Alliances
– Easy and Uneasy
It is amazing, though, that none of Yoyo’s fan-victims took a dislike to
him. They referred to him with all kinds of names, like Chakram, Paagal,
Werewolf, Holy Terror, Sannki, Crackpot…and Vijaya’s favourite name for him:
Chyappterr - all of which reflected in some way the unpredictability of him, as
well as the effect that his towering personality had on them. Even their
friends’ friends’ friends heard of his many shenanigans. They would, gleefully
or with awe, recall and report all the newly minted and absurd atrocities that
he heaped on them. These stories became part of the folklore that formed itself
around Yoyo, with much, much affection. For them too, after he passed away,
some of the delicious arbitrary madness suddenly disappeared from their lives.
My friends Ira and Vaishali entered the Yoyo equation later, and were quickly recruited by him as part of his retinue. He adored them quite unabashedly, having mellowed now into a dog who did not have to show attitude at first and then let people in slowly. He simply made them his own on the very first day that he met them, sitting with his ownership arm on them or turning into that silly puddle, all paws in the air, for a belly rub.
There was another whole bunch of people, who simply did not like dogs and steered clear of them. Yoyo managed to insinuate himself into their consciousness too. He would come sit next to them and place one side of his entire face along their thigh and nudge them with it. Sometimes he would even sit alongside on the divan and place an elbow firmly on their lap, in a most proprietorial way, and push his weight against them. After initially saying ‘Ay go ya Yoyo,’ or asking me nervously if he was trying to shove them off the divan, they soon got quite used to him and began to consider it quite a privilege that Yoyo chose to come to them.
Many of them would bemusedly tell their other friends: ‘I don’t know why, but because of Yoyo, I am not scared of dogs.’ Or my friends David and Charmayne, not pet people as such, became tuned in to the specialness of Yoyo. And would make a stopover at my home on their way from Mumbai to Goa, as much to meet Yoyo as to meet us. Once a month, the taciturn and busy electricity meter reading man would always ask Yoyo’s permission to be let in near the meter box. He would call out the question in deference, with a half-smile, ‘Yeu ka rey baba?’ Yoyo would watch him without barking and would get a small pat on the head from outside the gate.
My friend and guru in counselling, psychotherapist Minnu, not a dog-person, became one of his admirers, and had a special place in her heart for him. Yoyo would return the compliment by stretching out behind and alongside her like a bolster, with a contented sigh when she visited and sat on the divan. She knew me just a little before Yoyo came into my life, and while I was training with her in counselling. She later had no doubt in her mind that Yoyo was a soul mate, who came along just when he and I both needed each other. Minnu understood Yoyo’s special comet-like appearance in my life from the first time that she met him, to the very last visit, when she said her farewells
My father and Yoyo, was an uneasy alliance as flat-mates, when he came to stay for a few months at a time, dividing his time between my home and my sister’s. Never a dog lover, he had willy-nilly been co-habiting with dogs since we were kids, and he was in a minority of 1 – the majority rule included my mother and 3 of us siblings and various dog-loving house help. So some manner of dog was always around, and my father tried to be okay with it all. Now, however, he was in his late eighties. He was afraid of falling, and there was Yoyo and Jugnu, streaking across at the sound of a cat outside, or simply just sitting in the way, all sprawled out. I kept them out in the yard as much as possible when he was with me, but there were strange little interactions that were unavoidable.
For instance, my dad would pace inside the house after his lunch, what in Marathi is called Shatapauli or a post-parandial 100 steps before lying down for a nap. At this time, if Yoyo was indoors, he would have some esoteric problem in his head with the swishing of my dad’s white pyjama legs as he walked. Yoyo would suddenly, without a sound, get up and follow him in a kind of stalking crouch, taking mock snaps at the flapping material. Luckily my father would simply not notice the runt snapping at his heels silently. And one of us would quickly head Yoyo off.
