that the villages knew and the city had forgotten.

But as I spot the creature lying on its side in the middle of the road, I am ripped from my concerns.

My jaw drops. I make to say something to Pallavi. But she is already running.

She charges away from me. Drops to her knees beside the creature. The creature being: the creature, which was a dog. A Labrador. Brown. Thin, so thin that every rib is visible, the ribs that was map of starvation, the map that the body produced when the body had not eaten for days: the ribs emerging from beneath the skin like the ridges of the Sahyadri emerging from beneath the monsoon clouds, the emerging. Revelation that hunger produced.

"Veer, jaldi, idhar aa!"

I have been rooted to the spot but now I sprint — Kiaan bouncing against my chest as I run, the bouncing — the motion that Kiaan had become accustomed to: the bounce of being carried by a running man through a dead city.

Standing over Pallavi, I take in the dog fully. "Bhagwan. Yeh, yeh zinda hai?"

Oh god. Is he, is he still alive?

"Haan. Mushkil se. Dekh iski pasliyan. Bhooka hai. Kitne dinon se nahi khaya hoga."

Yes. Barely. Look at his ribs. He's starving. Who knows how many days since he last ate.

The slight rise and fall of the chest. Barely perceptible. The tongue lolling from the mouth, the mouth that was dry, dehydration that accompanied starvation, the dryness, the dehydration —: the body consuming itself, the body eating its own reserves, the body running on the last fuel that the body possessed. I leaned harder. The roughness grounded me.

"Toh kya karein?"

What do we do?

"Kuch karna padega. Aise nahi chhod sakte."

We have to do something. We can't just leave him.

"Agar beemar hai toh? Agar. Agar mar gaya toh?"

What if he's sick? What if — what if he dies?

"Bachana padega. Koshish toh karni padegi."

We have to save him. We at least have to try.

Tears pooling in her eyes. And as my stomach plummets, I know one thing: that Pallavi is right. We cannot let this dog die. For days, I have been a ghost: drifting, cycling through the same loop of grief and routine. But now, suddenly, I have been given a purpose.

"Theek hai. Tu Kiaan le."

Okay. You take Kiaan.

We swap Kiaan over to Pallavi — a clumsy job, the swapping of a baby carrier in the middle of a Baner road at sunset being the kind of operation that required two more hands than we had. But once Pallavi has Kiaan attached, I kneel down to the dog.

Ever so gently, I push my hands and forearms underneath him. I have never had a dog: not since Raja, the Indie who had been my childhood companion in the Kothrud flat from when I was four until I was twelve, the twelve, the year thatRaja died and that my mother said "ab aur nahi, bahut roya Veer". No more, Veer cried too much. And that was the end of dogs in the Kothrud flat.

But now, pushing my arms beneath this Labrador. Feeling the curve of his bony ribs against my fingers, the ribs, which was architecture of starvation, the architecture that the body built when the body was being demolished — I feel my heart judder. The judder, the recognition: *this is a living thing. This is a living thing that is dying.

As I lift his small weight from the road, the weight — small because the weight was the weight of a starving dog, the weight of bones and skin and the familiar lightness that starvation produced, and hold his body close to my chest, I whisper: "Ruk ja, bhai. Ruk ja."

Hold on, boy. Hold on.

And in that moment, I feel something in the dog's deadweight change, something shifts, some cellular recognition that he is being held and the being-held is the thing that the body has been waiting for. His right ear twitches. Barely. But it happens, unquestionably.

There is strength in him yet.

"Chal," I say to Pallavi. "Jaldi."

We have a newfound energy as we charge through the streets. Every few seconds I mutter things to the dog: "Pahunch gaye, bhai. Bas thoda aur." Almost there, boy. Just a bit more. His skeletal body feels so fragile in my arms — the fragility, the fragility of the living that is approaching the border of the dead, the border that the body approaches when the body has exhausted all resources and the all-resources: last fat and the last muscle and the last glycogen and the last everything.

His chest rises and falls. Rapid, shallow breaths. The breathing: the proof of life. I am on edge — knowing that at any moment, the rising and falling might stop and the stopping would be the end.

But the rising and falling does not stop. And soon we are back at the model flat, and Pallavi is fumbling with the keys, and we are stepping inside, the sun having nearly disappeared, the tip of its head keeping us from total darkness.

Pallavi grabs the camping light. Switches it on. The light illuminating the hallway in harsh white, the surgical white, the white that surgeons used as they saved lives.

We go straight to the dining table. Pallavi holds the light as I lay the dog on the tabletop, gently, so gently that it takes several moments for his limbs to settle, the settling that was body finding a new surface and the surface, the wooden dining table that the developer had placed for staging and that was now an operating table, the operating table on which we would attempt to save a life.

