The Lady is a Tramp

(Another favourite article - this was published long ago in The Indian Express)
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THE LADY IS A TRAMP

One day, I saw an abandoned dog whose ladylike mannerisms and gentle disposition appealed to me. I brought her home and decided to call her Laika.

"Either that dog lives in this house or I do!" pronounced my aunt, dramatically packing her bags and threatening to go and live in an old people's home. My mother reproached me for the dharamsankat that my action had put her in and spent a sleepless night anticipating sister-in-law trouble.

The next morning, I saw Laika sitting at my aunt's feet and looking up at her with mournful brown eyes. My aunt was gingerly patting her and asking, "Kya khayegi? Omelette aur bread khayegi?”

Thereafter, Laika adopted the old lady, and in no time, she had trained her to hand out biscuits and wafers, chaklis and chiwdas, chips and chocolates every half hour or so. The two of them got along fine and we soon had a thoroughly pampered, roly-poly Laika waddling around the house.

"If the dog is fat, the owner isn't getting enough exercise," chided the vet, but each time we took her for long walks, she huffed and puffed along so heavily that my Dad especially felt sorry for her. "Don't torture her, she's too old for such strenuous routines," he said time and again. Before long, her walks were restricted to twenty-minute strolls down the lane and Laika spent her days leading a life of happy inertia, barking at crows twice a day for exercise.

She got everything she wanted - a biscuit on demand, a pat on demand, a meal on demand, a hug on demand - everything except sex on demand.

When she came into season, I couldn't handle her. One morning, she woke the household very vociferously at 4.30 a.m. Milady was restless and wanted the balcony doors to be opened for her. My mother obliged and she sat there looking out, howling loudly, barking, crying, whimpering and making all kinds of embarrassing noises. "Hush!" I scolded and dragged her inside, but she growled at me and almost bit me, so I left her alone and tried to go back to sleep, the house and the neighbourhood meanwhile reverberating with her sound effects.

Attracted by all those seductive noises, two dogs came and sat on the pavement down below, looked up at her quite lovingly and wagged their tails non-stop. They weren't exactly handsome specimens either - one of them was scruffy-looking, the other patchy with mange.

"Laika! Don't you have any taste?" I accused her, but Laika just looked at them, howled enticingly, squealed coquettishly, and yowled invitingly. She kept running to the front door, wanting to be let out.

To humour her, I took her down for an early morning walk. It was a mistake. Her paramours followed her at an uncomfortably close distance. I wasn't armed with sticks or stones to ward off the suitors, so I flapped my arms about in frenzy, trying to protect Laika's honour. But the lady was a tramp; she didn't want her honour protected... I quickly bent down, picked her up in my arms and carried her back home, while she looked longingly at her admirers from over my shoulder, whimpered sadly, and generally behaved like a tragedy queen of yore.

I had to take leave from work in order to chaperone her, since she was "my" dog, and had to be very alert all the while. Each time the door opened, Laika somehow managed to give us the slip and go bounding down at top speed to meet the objects of her affection, while I, guardian of her morals, kept running down barefoot in hot pursuit, trying to prevent any amorous mishaps from occurring.

Evening saw me a nervous wreck. I was exhausted from playing police and listening to her never-ending wails and ululations. I phoned the vet and related the events of the day. He laughed and suggested Calmpose. For a moment I thought the good man was prescribing the sedative for me. "If one doesn't work, give her two tomorrow night. This will go on for about a week."

The Calmpose had little effect. The next morning, her acoustics began much before dawn. “Oh, no! That nymphomaniac is up already," I moaned, taking a deep breath and bracing myself for what lay ahead. While the neighbours collectively wondered if it was an ill omen when a dog 'cried' like that, I privately wondered how I could pack Laika into a virginity sack.

Mercifully, this was the only fertile phase of hers that we witnessed. We were debating on the pros and cons of getting her operated but were spared taking a decision when she developed an infection and had to be sterilised. Her life remained a contented continuum of sluggish lethargy - with a biscuit on demand, a pat on demand, a meal on demand, a hug on demand...