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Best friends, paws down

Photo: Murali Kumar K.

FRIENDS FOREVER Keeping each other warm company

With all his might, Hero clung onto my mother’s (heavily pregnant) belly with his big, furry paws, refusing to let go.

Lots of convincing, cajoling, moisture (my mom’s moist eyes and his drooling mouth) and a sad, pained doggie-brown-eyed expression later, he reluctantly trudged toward the gate only to run back for one more final doggie-hug… That was more than twenty years ago, but my mom’s eyes still moisten when she remembers how she had to part with him (when she was expecting her third baby).

Her bed table also has a big framed picture of the huge, black German-Shepherd that was her little hero.

What makes these canines and felines, big or small creatures — with big beaks, small tails, black furry bodies or green feathers so lovable?

Well, they dote on us, admire us, are happy to share our pains as much as our joys, and love us for what we are, expecting hardly anything in return.

While that’s hard to find in any relationship, it also makes the bonds with them nothing less than familial…

Soko Naik, who lives in California, is Amrita’s and Satish’s two year old ‘baby girl’ weighing about seven kilos.

“She’s on the bigger side, I fed her too much when she was little, typical Indian motherly quality!,” laughs Amrita, who introduced Soko to her parents as their grand-daughter.

Soko (a Shih Tzu) is the most pampered brat. She has a bunch of clothes, jackets for the cold, scarves, toys, different coloured leashes, bows and hair ties.

“She also needs a haircut often which is more expensive than mine (!), but it’s all worth it. She is the biggest stress buster, expecting nothing in return for the love she gives us day after day. The smallest things she does, like her cute little deep sigh, twitching her nose, her proud howl when she fetches her ball, the saddest look she gives when you are going out the door, the way she plays peek-a-boo…. She truly melts our hearts. Soko completes our family!” gushes Amrita Naik.

Gayathri Futnani says that once her dad jokingly said that if the man she got married to gets half the love Simba aka Simbukins (her three year old golden retriever) gets, he would be the luckiest person alive!

She is all praise for the huge fur ball. “He is like my life support, I am extremely attached to him and vice versa. He has been there with me through it all — my good moments and the ‘not so happy’ ones, and the comfort he gives me with a lick or even sitting silently near my feet speaks more than a thousand comforting words!”

She quips, “I love Simbukins more than anything in the world, and even when I am having the most awful day ever, I see him and can’t help smile!”

“You can’t give back to these creatures even half of the unconditional love they give you” says Rani Mathew, who has had a range of pets through her childhood — right from dogs, cats (13 at one time!), fish, even a talking parrot - Sundari.

Her favorite memories were the way Sundari used to imitate people laughing, in her high pitched shrill cackle, and the way her dog Fighter used to have a favourite (the thinnest scrawniest one) among the cats who had the ‘honour’ of eating leftovers from his plate!

Lending an elephantine twist, is Erattupetta Ayyappan, who is still a ‘pet’ in Lekha Mathew’s home in Kerala. Named after the place (Erattupetta) in the Kottayam district in Kerala, he was brought home when he was a baby, as a pet of her grand-father. “All of us simply adore him. He loves playing in the water and being around children - of course besides eating jaggery and bananas!” she laughs.

What she recalls as the most touching memory of Ayyappan was when her grand-father passed away, and he was inconsolable. “You could see tears dropping out of his eyes for a few days; and it took many days for him to come to terms with it”, she adds.

Hero, Soko, Simba, Sundari, Fighter and Ayyappan are just some of the heroes (and heroines) who walk this earth — wagging, licking, purring, cackling, prancing, swaying, drooling and spewing unconditional wholesome love all around us. Here’s to petting love.

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