"Towel laungi," Pallavi says, then runs upstairs. I hear her feet on the stairs: the stairs that was model flat's staircase that connected the ground floor to the first floor, the first floor having a second bedroom that we used as storage.

Meanwhile, I study the dog. His thin legs. His narrow waist. His floppy ears hanging over his distant face. His coat, a dull brown, thin in patches, the patches, the signs of malnutrition.

But someone had cared for this dog. Around his neck: a collar. The collar is loose, so loose that the looseness confirmed that this dog had been full and healthy not long ago, the not-long-ago — before, the before, time when someone had fed this dog and walked this dog and loved this dog.

From the collar hangs a tag. I take the tag between my thumb and index finger. Turn it to the light.

One word.

Bholu.

I run the tips of my fingers over one of his ears. The ear so cold: the coldness: body's shutdown, the shutdown that the body performed when the body was conserving the last heat for the last organs. "Theek hai, Bholu," I say. This time, he gives no response.

Tears pressing against my eyes. This dog did not deserve this. And neither did his owner. I have no doubt what happened to the owner.

Pallavi rushes back with towels. She thrusts one to me, tucks another beneath Bholu. I lay mine over him. Swaddling him, the swaddling, wrapping that saidwarm. Safe. Held.

"Paani chahiye," she says. "Aur khaana."

Water. And food.

We don't have dog food. But after a flash: "Tuna. D-Mart se laye the. Dabba mein hai."

Tuna. From D-Mart. In the tin.

Pallavi searches the kitchen shelf. Past the dal, past the rice, past the Parle-G. She finds the tuna tin — the tuna, the backup protein, the protein that we had carried from D-Mart not for ourselves but for the just-in-case, the just-in-case being the Indian survival instinct: always carry more than you need because the more-than-you-need is the margin between surviving and not-surviving.

She opens the tin. I put water in a steel bowl, the water, the Bisleri water from our supply, the supply that was diminishing and that would need replenishing and that was the most precious thing in the model flat because water was life and life was the thing we were protecting.

I bring the water bowl to Bholu. Lift his head; gently, so gently, and tilt the bowl toward his mouth. The water touching his lips, the lips that are cracked and dry.

Nothing. No response.

I try again. Tip the bowl a fraction more. The water touching his tongue.

And then, a lick. A single lick. The tongue moving, slowly, weakly, but moving. The licking, the response that I had been waiting for. The response that said: alive. Thirsty. Wanting.

"Pallavi! Pi raha hai!"

He's drinking!

She comes with the tuna. She puts a small piece near his nose. The nose twitches. The twitching, the olfactory response, the nose recognizing food the way the tongue had recognized water: slowly, from a distance, like a light being turned on in a room that has been dark for a long time.

He does not eat the tuna. Not yet. But the nose twitching is enough. The nose twitching is the sign that says: give him time. Give him water. Give him warmth. Give him the night.

We give him the night.

I stay with Bholu. I stay at the dining table, sitting in one of the six chairs, my head resting on my arms on the table beside the dog. The camping light on the lowest setting, the lowest setting, the battery-conservation setting, the conservation, which was necessary because batteries were finite and the finite was the new world's currency: everything was finite now. Water, gas, batteries, food, daylight, hope.

Pallavi goes upstairs with Kiaan. She feeds him. She puts him to bed. She comes back downstairs. Comes back and stands in the kitchen doorway and looks at me and looks at Bholu and says: "Kal subah, kal subah dekhte hain."

Tomorrow morning. We'll see tomorrow morning.

I nod. She goes back upstairs.

I stay. I stay with the dog. I stay because: because staying with the dog is the thing I can do. I cannot bring Harsh back. I cannot bring my parents back. I cannot fix the world. I cannot undo the virus. But I can stay with a dog. I can sit beside a dog who is dying and I can be the presence that the dog feels in the dark, the presence that says *you are not alone, Bholu.

The night passes. The camping light dims, the dimming (battery's decline), the decline — slow fade that preceded the dark. I doze. I wake. I check Bholu's breathing. The breathing continues. Shallow but steady, the steady, which was the body's refusal to quit, the refusal that I recognize because I have the same refusal: the refusal to quit, the refusal to stop, the refusal to lie down and let the world's ending be my ending.

At 3 AM, I wake from a doze to find Bholu's eyes open.

His eyes are brown. Warm brown, the brown of a dog who has been loved, the brown that love produces in the eyes of animals who have known kindness. The eyes looking at me. The eyes saying, the eyes saying nothing in words and everything in the way that animal eyes say everything: I see you. I am here. I am still here.

"Bholu," I whisper.