During this time, Yoyo had briefly become a fussy non-commital eater. He would go to his food, sniff it, and sit back, watching you archly, or he would simply abandon it and go off. My father, ever the fussy nurturer when it came to anyone’s eating habits, would come and report to me: “That dog hasn’t eaten.” I would say “Ignore him, he’ll eat if he’s hungry. I will leave it there for 10 minutes and then put it away.”
I was not going to be played by Yoyo over food, I had decided, and I also did think that perhaps as he was now firmly in middle age, maybe his appetite was getting smaller. Yet he would wait outside the kitchen for his food, so we would have to serve it, in case he did eat. Someone would have to stand guard to see that Jugnu, now a strapping young dog, didn’t help himself to a second round of lunch. To this elaborate square-dance, got added my father’s step. He would pace anxiously past the full food bowl every couple of minutes, and take peeks to see if Yoyo had eaten yet. Now Yoyo, who was (surprisingly) always very easy-going about who approached him while he was eating or touched his food, would get a bit suspicious of my father’s motives, and rush possessively to his plate, but then sit there and not eat it. This would almost trip my father, who would let out a choice gaali, like Ay saalya, or the milder muttering, dambiss ahay, or badmaash ahay (something like a rogue, a rascal).
One day, I firmly firmly told my dad to simply stop obsessing on whether Yoyo had eaten or not. He would offer some technical explanation about his concern: ‘flies will come’ or ‘it is meat, it will deteriorate and then if one of them eats it they will fall sick’ etc. (My mother called him ‘health inspector’ because of his habit of playing food detective in the house after he retired. He would check out the state of leftovers in the fridge, check if the milk and dahi were covered properly, throw out old biscuits from tins, and would trot out words like ptomaine poisoning, about which he would read up in The Lancet, which he would read cover to cover in the British Library, though he was not a medical field person at all!) But under all this, he was a worry-wart who wanted everyone to eat well and on time and poop on schedule – his wife first, then his kids, then his grandkids, and now even a dog who he didn’t even particularly like.
So I began to place Yoyo’s food on the half-landing of a small flight of stairs to my bedrooms upstairs. This way, my dad couldn’t pace past it and examine it, and Yoyo could play whatever yes-no-yes-maybe games he needed to play with his food. One day, I saw my dad, sneaking, literally sneaking to that spot, not by climbing the stairs, but by standing at a spot on the ground floor from where he could reach out and check the contents of Yoyo’s dish. I found myself exasperatedly saying, “Whyy do you need to check…let it BE. What if Yoyo comes rushing at your hand? Or what if the food tips over on to your head, when you’re checking from such a precarious spot?” We both ended up laughing at that image, and he promised to let it be.
However, I soon found that he would then secretly introduce a tiny piece of sausage or salami that he had reserved from his breakfast, into Yoyo’s abandoned meal, though there was already chicken mince in the food. This was utterly to Yoyo’s satisfaction, as he had achieved a) Bringing some esoteric element to his food ritual – the adding of ‘saamthing extra’ to induce him to eat. b) Recruiting yet another baffled person into his valet-staff retinue, this time my father, who wasn’t even remotely a fan!
Jugnu too, would gamely take Yoyo's frosty attitude to him and give him a wide berth. On some occasions, they would have to sit close in the car, which would make Jugnu quite happy, like a fan forced into a small space with a celeb.
It was Jaya who discovered, that Yoyo, for all his esoteric rules of engagement that we had all learnt to respect, surprisingly did not mind you passing close to his food, or even moving his plate while he was eating. When he ate, he ate slowly, ruminatively, with a faraway look in his eyes. It reminded me of the way physically hard-working men and women eat when they break from work – concentrating on the job in a single-minded way, to the exclusion of all other distractions; but not eating greedily or with gusto. There is a certain understated satisfaction rather than enjoyment in the act, never interrupted by the more urban and urbane chatting, looking around, smiling…not at all a social or sociable action; a more purposeful thing, without any social niceties. In a quiet bubble, of well-earned food intake. When he ate rusk or the dog biscuits that I made him, he would eat with that ‘khraau, khraau, khraau’ sound as he munched – a sound that I simply love in any dog. Like Lord Emsworth enjoying the sound of his sow, the Empress of Blandings, eating noisily at her food trough, for me too, this sound has always been music to the ears.
