Happy Birthday Elsa

Today she would have been 14 years old. 

I just miss her so much. Even after three years, not a single day goes by when I don’t think about her. Anything and everything lovely reminds me of her. 

These pictures were taken in Jodhpur, when I was visiting my folks. I never saw her after these holidays. We still keep this bed of hers , a wrought iron settee , just as before.

We got this fancy wrought iron settee made for our hall. Elsa loved sitting on it, so much so that she would not let anyone else sit on it. This one time, we had a party at our home; two of the guests were sitting on it, sipping their drinks. Elsa came up to them and growled. Of course the ladies had to get up while Elsa parked herself on the settee. Everyone at the party was stunned. People knew we spoil Elsa, but even we were taken aback when she rudely asked the ladies to vacate. She would not even let us sit on the it. This one time she fought with me, when I wanted to relax on the settee and read a book. She just would not let me. So we fought and fought. I chucked her out of the room with an evil laugh and locked the hall door. She went and ransacked my bed and hid my socks. 

My father decided that since Elsa’ loves it so much, she must have one for herself. Our dad liked to spoil his girls. That's when we got 'Maddum' (that's what I sometimes called her) the smaller version made. It took her time to warm up to the new settee. She actually went from the bedroom to the hall several times the first few days, to what only looked like her comparing the beds. She would come to the hall, stare at the settee and then go back to the bedroom. God that was hilarious. Sometimes I would sit on her new bed, and she would give me this 'Stop taking up my space’ look. 

I miss her so much. 

Happy birthday Elsa! 

Elsa Diaries 4

I really miss Elsa. It’s been 2 years now. Life choices do keep me busy. I have so much to do, to decide, to understand and to choose. It is scary as every day I am made to realize the urgency of the decisions to be made. There’s always a flutter in my heart—I work, I study, I meet people, I fall in love, I fall out of love, friends depart, friends’ grow apart, new relationships are forged, domestic woes, living alone woes, maid and flat mate squabbles ,money, shopaholicism, loneliness, claustrophobia and the burning desire to do breakaway from mundane. Yes, Life does keep me busy.
But on the days that are the worst, when living gets overwhelming … I desperately look around to seek reprieve, and grieving for Elsa gives me a certain sense of relief. In a way I feel joyful. I go back into the past, to simpler times, I find myself reminiscing the times spent with her; the cuddling (she never cuddled much, hence they were precious), the chases, the games we played –hide and seek, our squabbles, her silly ball, I would steal, to peeve her , the companionship, and the walks. Ahh!!! The walks!!!! I shed tears, sometimes little, often buckets and then I go for a walk alone, I watch people, birds, dogs and cats , cars and buildings , I look away --- I stare at the sea, I stretch, I breathe and I sense calmness , I postpone life for a day and just feel.
Grieving for Elsa always helps…

Elsa Diaries 3

Before Elsa came into our lives, we three were quite indifferent to the existence of dogs. We neither loved them, nor did anything to harm them. After Elsa, our perception and sentiments underwent an overhaul. We fell in love with dogs, all kinds, big small, pets and pariah.
In Kalina, a bitch gave birth to three extremely cute puppies, two females and one male in the woods behind my house. Our neighbors’ daughter started taking care of them, but as you know how things like this go, after couple of weeks, when the pups started growing up, the mother (our neighbor that is) became rather impatient, and started discouraging the daughter from engaging the dogs too much.The daughter soon lost interest. The puppies would often stray into our back yard, and I would love playing with them. Elsa of course did not like them at all. She had an aversion to the folks from the canine family, all of them unfortunately.

Laali, Kaali and Faltu,I really don’t know who came up with the names, though my mother did have a knack for keeping uncanny and rather inane names.

Laali was a really beautiful bitch, a good looking one, she had very soft features and her coat was a yielding reddish brown. She was everyone’s darling, everyone of course comprised a small number of people.
Kaali was a black colored bitch and my favorite. She wasn’t very friendly, very wary of humans and always seemed troubled.
When she was a puppy, she’d been hit by a stick, luckily even though it was a bad hit, she survived and was perfectly fine within days. But I surmise she developed a sense of doubt and fear coupled with the realization that she was dependent on humans, so I presume this always kept her anxious and apprehensive. It took me a long time to befriend her; she would only come to me and my mother.
I think the regular feeding of the puppies started after Kaali was injured, she was suffering right in my backyard, and she was extremely cute.
Faltu, this bugger was a dirty brown, brusque fellow, extremely sociable and I think he spent a major part of his life trying to convince my family and couple of others to adopt him. I wish we had, Elsa of course would have been furious.
All three never grew too big, they were miniatures and I guess it increased their cute factor.

