Yoyo-nama Chapter 8

With the coming of Tatsat in our lives, day-long outings to pretty locations where the dogs could run loose in hills or meadows, increased rapidly. We would pack a few things and simply take off – at first with Snoopy and Yoyo, and later with Yoyo and Jugnu.

Now, in Yoyo’s scheme of things, Tatsat was to be in the driving seat, he in the front passenger, and me and the other dog at the back. His idea of fun was to ‘catch’ my place in the front passenger seat, by vaulting on to it from the back seat where he had climbed in. He would root himself firmly there, hoping to relegate me to the back while he and Tatsat, mano-a-mano, drove into the sunset. I would make him get off from the front passenger door, and climb right back in to the back, from the back door. I would have to quickly get into my front seat, because he would coil himself up to spring into the front seat again. I would bar him, but he would threaten to land on my lap with a diagonal jump. To stop him, you had to put your arm firmly across, and lock eyes with him, with a NO. If he computed from that long eye-lock, that you were firm but amused, he would sneeze on your arm, justforfun.

Our little see-saw tussle about who gets to sit where carried on for many years over many outings. At times he has also jumped into the driver’s seat as we loaded the car, and look ahead with a silly grin. He would move off only when you demonstrated some kind of mock horror, shock and awe and at the prospect of him driving the car. “Show me your license,” one of us would say. Or ‘Your legs wont reach the pedals, Short-stuff.” What words he understood, I don’t know, but the whole joke put him in a terrific mood. And he would bounce back into the backseat with an air of mission-accomplished. The excitement over the outing would invariably lead to a need to go potty, 10 minutes into a drive anywhere. This was expressed in a low, descending three-note groan which ended on a pleading note. After the stopover at the roadside, he would rush back into the car in a good mood, try to capture the front seat again, kick his hind legs in the air as he vaulted into the back seat, and we would be on our way. Once we reached the destination, there would be another instalment of what came to be known as picnic potty – this time for some reason on a hill slope at a perilous angle, with his hind higher than his front. This would cause some of his potty to roll down past him, and he would watch this with a kind of mild interest.

While the earlier lessons of coming back when he was called usually worked, of course, he continued to be a dog who marched to his own drummer, most times. Going on picnics to a large meadow or a hill slope, at first he would stick to Snoopy and shadow his every move, sticking to him, however much Snoopy tried to shake him off.

The picture of only the tops of their tails showing, one beige and one white, moving in sync, above tall golden winter grasses on hill slopes,  with them suddenly leaping like Springboks over the ticklish grass, is one of my most abiding and favourite mind-pictures. At one such spot, from here, we would then put them back on their leashes, cross the highway to a dhaba to have omelettes and chai. The seating here was thick razais on the Indian rope-cots, the khaats. Snoopy would sit on the floor, and of course, Yoyo would jump nimbly on to the khaat. The Sikh owner would watch on with some indulgence, and a saucer of milk was sent out to both dogs. Yoyo would greet the approaching waiter with a small flutter of his lips to show him a brief glimpse of his teeth, and then proceed to haughtily drink the milk when the man hastily moved away. The message was: leave that saucer here, and take yourself off, man.

When Yoyo became a little older and more smarmy, foolishly overconfident, at times he would unilaterally declare the picnic over and suddenly head for the road below and choose to walk in the middle of it. Often we were near country roads without much traffic, but on which rattling ST buses could appear suddenly, thundering down. At such times, the stentorian voice commands that I would summon up worked to make him veer back towards you and rush back into your arms. But at times you had to simply scramble downslope, catch up with him and smack him one tight smack. In later years, this meant putting him back on the leash and continuing the picnic with him sitting looking out over the vista philosophically.

On one particular outing, it was the reverse. He simply did not want to leave the gentle water spot that we had found, and when we picked up our things and headed to the car, he 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. It was getting hot, we were tired, and it really was time to go home. Finally we cut down a long stout stick and jabbed at him, ourselves almost flat out on the ground. He simply growled and took a couple of bites at the stick. We finally decided to start the car, hoping the sound of the engine purring would flush him out. It did not. We even drove the car forward a few inches, and he actually rolled over; we had to stop at once. Finally, Tatsat managed to grab his tail and pull. I gave Yoyo 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.

‘Kaali chappal, Athawtay? remember??’ was another of my tools to get him to stop doing something at once. Well after he had settled in, stopped teething, and there was a system in place so that he was rarely alone for long hours, he arbitrarily shredded a beaded black slipper that I was particularly fond of. Unlike the time that he had shredded the books, this time I felt no guilt or need to introspect about why he had thrown this tantrum, and how I could have prevented it. It seemed to be a random act of wanton destruction from him, and this time I picked up the other slipper, and so bite me, I whacked his rump a couple of times and asked him loudly, why, why did you destroy my slipper? “Kaa chaawlis mazhi kaaali chappal?” was the string of words, which I used while giving him those few sound whacks.

He was contrite enough to not growl, or stalk off in a thatsyourproblem kind of strut. Came right to my feet and submitted himself in an inverted puddle of apology. After this, if he was up to no-good sometimes, I would simply have to say in an ominous, sepulchral voice, “Remember the black slipper? Athawtiye na kaali chappal?” and he would drop whatever mischief he was up to – digging up newly laid plants, sneaking up on the garbage bin, gnawing at furniture legs just for fun, at once, and come sit at my feet with an I’m such a good dog aren’t I expression.