My friends Ira and Vaishali entered the Yoyo equation later, and were quickly recruited by him as part of his retinue. He adored them quite unabashedly, having mellowed now into a dog who did not have to show attitude at first and then let people in slowly. He simply made them his own on the very first day that he met them, sitting with his ownership arm on them or turning into that silly puddle, all paws in the air, for a belly rub.
There was another whole bunch of people, who simply did not like dogs and steered clear of them. Yoyo managed to insinuate himself into their consciousness too. He would come sit next to them and place one side of his entire face along their thigh and nudge them with it. Sometimes he would even sit alongside on the divan and place an elbow firmly on their lap, in a most proprietorial way, and push his weight against them. After initially saying ‘Ay go ya Yoyo,’ or asking me nervously if he was trying to shove them off the divan, they soon got quite used to him and began to consider it quite a privilege that Yoyo chose to come to them.
Many of them would bemusedly tell their other friends: ‘I don’t know why, but because of Yoyo, I am not scared of dogs.’ Or my friends David and Charmayne, not pet people as such, became tuned in to the specialness of Yoyo. And would make a stopover at my home on their way from Mumbai to Goa, as much to meet Yoyo as to meet us. Once a month, the taciturn and busy electricity meter reading man would always ask Yoyo’s permission to be let in near the meter box. He would call out the question in deference, with a half-smile, ‘Yeu ka rey baba?’ Yoyo would watch him without barking and would get a small pat on the head from outside the gate.
My friend and guru in counselling, psychotherapist Minnu, not a dog-person, became one of his admirers, and had a special place in her heart for him. Yoyo would return the compliment by stretching out behind and alongside her like a bolster, with a contented sigh when she visited and sat on the divan. She knew me just a little before Yoyo came into my life, and while I was training with her in counselling. She later had no doubt in her mind that Yoyo was a soul mate, who came along just when he and I both needed each other. Minnu understood Yoyo’s special comet-like appearance in my life from the first time that she met him, to the very last visit, when she said her farewells
My father and Yoyo, was an uneasy alliance as flat-mates, when he came to stay for a few months at a time, dividing his time between my home and my sister’s. Never a dog lover, he had willy-nilly been co-habiting with dogs since we were kids, and he was in a minority of 1 – the majority rule included my mother and 3 of us siblings and various dog-loving house help. So some manner of dog was always around, and my father tried to be okay with it all. Now, however, he was in his late eighties. He was afraid of falling, and there was Yoyo and Jugnu, streaking across at the sound of a cat outside, or simply just sitting in the way, all sprawled out. I kept them out in the yard as much as possible when he was with me, but there were strange little interactions that were unavoidable.
For instance, my dad would pace inside the house after his lunch, what in Marathi is called Shatapauli or a post-parandial 100 steps before lying down for a nap. At this time, if Yoyo was indoors, he would have some esoteric problem in his head with the swishing of my dad’s white pyjama legs as he walked. Yoyo would suddenly, without a sound, get up and follow him in a kind of stalking crouch, taking mock snaps at the flapping material. Luckily my father would simply not notice the runt snapping at his heels silently. And one of us would quickly head Yoyo off.
During this time, Yoyo had briefly become a fussy non-commital eater. He would go to his food, sniff it, and sit back, watching you archly, or he would simply abandon it and go off. My father, ever the fussy nurturer when it came to anyone’s eating habits, would come and report to me: “That dog hasn’t eaten.” I would say “Ignore him, he’ll eat if he’s hungry. I will leave it there for 10 minutes and then put it away.”
