Tabby

Contrary to popular imagination, Tabby is not a cat. Tabby is a dog (white lab) who happens to be the pet of my neighbor in Calcutta. He (or she, I haven’t really checked) is also the darling of the occupants of the flats around since he is probably not yet one (cute), prances around (playful) and generally provides entertainment to the inhabitants who have grown up and cannot do the same anymore.

Actually, I wonder what was the owner thinking when he (one Nikhil chap who lives alone in a nice huge ground floor flat with a massive courtyard and has some nice parties but with atrocious music) named the dog Tabby. That’s like naming the dog Cat! I mean, think about it, the poor fellow will grow up schizophrenic. Don’t blame Tabby, if he bites you two years down. Anyway, I digress!

Tabby lives a pretty luxurious life as one look from those doleful eyes (the one which says, I am hungry and have not been fed, never mind the bowl full of milk I just lapped up) accompanied by a tail wag sends my mom (and a couple of the other neighbors, not to mention my grandmother who pretends to be annoyed but secretly walks over to the window and waves) scurrying into their respective kitchens to magically produce a packet of biscuits (the same one which had mysteriously got over when the maid asked for it) to be arched over the boundary wall into the salivating Tabby’s ‘near-abouts’ so it can be quickly devoured. If I was Tabby, I would be having a silent laugh at these dumb humans who fall for the oldest trick in the dog book before trying to bite my tail and then curling up to sleep. But then I am not Tabby, so I am actually typing this down.

Well, this morning when I was exchanging morning pleasantries with Kaan Moole Debo (KMD), I was looking out of my room window and watching Tabby do his (her?) little ‘look at me, I am cute’ stunt. The maid of the house was cleaning up the courtyard which meant sweeping the leaves into a little bunch which had to be collected later. Tabby, of course, thought the world was meant for its (I can’t keep typing his/her) entertainment. So he jumps into the leaves which have been bunched up in one corner. Once the human equivalent of “OOH Yeah” has been done, Tabby then attacks the next pile. On seeing this, the maid, who has managed to remain imperious to the ‘I am a dog and I am cute behavior’ decides to give chase with the very broom she is using for cleaning. Tabby still thinking it is a game and being younger, faster and fitter (not to mention having four legs) gives the maid a good morning exercise. Soon, the maid has had enough of this morning regimen (after all she would have woken up early in the morning, caught a train and arrived at the big bad city – enough of an exercise that she would need) and giving up on the chase goes back to the small business of collecting the leaves.

Now the thing with dogs is (and I presume this) is that until they are firmly told that this is not a game (BOW WOW WOOWW) they will continue thinking the world is there for their entertainment. So our dear old Tabby (actually young Tabby), looks up sees the maid sitting on her haunches and comes running and launches itself into her. The maid then topples over into the very leaves she is sweeping up.

For the casual observer (ME), it is a cause of such mirth but for the maid it has been a cause of a bruised ego (if not some bruised skin on her elbows) and hence she gets up and does the broom thing again. No, you dumb ass, she does not fly on it like some Harry Potter character. She runs after the dog with the broom only to realize the whole universe is conspiring against her in the scheme of 4 legs versus 2 legs and soon gives up. But then she has that wonderful Eureka moment (no she was not naked in a bath tub). She decides “so what if the stupid animal has 4 legs, I have a bigger brain and so what if I have not used it till now, I shall do so now.” So the dog is tempted with food, chained to a pillar and the courtyard cleaned.

As I end this, I hear a bark and go over to the window (yes, I have joined the ranks of the mom, grandmother and sundry other neighbors who have all fallen prey to those eyes which pool over and say look at me I am cute) and see Tabby giving chase to a stupid insect (fly/mosquito) and being stupid about it since he doesn’t have wings and the insect is hovering just above his jumping height (the insect is doing to him with wings, what he did to the maid with his 4 legs). And I wonder (no, not what a beautiful world) if the dog is being stupid on purpose. I see people at more than 1 window smiling to themselves at its antics and if being stupid gets me goodies from all of them, I can pretend to bite at flying insects too!