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How Mishka Saved My Life - Sunny Singh Sunny Singh was born in Varanasi. She received her education in various parts of India and the world. She has worked as a journalist, teacher, and as a management executive for multinationals in Mexico, Chile and South Africa. For the last four years, she has been writing full-time. She is also a playwright. Her first play, Birthing Athena, focussed on evolving relationships and the price of ambition in post-liberalisation India. The Times of India described the play as "an intensely cathartic experience." Her first novel, Nani's Book of Suicides, had been published by Harper Collins Publishers India. Described by the Hindustan Times as a "first novel of rare scope and power," the novel explores the cultural identity of an Indian woman through a fund of myths, family lore and contemporary reality. Her second book, Single in the City: The independent woman's handbook was released on Dec 22, 2000 by Penguin India. Visit Sunny Singh's website at: http://www.sunnysingh.net/

Just about five years ago, I thought my life had crashed down around my ears. My personal life was DOA, my writing career had crashlanded moments after a very bumpy take-off, and I had been in clinical depression for months. I stopped going out on our fourth floor balcony just in case the urge to jump became too strong. When walking out on the street, I would force myself to not step in the path of a DTC bus, a surefire way of killing oneself if you know Delhi. Just waking up every day and getting out of bed was a major achievement.

Then with my parents gone off for a three week medical trip for my father, I was presented with the most curious dharam-sankat possible. My brother came home from college with the news that a friend’s custom official father was looking for a proper home for a six week old female Rottweiler puppy. The puppy had been confiscated at the airport while being smuggled in from Russia, and the poor sympathetic officer had taken it home. Except they already had too many other pets.

The friend had explained that her father didn’t want the puppy to be handed over to a breeder, most of whom have a heinous reputation in Delhi. They also didn’t want to give her over to someone who wanted a Rottweiler as a “status symbol,” a practice that we had observed far too frequently: the city’s well-heeled would import dogs only to be kept chained up, ignored or abused. And when the dogs (as in case of most dominant breeds) would grow up aggressive or unsocialized, the owners promptly blamed the poor creatures for their behaviour.

“We could take care of it so much better,” my brother pleaded. I still remember the look in his eyes.

I was in a quandary. Of course we could take care of it, and far better than most other families. However, it seemed a rash act of rebellion, to suddenly acquire an imported Rottweiler without our parents’ consent or knowledge.

And then there was the sensitive issue of my mother’s love for our older Rottweiler female, Rushka, who had been re-homed with us for some time. The dog had been arthritic, aging and terribly sad, and yet she had instantly adored my mother. When Rushka returned to her permanent owners, my mother was heartbroken. Since then, my mother had steadfastly refused all suggestions of getting another dog.

“Oh please, please, please,” my brother begged. “Or she will be given to a breeder to be turned into a money machine.” The dharam-sankat lasted all of thirty seconds before I relented.

The next day, the puppy arrived in our house, wrapped in a green towel, small enough to fit in the crook of my elbow, with sharp teeth and sharper nails. We tried to settle her in a corner of my brother’s room. But she refused to stay put. She wandered all over the flat, sniffing and exploring, until she reached the corner of my parent’s bed, right near the headboard, on the side that my mother slept. She promptly gave a little sigh of contentment and settled herself in. All our efforts to move her were in vain. She apparently knew who she belonged to, and where she would stay.

In the days that followed were madly hectic. We were always racing down the stairs holding the little fluffy bundle in our arms before she could piddle. We spent hours hoping she would poo outdoors, even when we knew she would inevitably make a mess in the house. We rolled up my mother’s silk carpets and spread the floor with newspapers.

Like new parents, we had no idea what to feed her, or indeed, how much. So we fed her whatever we thought she would like: mostly milk and bread, but also bits of pepperoni from a pizza (Don’t repeat that: its indigestible for unweaned puppies). She had been traumatized by her trip out from Russia, and would cry at night. I learned to sleep on my mother’s bed, with my hand hanging over to caress her and calm her at night.

And we decided to call her Mishka, partly for her Russian homeland and also because she reminded us of Rushka, our old departed friend. We thought of all possible excuses and reasons to hold on to her even if our parents returned and refused. We made elaborate and increasingly crazy plans to keep her regardless of their opinion. Finally, we decided that we wouldn’t give them time to think about the puppy. They would just be introduced. “Surprise is the best attack,” my sister announced, holding Mishka in her lap.

When we picked them up from the station, they immediately knew something was up. “What have you guys done this time?” my mother asked suspiciously, sure we had painted the house a weird colour or installed yet another electronic gadget. “Just wait, it’s a surprise,” my brother informed her.