I was not going to be played by Yoyo over food, I had decided, and I also did think that perhaps as he was now firmly in middle age, maybe his appetite was getting smaller. Yet he would wait outside the kitchen for his food, so we would have to serve it, in case he did eat. Someone would have to stand guard to see that Jugnu, now a strapping young dog, didn’t help himself to a second round of lunch. To this elaborate square-dance, got added my father’s step. He would pace anxiously past the full food bowl every couple of minutes, and take peeks to see if Yoyo had eaten yet. Now Yoyo, who was (surprisingly) always very easy-going about who approached him while he was eating or touched his food, would get a bit suspicious of my father’s motives, and rush possessively to his plate, but then sit there and not eat it. This would almost trip my father, who would let out a choice gaali, like Ay saalya, or the milder muttering, dambiss ahay, or badmaash ahay (something like a rogue, a rascal).
One day, I firmly firmly told my dad to simply stop obsessing on whether Yoyo had eaten or not. He would offer some technical explanation about his concern: ‘flies will come’ or ‘it is meat, it will deteriorate and then if one of them eats it they will fall sick’ etc. (My mother called him ‘health inspector’ because of his habit of playing food detective in the house after he retired. He would check out the state of leftovers in the fridge, check if the milk and dahi were covered properly, throw out old biscuits from tins, and would trot out words like ptomaine poisoning, about which he would read up in The Lancet, which he would read cover to cover in the British Library, though he was not a medical field person at all!) But under all this, he was a worry-wart who wanted everyone to eat well and on time and poop on schedule – his wife first, then his kids, then his grandkids, and now even a dog who he didn’t even particularly like.
So I began to place Yoyo’s food on the half-landing of a small flight of stairs to my bedrooms upstairs. This way, my dad couldn’t pace past it and examine it, and Yoyo could play whatever yes-no-yes-maybe games he needed to play with his food. One day, I saw my dad, sneaking, literally sneaking to that spot, not by climbing the stairs, but by standing at a spot on the ground floor from where he could reach out and check the contents of Yoyo’s dish. I found myself exasperatedly saying, “Whyy do you need to check…let it BE. What if Yoyo comes rushing at your hand? Or what if the food tips over on to your head, when you’re checking from such a precarious spot?” We both ended up laughing at that image, and he promised to let it be.
However, I soon found that he would then secretly introduce a tiny piece of sausage or salami that he had reserved from his breakfast, into Yoyo’s abandoned meal, though there was already chicken mince in the food. This was utterly to Yoyo’s satisfaction, as he had achieved a) Bringing some esoteric element to his food ritual – the adding of ‘saamthing extra’ to induce him to eat. b) Recruiting yet another baffled person into his valet-staff retinue, this time my father, who wasn’t even remotely a fan!
Jugnu too, would gamely take Yoyo's frosty attitude to him and give him a wide berth. On some occasions, they would have to sit close in the car, which would make Jugnu quite happy, like a fan forced into a small space with a celeb.
It was Jaya who discovered, that Yoyo, for all his esoteric rules of engagement that we had all learnt to respect, surprisingly did not mind you passing close to his food, or even moving his plate while he was eating. When he ate, he ate slowly, ruminatively, with a faraway look in his eyes. It reminded me of the way physically hard-working men and women eat when they break from work – concentrating on the job in a single-minded way, to the exclusion of all other distractions; but not eating greedily or with gusto. There is a certain understated satisfaction rather than enjoyment in the act, never interrupted by the more urban and urbane chatting, looking around, smiling…not at all a social or sociable action; a more purposeful thing, without any social niceties. In a quiet bubble, of well-earned food intake. When he ate rusk or the dog biscuits that I made him, he would eat with that ‘khraau, khraau, khraau’ sound as he munched – a sound that I simply love in any dog. Like Lord Emsworth enjoying the sound of his sow, the Empress of Blandings, eating noisily at her food trough, for me too, this sound has always been music to the ears.
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