S he was the unproclaimed queen or Rani of Pallipad, a small village in Kerala, filled with undulating paddy fields and thousands of coconut trees. The whole village was hers, or so we can say, as she didn’t have a tag or a home or a human owner, the last owner being so humane as to dump her on the streets as her skin infection scared him off. Flitting from houses to houses, streams to paddy fields, cats to dogs, our ash colored heroine considered everyone her friend, despite being proven wrong time and again by the stones and kicks that went her way. Morsels of food she saved, and hid away under rocks and fallen coconut trees, for a rainy day only to lose most of them to quick thinking cats and smarter indies. A poor daschund she was, stocky, out turned limbs et al, droopy ears, a broken tail and a sausage shaped body which was now an uneven mix of crests and troughs.
Well, month of March it was and the date 12 days into that month. We were in pallipad, sad and broken, as my mom had succumbed to some infection within 12 hours of being admitted to a hospital, worsened by her diabetic history. A patch of land adjacent to our ancestral home was being cleaned out for her last rites by a set of volunteers, when a shout caught my attention. Someone was shooing away, rather brutally, an ash colored, misfigured dwarfy dog, with liquidy brown eyes. Her pleading eyes screamed of ultimate surrender and assured of no interference in the ceremony, but no one was listening. My requests to let her be, were rejected with reasons that she might eat the rice balls offered to souls, which are eventually eaten by the crows. Hesitantly, and with extreme helplessness, she plodded away and faded into the adjacent plot. A day full of rituals, grieving relatives, and tons of emotions smothered us as mom’s body was cremated that day.
Me, my wife Reena and my sister Parvathy stayed on in the ancestral house along with two of mom’s sisters. We were to stay on for 16 days before dispersing the ashes. It was during this transition period from sadness to normalcy, that the protagonist of this story, stepped back into our lives, and the channel she adopted was the compassion that Reena has for other beings. While driving back from a relative’s house, reena saw the ash colored ugly girl, made me stop the car and offered her some digestive biscuits, which she politely nibbled as she was more busy receiving affectionate pats and touches. We also noticed some Parle G biscuits, on the kerb, which she was nibbling when reena spotted her. As we drove back, she hopped along behind the car and sort of self invited herself into our house.
Named Kamli (by me) for her bouncy movements and carefree attitude, she soon became a responsible guard dog. After barking at cycle borne school children and the morning fish monger, she would look back at us for looks of appreciation, which were available in tremendous measure. A lottery seller was her only weakness, as he passed by on his rickety bicycle, calling out for Sundari, which in malayalam means “beautiful one.” She would go flappetty flappetty behind him to devour those Parle G biscuits by the kerbside. Lucky was her, or was it him, to have found each other even as those who resided in mansions decided to abandon her. A luck seller he was, and lucky she was to have found someone who sold luck.
What followed were a series of care sessions, trying to make sense of her ailments, even as a set of well wishers advised us against adopting her citing life-threatening skin diseases. Since the lady of the house had decided to adopt her, what was left for me to do was to restore her to a normal state. Visit to local vet clinic was not very promising as the vet gave a prognosis extending to 6 months of treatment with an equally large bill. Since we were to travel back by road in a few days, treatment commenced in full earnest. Daily application of coconut oil and camphor was another suggested remedy, which was not a problem in God’s own country. I was still a fence sitter, hoping against hope that some good soul would come forward to adopt her, even as her outward appearance and demeneour turned off many.
We were also worried about our other girl Dobbie, an Indie and her reaction to our unilateral adoption. Help of Miss Deeksha (animal communicator) was sought to speak with Dobbie and convey that Kamli had no other home than our own. Turbulent times were predicted but for a very short time by her. Return road trip of almost three days with two nights at Bengaluru were eventful, as we tried to rein in a free wheeling queen of pallipad village into the confines of our car and hotel room. Toilet drills, sleep cycles, habit of chewing everything within reach, etc etc, made those hours memorable as we finally drove into Mani Enclave and back to our home.
Shadow boxing with Dobbie went on for few days, but being a larger personality, Dobbie accepted her. The story of that camel which threw out the traveller from a tent, was repeated as Kamli assumed a more dominant and persistent role in our house..
Black and brown are our two girls. Dobbie, the sharp eared puny one and Kamli, the brown long eared muscular one. As reena calls her, our pallipad ki Rani has come a long way, across states. From a life of uncertainty and unbridled freedom to a life of love and societal restrictions, Kamli (or Buffy the vampire and not slayer, as reena is contemplating a name change) has indeed come a long way. Her skin now a rich tone of dark brown, her nature always inquisitive, her barks complimenting that of Dobbie, she lives on as another MERA resident, as a living proof of humanity and compassion in human beings.