In matter of months, my family became the primary caretakers of the puppies. And the 4 years that we did, were extremely eventful, joyous and quite crazy.


---
It would be quite a task in containing Elsa, if she was out venturing in the garden, and the puppies would stray in too. She would bark wildly, chase them, and our entire garden would echo of frantic yelps and incessant barks. Elsa would chase them all over the garden, uprooting flower beds, trampling the vegetable beds. My mother use to occasionally leave out red chilies, raw mangoes and spices to dry out in the sun, they used to be placed on a bed sheet on the ground, and Elsa would run over them, ruining it all. But Elsa never hurt Laali, Kaali and Faltu.
And even though the chases often got difficult to handle, I remember we use to never be angry, it would always end in laughter, hugging all the dogs, providing them reassurance and solace. Like little children fighting in a park and parents getting involved. The analogy here is definitely open to debate. But that is how it was for me when I was kid.
I often replay the chases in my mind, the puppies would be playing in our back garden, I had a huge garden, well maintained and cared for. Suddenly Elsa would come out of nowhere, all of us would get mobilized, Munnu bhaiya,our gardener , my father if he was around, other helpers and me , running all over the garden, yelling out Elsa’s name with my mother rooted at a spot, not moving a muscle giving a running commentary, oh she’s gone there, chase her chase her, someone just pick up Kaali , Laali’s stuck in the hedge, get her, Is that Faltu running behind Elsa, get him get him, he’s such a silly dog and so on and so forth. The meal after these particular chases were indeed entertaining with each of us relating a different part, and Elsa sitting either at my feet or on the sofa, aware that we were discussing her exploits.

Elsa Diaries-2

We decided to call it a night. It was late (about 11 pm) and I had a chemistry paper the next day. I liked chemistry. We got up from the dining table and looked around for Elsa. It was a daily ritual and a habit before sleeping ;like sleeping itself, no matter what, we’d always take Elsa out for a walk; be 10 at night, or 2 in the morning after some party, and not any of those short- do your sussu walks, but a long walk. The walk was a healthy custom. Especially during our (dad and me) stormy fights, we would always resolve it on our walks, it always initiated a dialogue, then a discussion and finally a reconciliation. You see in these walks, Dad and me could never walk apart or too far away from each other. Elsa always made sure of that. If one of us would lag behind (it would always be me), Elsa would stop, and not budge an inch, till the person caught up.
When my parents were in Bombay, we lived on a tiny hill which was a small army cantonment with only one unit called Kalina military camp. It is a really charming place, with lots of trees, plants, flowers and a massive play ground. Very green and picturesque. It looked as if a small hill station had been compressed between two gates. There was only one concrete road which stretched between these two gates. Our walk started from one gate to the other, it was a reasonably long walk. Elsa loved these walks and would always get excited.
So this particular night, just when Dad was about to leash Elsa,I’ll have to stop here and interpose,Elsa loved chasing dogs, cats and lil children. When I look back at the initial years with Elsa, most of my memories get eclipsed by the chases. They were classic out of the movie chases; Elsa would just zip out and off we’d go running behind her, the entire camp echoing with my, my dad’s and Munnu bhaiyas screams. .. Elsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. It used to be quite a spectacle. The chases were innumerable and each with a unique twirl.
Back to the story; door was slightly open, there was a dog outside, sleeping (blissfully I am sure), Elsa barged out, my father was unable to leash her on time, and Elsa ran behind the dog. My father panicked.I’ll have to stop here again and include another piece of information;couple of nights before, an officer of the unit had lost his dog Pasha, it was a smart mountain breed, and it was never found again.
My father ran after Elsa, his slippers came off, and off he went chasing Elsa barefoot with extremely loose jammies on. I followed, went a short distance, came back picked up the forgotten leash and started again. I could see my father had already reached the next block. Now between our house and the next, there was a dark patch, no street lamps and flanked by heavy undergrowth. I kept running, panicking at the thought of Elsa being lost and sound of my father screaming.
Suddenly in the middle of the dark road, I noticed a silhouette and an outline of two standing ears. Elsa was sitting in the middle of the road, quite shaken. She had not gone very far, I think our screams and shouts and her inherent nature of not being too far away from us made her stop in her tracks, my father of course missed Elsa in the dark and continued running. By the time I called my father back, he’d already sent a search party out -perks of being a commanding officer in the army.
He bellowed at Elsa, who was clearly befuddled by our reaction. I could not help but grin after a huge sigh of relief…. My father had outrun Elsa.
We got home and related the entire story to mom, she infuriated dad even further with her Milkha Singh jokes. … Elsa retreated to her safe corner.
We were abruptly awakened at 2 in the night; Dad had forgotten to call off the search party… Elsa retreated even further off.

