February 29th 2004: Me, Dad, Dolly and Mom walked into Adam’s pet clinic, Adambakkam, responding to an ad in the local daily. We heard scuffing in the corner and spotted two tiny fur balls going at a newspaper like it was a piece of bone. In a couple of minutes, there were bits of paper strewn all over and 2 very contended, panting babies. As we moved closer, the tinier of the 2 came rolling to us, jumping furiously at our heel. Dolly picked it up and suddenly a tiny pink tongue came sticking out and licked her on her nose. We were taken. We took the little Lhasa Apso to Dad and said we’ve found the one. He wasn’t too happy because he felt it was too cute to be a guard dog and was very particular we get a German Shepherd. And so, dejectedly, we handed over the cuteness to the attender there and went back for the other pup. She was in the same corner where we spotted her first, playing with the scraps of paper. She heard us and hid behind a stool and peered at us with scared yet inquisitive eyes. Dad whistled lightly to call her out but she refused to budge. She cowered slightly and we noticed her legs were trembling. It was such a heart-wrenching sight. I went closer and slowly, tenderly carried her into my arms. We don’t know why, but the first thing that struck me and Dolly on seeing her was “Chintu” (and the name stuck, a misnomer that). Her heart was beating so fast that we had to constantly coo to let her calm down. With that, she was ours. After 20 long years of me being the youngest, we finally had a new baby in our house.
Ever since then, our daily talks with anyone and everyone would be peppered with Chintu’s antics. For the 6 years that she was with us, we spoke about her everyday, like every little thing meant everything to us. No matter if she did the same things each day, we would talk about it with the same enthusiasm because it meant so much. We admired every move she made – the way she would flop down by our feet and listen to our talks, the way she would rub her eyes when my mom would tell her “kanna thodachuko” (wipe your eyes), the crazy stalker looks she would give every peanut that would drop from our hands, oh I could go on. She was, simply put, not just the apple – but the whole damn fruit salad of our lives, with the cherry on top.
She was a kind girl – with a docile personality, unlike others of her kind. She sat mutely through baths, didn’t as much as whimper for her injections and never complained even when she was in pain. She wasn’t friendly with other dogs really, but she was quite the human magnet. Being vegetarian, she was a lot tinier than the average adult German Shepherd, and was often mistaken for a pup. I’ve seen her laugh and I’ve seen her cry. She’s comforted me when I’ve cried and gone crazy with anxiety when my mom wasn’t well one day. She was our agony aunt, our comedy show and our stress buster all rolled in one.
We still cannot believe that the little girl is no longer with us. That fateful Halloween day of 2010 when God decided he needed her up there to show the other doggies how it is to be a good girl and ofcourse, increase the cuteness quotient up there a notch. I miss her – every time a mutt runs towards me on the roads here, the memory avalanche sets in. I’m even silly enough to believe that every friendly dog I meet is my Chintu, sending her message from up there that she loves me still. It takes a whole lot of effort not to focus on the sad parts because, honestly, I can’t get myself to accept it. It hurts so bloody much just to go over that day’s events and I really,really don’t want to remember her the way she was that day.
We miss you Chinnu. Truly, madly, deeply. We wish you were here with us, like we took for granted you always will. We never imagined you would go so soon, leaving us bereft. Actually, we never imagined you would go at all. You were like the, what do I say, proverbial brick in the wall, that would always be around. We were stupid enough to never imagine life without you, maybe it would have prepared us better? I don’t know. All I do know is we love you silly. Come back now, will you?
