Archives for October, 2008
We used to read Archy and Mehitabel to Ayesha when she was little. Our apartment in Bombay was slightly roach infested, and she always felt that she should be charging the cockroaches rent, for using her room. She had a soft spot for the creatures, since one of them might be a poet, hammering out deathless verse on our old Hermes typewriter. When Ayesha got a cat from the Animal Rescue Shelter she called him Archy. He had been abandoned, and would have been put to sleep. Fortunately for him, and for all of us, Ayesha brought him home, and he has been her best friend for over 10 years now. He has seen her through law school, marriage, various jobs, two children, and eight changes of home.
Archy is a Russian blue. A handsome, and very photogenic cat. He weighs about twenty five pounds, compared to Yoda’s ten. He sits on Ayesha’s chest in the morning, and thumps his tail in a military tattoo till she wakes up and feeds him. A heavy cat is a lot more effective than an alarm clock. You can’t punch him into snooze mode.
The first time Yoda met Archy, he sniffed around him for a while, and then bounded toward him, tail wagging enthusiastically, wanting to make friends. Archy seemed intrigued by this furry little animal that was obviously not a cat.
Soon they settled into a routine. Yoda would chase Archy around the house, but he was always very careful never to catch him, just the way dogs make sure they never catch the cars they chase. When Archy got fed up, he would climb high up on a chair, or a table, look down and sneer at Yoda. Game over. Both of them would then just lie down, and take a nap.
Archy is always on a diet. He loves Yoda’s food though I am not sure if it is a matter of taste, or just sheer gluttony. The moment we put Yoda’s bowl down, both of them cluster around it, like a scene from the Lion King. No watering hole is more fraught with tension, as when the two of them bend their heads over the kibble.
Archy is on a form of Kitty Prozac, and feeding him his pills is a high risk activity. He has very sharp teeth, and I had no desire to be bitten. For about a week I had the job of giving him his meds. Each morning I would gingerly pull back one side of his mouth, and pop the pill in. He promptly spit it out. We would go through this again and again, as the pill got more and more soggy. Finally he would take pity on me, and open his mouth wide, so I could throw the pill in. Slam dunk! High Five! I’m the Michael Jordan of pill tossing.
One day I was baby sitting the two critters. Mina had gone out, and after a while I could not find either of them. I looked all over the apartment, and called out their names. But they seemed to be lost. I was in a panic. What if I had opened the door, and Archy had run out, and wandered off? If anything happened to either of them, I knew I was in big trouble.
Being beat up by both Mina and Ayesha is a fearsome prospect.
For half an hour I searched. And finally I looked under one of the beds. There was a small ledge under the bed, and sticking out over the side were two furry faces, and two pairs of beady little eyes smirking at me. They knew exactly what they had done, and seemed pleased to see me break out into a sweat. I started to get angry, and then began to laugh. How could I be upset at two little animals that had made a monkey out of me?
Oct 25, 2008 | | Book
Annadorai was a charismatic politician in South India. Way before Michael Jackson, he used to wear shades all the time. No single glove though. He had a beautiful Alsatian dog, who went everywhere with him. I used to see the pictures in the papers, and on the newsreels, and thought it was the height of cool. All the people around ‘Anna’ were very polite to the dog. I don’t know whose wrath they feared more, the dog’s or his master’s.
We decided to take Yoda everywhere with us – our office, our business meetings, sales conventions, negotiations. He had his carrying case, his little bowl for water, and a couple of spare mats in case he needed to go. We were set.
One of the joys of owning your own business, is that you can afford to develop a reputation for eccentricity. In some strange way, I think it adds to the aura. There is always a bit of myth making involved in running an organization. I guess there was a slight frisson when our Secretary told people ‘the Krishnans will bring their dog with them’. I am sure there was much rolling of eyes, though we never saw it.
At our office in Bombay, Yoda has a bed on which he sleeps most of the day. He wakes up to eat, or when there is a visitor. He must check everyone out. It’s a great ice breaker to have a dog come up and play, and we use him as a kind of Rorshach test on four legs. If he likes them, we like them. And vice versa.
We took Yoda to a meeting in the offices of a white shoe New York law firm. Interns came and took our coats, and first year associates ushered us into a conference room. The senior partner barreled in, and we asked if we could get some water for Yoda. The big man nodded at one of the associates who scurried off to get some eau pour la chien. My heart wept for this $120,000 a year, 4.0 summa cum laude graduate from the Ivy Leagues. So, this is what boot camp is all about.
Yoda is at his preening best when we take him to a store. All it takes is for one customer or sales assistant to come up and pay tribute, and suddenly he is the focus of all the action. He hams it up for the cameras, and we get shown pictures of other people’s pets. Quite often, he is taken away to be shown to the ‘people inside’. They offer him designer water that he gulps down. I watch with envy. I don’t have the panache to pick up his bowl and slake my own thirst. It takes us a while to get our shopping done, but we do get great service.
We like eating out a lot, and we always try to take Yoda with us. It’s a problem in the US, where health codes are quite strict. The better restaurants adopt a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ attitude towards Yoda. We walk in with his bag, not a care in the world, ask for a table in the corner, set Yoda down, pat him and he goes off to sleep. We walk out with him, with the same air of insouciance, and all is well. Of course they know we have a dog in the case. And of course they will say nothing, as long as he is well behaved, and we tip 25%. As a maitre d’ once told me, if we don’t see him, he’s not there.
In the simpler restaurants, we always try to go as a group. I walk in the middle holding Yoda’s bag, flanked by the rest of our entourage. We march in, dine, and march out in formation, like a Saudi oil prince flanked by his body guards.
