Three Black Spots

The Minimalist

Five am at the airport lounge in Bombay. A man zips past security, settles down next to me, whips out his celphone and tells his wife ‘ I’m here at the airport’. I tried to imagine the scene at the other end. She must have just been dropping off to sleep, having seen her beloved off, and wham, he’s on the phone to give her the Pilgrim’s Progress Report.

‘Hey, I’m at the grocers’. ‘ I’m in the Peanut butter aisle’. ‘ I’m standing in front of the biggest cantaloupes you’ve ever seen’.‘ I’m in line at the checkout counter’. ‘I’m getting into the car’. ‘ See you in a few’.

None of this for Yoda. No barking endlessly, no minute to minute updates. No endless texting, or ‘Wassup’ calls. He is from the Less is More school. He could easily lead a Master Class on the Sound of Silence.

We had taken Yoda to dine at Joel Robuchon’s restaurant in Paris. The hotel concierge had checked, and they were okay with the pooch, as long as he was suitably caged. Yoda’s bag passed muster, and we were ushered into the most elegant dining room in the world, styled like a library.

Dining at a master’s restaurant is like going to a Picasso exhibit. There is an air of excitement, held in by a hushed and reverent silence. You know that everyone wants to High Five, but dare not. We waited for the menu to be offered , and settled down for some serious contemplation. If I had paid this kind of attention to my college texts, I would have graduated Summa Cum.

Then Yoda barked. One sharp low decibel bark. Almost sotto voce. His goal was to alert us, but just us, to a need, and even people at the next table did not hear him. One look at his shiny eyes, and we knew what he wanted. A quick walk later, Yoda was back under Mina’s chair, light of heart and bladder.

Memory is a wonderful thing. Ask me what I remember of the meal, and I can only recall a seafood degustation. But to this day, I can hear the bark.

Yoda is the minimalist communicator. He has different modes. The first is the Look. You know that someone is looking intently at you, and when you turn around, there he is. A shake of the head, or a slight movement of his body and you know what he wants. If the Look fails, there is the Paw. A gentle nudge, no unseemly scrabbling at your trouser leg. And when all else fails, there is the Bark.

He uses the Bark almost every time we get on to a plane. His bag has been zipped up for boarding, and we set it down by our seats, as we stow our bags. One sharp bark reminds us that he is there, he is hot, and its time to unzip his bag. He too needs to check out the seats, the airline carpeting, his fellow passengers and the flight attendants. One day, I am sure he will ask for the inflight magazine, to look at the Duty Free.

Many years ago, in the days B.Y.( before Yoda) we heard Ivan Illyich speak in Bombay. He said that just as the spaces between the spokes of a wheel are necessary to define its shape, so is silence necessary to make communication complete. Yoda understands this full well.

He is the minimalist par excellence, a Koolhund, even though he has never designed a boutique hotel or a Prada showroom. Wasted effort is not his thing. He knows that the raised eyebrow is the grandest gesture, and the lower you talk, the more people strain to listen.

One day, Nokia will launch the doggy celphone. They will find a way to make it paw friendly. That’s a given.

I know we will get Yoda one. In sleek silver. When it rings, I am sure he will catch my attention. His body language will say ‘Would you please get the phone. Whoever it is, I’m not in’.

Hund Wagen

Fifty Eight is not the new Forty Five. I should know.

I am 58, and have been hefting Yoda in his carry case for the last twelve years. I can measure the passage of time with the distance of the airport walkways I can traverse without setting the bag down, or shifting it from one hand to another. Ditto for malls. Nine and a half pounds of dog and six pounds of bag are not as light as they used to be.

It’s not easy to acknowledge that some things one can no longer do. Not when one is surrounded by titans who seem to have vanquished time with their energy. Think Rupert Murdoch. What can you say about a man, whose new wife extols his virtues with the words ‘He uses Viagra, but he doesn’t need to’.

We needed to find a solution, to the challenge of carrying Yoda great distances. He has never walked too long. Not for lack of energy, but our fear that he would get his coat dirty and need a grooming ahead of his time. These things cost money, you know.

