Heavy Petting

First the updates:

1.We’ve new additions to the family…six new goldfishes, named after the entire cast of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

2.My little “dramebaaz”(her histrionics has earned her the nickname) cousin, Pooja, feels her social life is ruined. She lost her front teeth! It makes me sad that she’s growing up so fast. Just the other day she was born…

Pooja, a few days back:

Pooja now: (The kid has every reason to get scared!)

3.A trip to my hometown, Jorhat (in Assam) is due next week. Superrrrrrrr excited. The best-est place in the whole world.

Now back to the original blog post. At the risk of earning the wrath of all the people who read this blog (there are few, right??), I want to confess that I am not overly fond of animals. I don’t hate animals but not an enthusiastic animal lover even. I love dogs. And I absolutely detest birds. I’m terrified of birds and my allergies start acting up even if I see a stray feather. The goldfishes are the first pets we have after ten long years.

My father had brought home a pup in 1980, five years before I was born. His name was Tipu (after The Tipu Sultan); don’t ask what made my father name it so. After I was born, Tipu had been my constant companion for eleven years. He used to follow me around everywhere and was very protective of me. Once when I was around five years old, I was playing in the neighborhood park and accidentally fell down and bruised my knee. A man sitting nearby came rushing to help me get up from the ground, but he was in for a shock! He had to be rushed to the doctor for anti-rabies shots in the next few minutes. Tipu didn’t let anyone apart from family to even come near me. He used to sense my arrival even before I reached home after school. I never took special care of him. Apart from the regular baths and half-yearly visits to the vet, there were no fancy pet treatments, no regular walks and no special dog food in our pet care routine back then. He used to accompany us on walks, play with us in the evenings after school, ate whatever was cooked at home; complete fuss free pet. And he lived for sixteen years and was healthy till the last couple of months of his life. He died when I was 11 years old. It was the first time I saw my father cry. Their bond was the most special. My father had brought him home and took care of him for 16 years. The loss of a pet can be very distressing. It took me a long time to get used to the fact that Tipu won’t come running to greet me each time I came home. I lost the first friend I had, my constant companion. I sulked for days. My parents began to worry. They got another dog, named him Tipu too; but I was even more hurt and angry that they were trying to replace our first pet. I avoided the new pet for few days but he was way too cute to be ignored. But he was killed two years later by some miscreants, when he had wandered out of home one night. No one in the family could bear the loss of another pet and resolved not to bring in anymore.

Our house back then was full of birds and cows and goats at the farm in our backyard that was run by my grandmother. And still is. But bringing home a proper pet, like a dog or a cat was out of question. And now our family has shifted to a new city, new apartment, which lacks the adequate space to rear a pet; and the lack of dog lovers in the neighborhood doesn’t help either. But as of now, I’m happily watching the antics of Phoebe, Rachael, Monica, Joey, Ross, and Chandler (our new goldfishes)!

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