And what a surprise it was. Mishka was sprawled on the floor as my parents came in through the front door, all six inches of her straining to stay alert. My mother’s response at seeing her was “Oh no!” Followed immediately by “how cute!” We knew we had won the battle, and without a single shot being fired.

The parents thankfully took charge of the logistics. After all they knew what puppies ate, and did, unlike the three of us who had only played with puppies before and never truly taken care of them. Mishka took to them instantly too, following my mother around with a devotion that was astounding, diligently obeying my father’s commands as he immediately began training her. Our only chore was to race down four flights of stairs to get Mishka on to the grass everytime she decided she needed to relieve herself. And of course take her to the park every day for her walk.

Then three weeks later, walking down the street, I found myself worrying about the impact of the exhaust fumes from DTC buses on Mishka’s lungs. That’s when I realised things had changed. I was no longer worried about stepping in front of the buses. I would however write to the Chief Minister about speeding up the process of cutting back of harmful exhaust emissions.

At 12 weeks we decided to take her to her one and only dog show, more for socializing her with other dogs than for truly showing her. Mishka slept through most of the day, sitting in one of our laps, or nuzzling against one of us. When it was her turn, she walked out mincingly into the ring with my mother. Her intention to please was so obvious that we all had to laugh. She came back with the Best of Breed for her category, complete with a gold medal and a certificate. It was her only competition since we didn’t want a show dog, we just wanted a funny, loveable, mischievous companion.

Of course Mishka grew and grew, despite the traumas of her initial days. For the first few months, she still had residual illnesses from her days of being smuggled and weaned too early. For a few weeks her stomach was so delicate that the veterinarian suggested that we feed her custard. Which she ate in quantities until he laughingly told my mother that Mishka had to be fed other things in case “she grew into a massive Rottweiler who only ate custard. That would be quite silly.”

Then there was a point when she seemed so clumsy and gawky that it was impossible not to laugh at her. But she didn’t seem to mind, and further clowned it up. Most people in Delhi’s Nehru Park grew to recognize her. The drivers in the parking lot used to call her Mishku-baba. The icecream vendors would look up hopefully when she arrived, knowing that she loved vanilla icecreams. We called her “spoiled-rotten” as she watched my mother cooking from the kitchen door, waiting patiently for her share of parathas, kheer, mithai. My mother spoilt her, handfeeding her from her bowl whenever Mishka seemed lacklustre or showed any indication of losing her appetite.

As she grew, we learned to cope with her increasing strength and bulk. We grew to shrug off bruises that appeared as the inevitable consequence of Mishka’s favourite game: free-style wrestling that invariably ended with her sitting on top of her human opponents struggle, pretending to growl ferociously. We would play tag with her, holding on to little toys, pulling at her tongue or whiskers, or often pushing our entire hands into her ever growing mouth. She would pretend to bite, holding our hands delicately, shaking her head, and drooling in great quantities. More importantly, we grew used to each other, forming a bond of trust so unshakeable that we never questioned eachother.

When in 2002 my siblings and I moved away from home, Mishka was terribly sad. She hated the sight of suitcases, realising that yet another of her pack was leaving her. But she learned to cope with our absence. Every night, at 11 p.m., she would accompany my parents up to the study while they checked our emails and chatted online with us. The ritual was the same: my father would read out the messages to my mom before responding to them. Mishka would stay and listen to them. She got to know the schedule well and would coax my parents to go up to the study every night at 11 p.m. How she knew the hour is anyone’s guess. And she would push against my parents to get to the phone and woof into the conversations when we called home.

Then suddenly, this monsoon, Mishka left us. The veterinarian says she was bitten by a snake, a krait by the symptoms. Even after hours of work, there was nothing the veterinarian could do for her. In her last moments, she was with the person she loved most: my mother. In the days that followed, we were devastated, angry, sad, confused.

But then my brother pointed something out to me, “Mishka came to us when we needed her most,” he said, “now someone else must need her more than we do.” I know that on that day of my dharam-sankat, we took in Mishka because we thought we were saving her from a terrible fate. But in retrospect, its more accurate to say that Mishka saved my life! And I think in different ways, she saved all my family’s….

FINAL NOTE: Then some days ago I found this poem titled “Rainbow Bridge” on a Rottweiler website:

Just this side of Heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing: they each miss someone very special, someone who was left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; his eager body begins to quiver. Suddenly, he breaks from the group, flying over the green grass, faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into those trusting eyes, so long gone from your life, but never absent from your heart. Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together... *Author Unknown

I know Mishka will wait for us. And I know that Rushka will take care of her up by the Rainbow Bridge.

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