We needed to get him a doggy stroller. A visit to Babies R Us convinced us that the conventional baby stroller would not do. Dogs do not lie happily on their backs the way babies do. We took to looking carefully at babies on the street, not at the little tykes, but their strollers. No luck. Not a single pooch-ready McLaren in sight.

The first contraption we got was just like a back pack with wheels and an extendable handle. Yoda sat in it at an angle, and anytime we were not on smooth ground, he bumped and bounced all the way. Not good.

For a while I toyed with the idea of a Segway. The cool quotient alone would be worth it. Not practical. Just the logistics involved in carting one of those things around the world, was enough to make my head explode.

Justpetstrollers.com rode in to the rescue. A range of strollers meant for cats and dogs. Various sizes. Blue or pink. Various brands. No Ferrari, not yet anyway. Yoda could sit in it comfortably on a soft padded cushion. There was a strap to hook his harness . No chance of him jumping out. There was the obligatory hood, the pouch at the back for all the baby essentials like his water and cup, and a brake to lock the wheels. As suburban mommy as one could get.

When people see a stroller they expect to see a baby inside. We get great double takes, when people discover that our baby has whiskers, and a tail. We have become a walking ad for these strollers. People ask us where we got it, and we hand out the name of the website.

One day we will demand commissions or at least a brand ambassador’s fee. If Gisele Bundchen can do it, so can we.

The stroller gets checked in at airports, and when we land it is wonderful to see the ground staff hurry towards us clutching it in their hands. ‘For the baby’. Airline training comes to their rescue when they see us rip off the plastic bag , open it up and deposit Yoda in it. No sniggers, no looks, just a ‘ Have a nice day’ as they stride off to help the next set of kooks.

Big question. What to call the buggy? A dog stroller, or pooch buggy was not elegant enough. A Chariot was too Ben Hur, and Canine Rolls was a tad pretentious. Paws on Wheels was too twee. Sometimes you have to look beyond one language to find the mot juste.

It was in Frankfurt last Christmas that we discovered the perfect name. We were walking down the Hauptstrasse, looking at all the little shops with tree ornaments and other festival doodads. A mother and daughter couple stopped to pay homage to the pooch. As they left, they patted the stroller and the daughter said ‘ Schon Hund Wagen’.

I don’t smoke, and so have nothing to give up in the cause of good health. But I am sure the Wagen has extended my life by a good two to three years. I am now ready to go cruise the Mall of America. Just like any sprightly 45 year old.

The 18 pound gorilla

I have learned never to get into a test of wills with Mina. She cheerfully confesses that as a child she used to have her way by holding her breath till she turned blue. Once she got what she wanted, the pink returned to her cheeks, and her breathing went back to a gently steady rhythm.

When she wanted to up the ante, she lay down on the ground , drummed her heels and screamed at the top of her voice. This was the nuclear option, reserved only for the really important things like a stuffed toy that she was once denied. Not for long.

She practices a different form of satyagraha as an adult, but the results are as effective. If Gandhi had her by his side, the Brits might have left India a full Viceroy earlier. Such is the power of the determined soul who is prepared to play the game of Extreme Chicken.

Yoda has inherited this streak from his Alpha Dog. He is normally the most pliant of fellows, always ready to do your bidding, and win your heart. But every once so often, the iron enters his soul. ‘Enough already’ is his body language as he decides that its time to do things his way.

He ‘digs his heels in’ even on the smoothest of surfaces and suddenly his weight seems to double. He cannot be dragged, pulled or cajoled. Our 9 and a half pound bundle of joy becomes an 18 pound gorilla The laws of physics combine with the laws of stubbornness and Yoda becomes an immovable object, and an unstoppable force all rolled into one.

Usually the grounds for the provocation are very small. It’s a ‘You say tomayto, and I say tomahto’ kind of issue. People tend go to war not for the big issues – it’s the small stuff that triggers things off. It’s not ‘he gassed the Kurds’, its ‘ he tried to kill my daddy’. For Yoda, it could be that he does not want to move from his spot. Or , he prefers the smells in one corner, and not another. Or, he does not want to be distracted from the tender attention he is getting from someone, usually a woman. Whatever the trigger, he gets into a ‘Lets call the whole thing off’ mood.

