Kalu's Lesson

ON A COOL November day 18 years ago, I noticed a big black dog rolling with abandon on the young wheat at our farm in Panipat, Haryana. I was furious. For the last few days, I had been shooing him away but he kept turning up.

I went to my father and told him how the dog had destroyed a chunk of our crop. "It's all your doing," I said. "Why did you offer milk to him a few days ago?""He looked hungry," my father replied. "No harm in feeding a stray.""No harm. But he wants us to adopt him now.""Why not?" asked Father."We already have Jhabroo. He won't allow another dog to enter this place."

Having lived with several strays my father kept bringing home, I had come to like dogs. But the sight of this fully-grown mean-looking creature filled me with misgivings.

Our joint-family partition had forced us to leave our comfortable flat in a neighbouring city and adjust to the rough and tumble of a farmhouse life. We had no immediate neighbours. Monkeys and rats were a big nuisance. Snakes often shocked us by appearing from nowhere!

A second-year LLB student then, I attended lectures at Delhi University's law faculty on weekdays. In my absence the black dog got along with Father so well that one Saturday I saw him sleeping beside his bed. Before I could drive him away, Father asked me to let him be. "He is rather intelligent-and very friendly too."

Realizing that his angry barks hardly affected the black dog, a frustrated Jhabroo too made peace with him. A few days later, however, poor Jhabroo was hit by a bus and died outside our house. "Had I listened to you," my father said, "we would have beenwithout a dog now!"

Once Ankit, a boy of 12 or so, who lived not far from our farm, was seen raiding our orchard for guavas. With the black dog in tow, I quietly walked up to him and hollered, "Get down from the tree!"

I was surprised to notice that instead of barking, the dog started wagging its tail at the boy! "It's my dog," exclaimed Ankit jumping down. Deflecting my attention from the stolen guavas, he patted the dog fondly and added, "I took him home when he was a little puppy. But when my mother found out that I was playing with him all the time instead of studying, she insisted on throwing him out."

I also discovered that the dog had been christened "Kalu" and he had been living on the streets ever since.

Kalu didn't take long to prove himself useful. Thanks to him, the number of rats in the house started dwindling. Whenever he spotted a rat, he left everything aside-even his food-and dashed after it, least bothered about toppling a few things around.

The farmhouse was his territory now. If strangers entered the gates, he would chase them out. Even monkeys stopped entering our compound while he was around. One night, as I was walking towards our tube-well to water the fields, Kalu suddenly started clawing the ground and growling in a state of urgency. When I shone my torch in front of me, I was shocked to see a snake, just a few metres ahead. Sensing trouble, the reptile disappeared into a bush. Had I continued walking I might have stepped upon it. At night when we slept, Kalu barked at the slightest noise like an alert guard patrolling the house. We had often heard about thieves decamping with valuables in the vicinity but his presence was quite reassuring. One night at about 1am, we were woken up by Kalu's furious growls. "Could it be thieves?" my father whispered to me.

We dashed for two lathis and my father shouted through a window, "Who's there?" No reply. Kalu's growls grew more ferocious. Suddenly we heard a man wail, "Bachao! ""It could be a trick to get us out," my father said.Before we could decide what to do, the man cried out again, "Save me from this beast!" It wasn't the man's words but the pitiable tone in which he had uttered them that made us realize he was being mauled by Kalu.

Armed with lathis we went outside, and saw under the moonlight that an enraged Kalu had pinned the man down on the ground. To protect himself from those sharp teeth, the man was rolling around desperately and crying out. Seeing Father, the man begged, "Save me, sahib!" There was soil on the man's face, most of his clothing had been reduced to shreds and blood oozed from his legs and hands. With Father's help, I managed to drag Kalu away. The man sat on the ground making no attempt to escape. "What made you come here?" Father questioned him.

"Sahib, I forgot my way," the man answered avoiding my father's gaze. "Don't come here again," Father ordered, waving his lathi. "Next time, you'll get this."

The man hauled himself up and disappeared into the darkness. As Kalu continued barking after the man, I saw Mother gazing fondly at him through the window. Kalu's stock rose further in the family.

Having tasted absolute freedom on the streets, Kalu didn't like being chained. His muzzle pointed skyward, he would howl till we set him free. It became worse during the mating season. Set free, he'd disappear for days, although we would sometimes catch a glimpse of him romping with a ladylove.

Then one day, Kalu shocked us all by bringing along a reddish-brown female. His tail waving, he went up to Father and licked his hand as if requesting him to accept the bride. My happy father lost no time in getting another collar and chain from the market. "We'll call her Laali," he said pouring milk for her in Kalu's saucer. A few months later we were staring at a litter of five puppies! To our surprise, Kalu proved to be such a caring father that he dug a deep pit in the farm for the pups. Although we fed them regularly, he often got chappatis and chicken bones specially for his brood from a neighbouring restaurant. That a dog could feel so responsible towards his offspring was a revelation indeed.

Kalu lived with us faithfully for over seven years. When he went missing for three days we weren't surprised-he was known to spend time with old buddies from his stray days. But when our maid informed us that she had seen Kalu's body, we were shocked.  When we rushed to the spot, we discovered that a tea-seller, who ran his small shop in a lane behind our farm, had buried him. "Looks like he ate something poisonous," he suggested. Our farm seemed desolate without Kalu and it took us a while to get over the void he left. As for Laali, she too died two years later and her pups had been adopted by various friends of ours.

Over the years, we took in several more dogs, including a Labrador and a Doberman, but none of them could match Kalu's understanding and high spirits. The mean-looking stray I didn't want taught me to never judge anyone by his looks-be it man or his best friend.