In Europe Yoda is welcome in all restaurants. Usually the waiters bring him water, and want to know if he would like some food. At Les Crayeres in Reims, the maitre d’ came to give Yoda a special welcome. We asked if he could get a little boiled chicken. Small problem, since Michelin three star restaurants don’t seem to have chicken on the menu.
A few minutes later, the waiter brought a plate, covered with a silver dome. He took off the dome with a flourish, and there in a silver bowl lay some tender pieces of lamb. Yoda ate very well that night. For free.
In India we prefer not to roll the dice. Yoda stays at home with his baby sitter. We go out, dine well, and try to keep a straight face when the waiter asks us if we would like the left- overs in a doggy bag. If only they knew.
Oct 24, 2008 | | Book
Sanjana posted a comment about her challenges in bringing her cat India to India. What awonderful name to pick for a stray cat adopted in Singapore. What an absolute nightmare to be sent off to the Quarantine Shed at Bombay airport in the middle of the night. If I remember right, it is located in the middle of a field, and I am sure you can hear coyotes( or their Indian brethren) howling at the moon. I’ve always felt that anyone sent to quarantine in India has very little chance of surviving the experience.
Bureaucrats are men(and women) with small minds, big egos and giant feelings of inadequacy. Like vampires, they come into their own after midnight, which is usually when we are trying to navigate past customs in India, either on our way out of the country, or on our way back.
Every time we check in at the airport, we ask the Lufthansa staff to give us a boarding pass for the dog. No, we are not trying to be cute, we just know what lies ahead when the folks at Security see Yoda. ‘ Kutte ka ticket liya kya?’ I go into Zen mode and refrain from asking what business it is of theirs. When did they become commission agents for Lufthansa? ‘Kuch to paper chahiye’. This ten pound dog is obviously the biggest security risk they have to contend with.
Mina has taken to drowning them with mounds of paper. She pulls out a fat envelope with medical certificates from India, the US and the EU. There are rabies titre tests, the microchip papers, papers stamped by the USDA at JFK, his breed standard certificate. The only thing missing is a hard cover copy of this book, but one day we will have that too.
It’s a classic Mexican stand-off. They lead with their questions, Mina ups the ante with her envelope, they want to see proof, Mina offers them three kinds….you can almost hear the music from the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns rising to a crescendo.
Once again we are through, cleared to leave the country, but we know that we will run the gauntlet on our return.
I am always one to find a silver lining. I was doing research on the net to see if we could take Yoda with us on a trip to China. After wading through all the rules there was only one conclusion – it all depended on the mood of the Customs officer. Yes, the Chinese just ran a brilliant Olympics, and they put people into space. But there is no way I will trust Yoda’s fate to a sleepy bureaucrat who may think that a Shih Tzu is a good Sunday meal.
I’ll brave the Indian process any day. Whatever happens, Yoda wont get eaten.
Oct 23, 2008 | | Book
A famous food journalist once gave me her rule for photographing people. ‘Never shoot below the waist’. Good advice, but lost on all the people who have to ask questions that pertain to the nether region. Does Clinton wear boxers or briefs? Exactly how clad was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, when she crossed her legs? What brand of toilet paper does the Queen of England use?
When it comes to Yoda and flying, everyone has the question that they are dying to ask. What does he do, when he needs to go? This was also on top of our mind, when we took him from New York to Bombay for the first time. Where would Yoda go to the bathroom on the plane. He had already been “paper trained”, so he went on his little paper mats that we had spread out all over the house. But what does a dog do on the plane? Each flight would be at least 7 to 8 hours long. Would he be able to hold on till we landed?
Yoda’s breeder told us to lay one of his paper mats at the bottom of his case, so that he could go on it. It seemed a silly idea, like putting a toilet seat in the living room, but she said that her dogs always traveled this way. You tend not to argue with an expert.
We got on to the plane, placed the mat in his case, and sat him down. He was very nervous till the plane took off, and then he settled down and went off to sleep. Once in a while he would open his little eyes, and check if he could see Mina. He had already decided that as long as she was around, he would be safe and secure.
At night, he woke up and began to scrabble in his case. He managed to tear the paper mat, and all the paper inside began to float up. It looked like a snow storm. In a little while he was completely covered with the little pieces of paper, and a lot of it got into his hair. He looked like Puff the magic dragon. I tried to clean him up, but the pieces were too small, and too many for me to handle.
The plane landed at Zurich and I took Yoda to the bathroom to try and get him clean and paper free again. It was quite a sight. Here I was, a grown man, with a little hairy dog, standing in front of the sink trying to brush out the little flecks of paper.
It’s a good thing that men who go into a restroom in an airport are full of purpose. They stride in, do their business, zip up, often don’t wash, and then stride out. Amazing the things you notice when you spend a lot of time in one place.
I got some very strange looks from everyone who came in. Fortunately airport toilets are not a good place to strike up conversations, and I got no feedback, or silly questions. This was Europe, where everyone preserves a certain distance. I hate to think what would have happened in Manhattan. Opinion though seemed equally divided between ‘dog lover’ and ‘pervert’. I could see it in their eyes.
With a combination of my determination, Yoda’s patience, lots of warm water and paper towels, and the warm dryer, I managed to clean Yoda up. When I emerged from the bathroom almost an hour later, Mina asked me “What were you doing in there for so long?” Words failed me.
Yoda’s mat is now placed beside his case, not inside it. No more paper snowstorms. No more adventures in airport restrooms. And Yoda has learned to hold it in till we get to our destination.
Oct 23, 2008 | | Book