If he were a human, he would fold his lower lip over his upper, and project determination. I don’t think dogs do that. He folds his paws inward, rests his chin on them, looks up with steel in his eyes, and puts the fear on you. Just like Danny Devito in ‘Get Shorty’.

There is a moral purity to his stance. He is not looking for a another treat, and cannot be bought off with a tchochke . This is not a ‘you can have ice cream when we get home’ moment. He has sniffed disdainfully at a chewy, and turned his head away with a sneer. He does not add ‘ You just don’t get it, do you?’ but the meaning is very clear. He does not declaim ‘Freedom is my birthright and I shall have it’ but even a fool can decode the stance. Words are not needed.

Cliches come to mind. Its not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. I wish I could say ‘I don’t have a dog in this fight’, but I do. I have a dog, and in this case, he’s the one fighting with me. And he uses the Japanese martial arts. He uses my strength , and my size against me. He knows that there is no way I want to be caught arguing with, or yelling at him. He knows that in an instant we will be surrounded by people anxious to dial 911 or Animal Rescue.

The moment passes. Not because I said so, not because I did something, not because I had any role to play in the decision. He decides that its time to move on, gets up, and goes back to his usual lightness of being.

I don’t know if this is passive aggressive behavior, or Yoda just having fun. Maybe he decided that this was the moment to pull my chain, and show me who the real master was.

I do know one thing. He wont try this with Mina.

Kuthra Cha Nashib

In India, we are great believers in fate and destiny. We seek the future through horoscopes, parrots who pull cards out of a deck and submit them for interpretation, face readers, soothsayers who claim that there is a library full of the destinies of every single human on the planet and only they know the Dewey Decimal system to find your volume, and of course your plain old garden variety palm reader.

Some politicians will not make a move without their astrologer by their side, just as some corporate chieftains will not budge without McKinsey’s blessings. In both cases, the advisors are very well paid. And, in both cases, they do not respond well to queries about how it all worked out. For them, the past is not important, its always ‘on to the next’. Only the small minded look at the rear view mirror.

When Barbara Bush wrote a book about her dog Millie, it made international headlines. Millie was on TV endlessly for her 24 hour news cycle. Joshi, Mina’s family housekeeper in Bombay saw the coverage on CNN . He sighed and said ‘ Kuthra Cha Nashib’ – the dog’s good fortune. Baloo at our office had the same reaction when he saw the blog posting about Yoda in Burgundy. And so have many of our friends who have said that in their next life they want to come back as him.

So, what has Yoda done to deserve his good fortune? He has great temperament, and is completely self effacing, so he never gets in anyone’s way. He can win hearts with ease, even of people who are mortally terrified of dogs. He was born small, so that he could travel with us. His hair color is brilliant and many young women have stroked him and wailed ‘ will my hair ever be as soft as this’. He’s got a great sense of style and timing, and knows exactly how to ham it up. He is completely camera ready at all times.

To make this judgment, do we have to look beyond the externals? Do we need to look into his soul, and decide if like Putin, he is worthy? This is a challenge, since he does not come with a resume of his good deeds, and does not speak of his past with self love and admiration.

There are those who will even question whether he is fortunate. The poor pooch, suffering from jet lag, sleeping in strange beds, always forced to be on his best behavior, a mere prop for his parents’ lifestyle, pampered not for his own sake, but to assuage some guilt, surrounded by strange people and noise all the time. How can he express his innate doggy-ness, when he has to put on a human face. Its enough to make you weep, when you contemplate his trials and tribulations. A dog’s life indeed.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we have all been asking the wrong question. We should be asking - what have we done to deserve our good fortune? What virtuous deeds, what glorious thoughts , what acts of piety have we got under our belts, to justify having Yoda in our lives?

Its funny, but when you ask the right question, the answer is easy.

If we were being rewarded for our past, I think we would have had a six foot tall grizzly bear who took pleasure in defecating on our carpet, wearing my jackets, and chewing up all of Mina’s shoes and handbags.

I seriously doubt if we have actually done anything to deserve our good fortune. We just lucked out. Yoda is our bonus, our ‘get out of jail free’ card.

Ask any pet owner, and they will agree.