Elsa diaries-1

I just watched Marley and me, and all my memories, wonderful memories of ten years came rushing back. While watching the movie, I was transported into my life 12 years back; to the day we got Elsa home. The day had not really started well. We were moving to Bombay from Bathinda. Everything at home was a mess, tempers were high because our Truck was supposed to leave in a day and a lot of things remained unpacked and chaotic. Also we were to travel to Jalandhar to collect the pup; by late morning, we were contemplating ditching the idea of driving 250 kms. However it seemed that Mohey aunty had already started preparing dinner. It would’ve been rude not to go. The drive to Jalandhar was no better. Almost two accidents and a forgotten packed lunch later, we reached Jalandhar late night fuming and extremely hungry, attacked the dinner Mohey aunty had prepared for us, and were ready to call it a day. We were shown the pups, but the three of us were too tired to acknowledge and appreciate.
Next morning after breakfast, I saw Elsa with her mother Hilda in the garden. It was an extraordinary sight. Hilda was helping Elsa climb the stairs (an art Elsa finally learnt years later).They seemed to be in deep conversation, it looked as if mother was bracing her daughter for the future ahead. I had always been scared of Hilda, she was a big dog. She had this aura of ‘I’m no cuddly dog’. I dared not approach any of them. So I watched from a distance, Elsa was so tiny and delicate, but I could see she was a bouncy little thing. I loved her already.
And then mother and daughter were separated. It felt really cruel, I could feel both of them weeping, and it broke my heart. Elsa was the smallest of the 8 litters, the blessed 8th, and aunty also informed us that she was definitely the rogue of the bunch; I wasn’t surprised. We welcomed Elsa into our lives with open arms, excited at the prospect of nurturing and loving her. I got a glimpse of what my parents felt when I had been born, and clearly for all of us, Elsa was love at first sight.
And so started our life with Elsa.
Of course I’m sure Elsa did not feel the same at first. It was definitely not what she was expecting, not a warm beautiful home with a big garden her mommy might have told her about. She came into a completely disheveled half empty home, I could see the disappointment in her eyes, when I put her on the floor, she did not go venturing anywhere but gave a disapproving look around and then looked up at me with unsettled eyes. She stayed close to me the whole day. We hardly got much sleep that night, and most of the time Elsa slept on my lap making it very clear that she wasn’t very happy with the arrangements. We three were very eager to please Elsa, so we got her treats, played with her and tried to keep her happy while being in the constant frenzy of packing. She did respond warmly, but we all realized our lil’ Elsa had the ‘princess mentality’. And even though the last two days in Bathinda were hell, there was a change in our demeanor especially my father’s. Elsa’s arrival took the tension off the air. My father had been very high strung, constantly yelling when things weren’t going right but now he was calm and happy. Things continued to go awry, with stuff breaking while packing, constant mix ups, boxes not loading properly, but no one was particularly upset. I remember how one of the packers dropped a box while taking it downstairs and Elsa first giving a startled jerk and then barking stridently at the person, and we were all gushing over her reaction forgetting about the box. Elsa became the highlight of everything.
We moved into a guest room the day after our truck left for Bombay. Mohey aunty had warned us that when pups are separated from their mother, it takes them a while to settle to their new environment and might cry often. From what I remember, Elsa cried only the first night and that was because she did not find her bed (a cardboard box, which I had lovingly set up with our old clothes so that she gets use to our body scent) very comfortable. I got her up on my bed, and she slept quite blissfully and might I add horizontally—a habit which became a huge problem later as she grew in size. I smiled to myself as I felt Elsa’s warm fur close to my face and the gentle rhythm of her beating heart, she felt comfortable; Elsa had accepted us into her life too.