His tail moves. The tail's movement. The tail's movement being a twitch, a fraction of a wag, the fraction (fraction of strength that the body has co n)served for this moment: the moment of recognition. The moment of I am not alone.

I reach for the water bowl. Bring it to his mouth. He drinks. He drinks more than any previous time, long, deep gulps, the gulps: thirst of a body that has been dehydrated for days and that now, having decided to live, needs water the way a rabi crop needs the February irrigation: desperately, gratefully, completely.

"Bahut achha. Shaabaash."

Very good. Well done.

I offer the tuna. He looks at it. Looks at me. And then; slowly, with the deliberation of a dog who is using the last of his strength, he takes the tuna from my fingers. Chews. Swallows.

The swallowing. The swallowing — the first food in however many days. The first fuel. The first sign that the body has chosen: life.

I stroke his head. He closes his eyes. In pleasure, this time.

When I realize that Bholu is asleep again, I stop stroking. Content myself with watching. His breathing has changed. Long, calm inhalations. The calm: the sign that the body is no longer fighting. The body is resting. The body has made its decision and the decision is: stay.

Twenty minutes pass before I hear Kiaan's cry upstairs.

A few minutes later, Pallavi comes downstairs with Kiaan in her arms.

"Tu mujhe kyun nahi bulaya?" she says. Why didn't you come get me?

"Usne aankhein kholi! Aur paani piya! Aur tuna khaya!"

He opened his eyes! And drank water! And ate tuna!

"Sach mein? Wah! Lekin; lekin tune poori raat yahan baithi hai.

Really? Wow! But; you've been sitting here all night. You must be exhausted.

I shrug. "Thoda so liya. Main soch raha tha ki ab woh theek hai: ki constant supervision ki zaroorat nahi hai."

I slept a little. I figured he's okay now, doesn't need constant supervision.

"Hmm. Bhagwan. Uski aankhein dekh. Kitni pyaari hain."

Oh god. Look at his eyes. How beautiful they are.

He is a beautiful dog. Even starving, even skeletal, there is something in the face, the face of a dog who has been loved and who remembers being loved and who is looking at two new humans and deciding whether these new humans can be trusted.

"Chai banaun?" she asks. Shall I make tea?

"Haan. Please."

She disappears into the kitchen. I hear the gas stove click, ignition. The click, the ignition, the start of the morning ritual thatPallavi has established in the model flat: chai at dawn. The ritual, which was the anchor — the anchor that held the day to the morning and the morning to the routine and the routine to the sanity.

She returns with two steel glasses of chai, the chai, which was the chai that Pallavi makes, the chai that is nothing like my mother's chai (my mother's chai being the benchmark against which I measured all chai and found all chai wanting) and that is also nothing like Pallavi's mother's chai (Pallavi's mother's chai being the benchmark against which Pallavi measured all chai including her own) and that is, instead, Pallavi's chai: strong, too much sugar, the elaichi crushed roughly instead of finely, the roughly-crushed being Pallavi's style, approximate, energetic, the style of a woman who did things quickly because doing things quickly was her tempo and her tempo was not wrong, her tempo was hers. I shifted the weight. The cutting shifted too.

We sit at the dining table. The dining table that has been the operating table and that is now the breakfast table and that is now the surface of our morning, the morning, which was the first morning that feels, the first morning that feels like a morning. Not like a continuation of the night. Not like the absence of sleep. But like a morning. A morning with chai and a dog and a baby and the March sunlight coming through the kitchen window and the unmistakable quality of the light falling on the vitrified tiles and the grey sofa and the wooden dining table and the dog who is sleeping on the towels with his chest rising and falling in the calm rhythm of a body that has decided to live.

"Veer."

"Haan?"

"Bholu. Achha naam hai."

Bholu. Good name.

"Haan. Tag pe tha."

Yes. It was on his tag.

"Jisne bhi yeh naam rakha, jisne bhi iska naam Bholu rakha: woh achha insaan tha."

Whoever named him; whoever named him Bholu — was a good person.

The sentence. The sentence that was, the sentence, the eulogy. The eulogy for a dog owner who was dead and whose dog was alive and whose dog's name was the only thing that remained of the owner: Bholu. The name that the owner had chosen. The name that meant innocent, simple, the name that the owner had given to the puppy and that the puppy had grown into and that the dog now carried as the owner's final gift.

I drink the chai. The chai warming the chest that has been cold all night. The warming, the chai's function: the function that had nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with the warmth, comfort that. The warmthIndian chai provided: not the taste but the temperature, not the flavour but the feeling, the feeling: *held. Warmed.

The morning continues. Kiaan feeds. Bholu sleeps. The sun rises over Baner.

We are three now. Three-and-a-half.

Veer, Pallavi, Kiaan, and Bholu.

The family that the virus made.