Yoyo-nama Chapter 16 - Catch Me If You Can

Chapter 16

Yoyo was ridiculously overconfident about roads. Off leash, his thing was to walk bang in the middle of any road, even in the colony we lived in, with the fearlessness and determination of an armoured tank. You could scream yourself blue in the face for him to move, if a car or larger vehicle approached. He would just keep walking, and the vehicle driver would either with an understanding smile or an irritated frown, drive the vehicle partially on the verge, almost in the gutter, to pass Yoyo. 

When we took him out to forested areas a few miles from home, he would have plenty of fun exploring, and in the early years would shadow the older Snoopy, walking as if they were both tethered together like a pair of horses, much to Snoopy’s irritation. But once puberty and independence blossomed in full technicolour in Yoyo’s mind and body, these outings meant that if it got too hot, or he unilaterally felt that the picnic/exploration was over, he would simply start walking in the middle of the road and find his way, over quite a distance, unwaveringly to where the car was parked. These were country roads, but the occasional rattling ST bus would thunder down them, or a gang of speeding motorcyclists could have easily flattened him. His huge enjoyment of the car ride as well as the wide open spaces or a water body was what made us go on these trips, in spite of this dangerous pig-headedness of his that would spring up towards the end of the outing. 

On one particular outing, he played the opposite trick. The cool cloudy day on which we had set out, had gotten suddenly very sunny and hot, and we decided to return home. He as well as Jugnu had had a great time in a shallow flowing stream, and he was in no mood to end the day out so abruptly. Jugnu reluctantly but obediently came out, stood near the car, let himself be dried off, and jumped into the car.

When we had picked up our things and headed to the car, Yoyo disappeared. We called, we hid and hoped he would emerge, we whacked the bushes to flush him out like they do on fox hunts. Simply no sign of him. I tried the Imcountingtillfive thing; still nothing.

I even wondered briefly and absurdly whether he had got back into the water, gone under, and was holding his breath, just to mess with us. Finally, we had to start the car and pretend to leave, slowly, when he appeared out of nowhere. Obviously the little rat had been watching us, hiding somewhere, all the while. The minute we stopped the car and opened the door, he crawled deep under the car, and sat there, completely inaccessible. As we stood under the blazing overhead sun, he simply made himself comfortable under the shade of the car, and would not come out from underneath. We pleaded. We commanded. We issued warnings. At one point, we lay flat on the ground like a pair of mechanics, begging, cajoling, threatening him to come on out from there.

He simply lay there watching us, and if I remember right, even fell into a light refreshing doze as we hyperventilated there trying to get him out. At one point, we cut down a long stout stick from a tree, and jabbed at him.  To this his response was to give the stick a good hard bite. Thinking quickly, I tried to pull the stick out with him attached to it, but when he felt the drag, he simply let go, and I fell backwards from my haunch-sitting position, in a classical Tom-and-Jerry way. 

Finally we decided to try to call his bluff by getting into the car, closing the doors, calling out 'bye Yoyo'. It didn’t work. We then turned on the engine, quite sure that this would flush him out. But we were dealing with a past master of Who-blinks-first, and Yoyo simply stayed put. I then got off, and guided Tatsat to start to drive forward a few inches verrrry slowly…hoping this would scare Yoyo out. He actually rolled over under it; we had to stop at once.

Cruel you say? But we were now desperate, as we had been out there for over half hour in the come-on-out-please mode under a blazing sky. As the car moved slowly, he actually got sort of rolled a little, under the car, but he still did not budge. 

However, as the car had now moved forward about 8 inches, I could get hold of Yoyo’s tail and pull him out. (Strangely, for such an uppity character, Yoyo never minded his tail being grabbed, and would sometimes find it extremely funny and urge you to pull his tail.) I gave him two very solid whacks on his rump, put the leash around him and almost hurled him into the car with frustration, fatigue and fury. While at most times his cartloads of personality was something we not only lived with, but quite cherished, on some days, on-the-ground, it was exhausting.

Once inside the car, he took his seat (after the usual wrestle with me for the front passenger seat) with a grin splitting his face, and glanced at us impatiently, as we staggered back inside the car, as if to say: “Comeon, what’s keeping you, let’s go.”