Ramya's Treasure

by Pratap Reddy

  Surprisingly — or unsurprisingly, if one thought about it — Ramya too found the movie boring, at least in parts. She was unused to being closeted in the dark for almost two hours, staring at the gigantic images flickering in front of her, and the actors speaking English with an accent she found hard to follow.

  What a welcome relief the interval was! On the rare occasions they went to the cinema — to watch 101 Dalmatians or Mary Poppins — Daddy would buy her potato chips, which came in small white grease-soaked paper bags, or popcorn in polythene bags, shaped like small pillows, with labels printed in blue for salty and red for masala. Ramya always chose masala, the spicier of the two, and for a reason. When she complained that the popcorn was too hot, not in so many words, but by making loud sucking noises, Daddy would invariably buy her Spenses’ Fruitola, a locally made soft drink, from the vendors who zipped up and down the gangways, balancing a crate of sodas on one shoulder. They’d run a cast-iron bottle-opener against the bottles for musical effect — as successful a ploy as any advertising jingle.

  Even if the film failed to engage Ramya wholly, the images remained etched in her memory long after she left the dark unwholesome movie hall. The next day, as she was excitedly discussing the film with her classmates, a random and reckless thought occurred to her: Wouldn’t it be nice to own a pet dog? It would make Ramya look special in the eyes of her classmates as none of them seemed to have one.

  Some of the houses in her neighbourhood had dogs, guard animals really, which would poke their snouts through the grille-work of the gate, revealing menacing eyeteeth, and bark vociferously at every passer-by. And there were a few strays in their neighbourhood — Ramya found them skulking around the garbage bin at the end of the street. They were skinny and mangy, so different from the sleek, silky animals in the film.

  But the most remarkable of the dogs in their neighbourhood was neither entirely a street dog nor an actual pet. It lived near their house and answered to the name of Manikyam. In a way, it belonged to Saroja, their neighbour who lived three houses away on the other side of the lane. Saroja was nineteen and was doing her BSc in a local college. She was a gentle and kind soul whose face easily lit up with a dazzling smile — her unpainted, slightly chapped lips framing sparkling but a tad out of kilter teeth. Saroja always seemed to be in a hurry, and was often seen purposefully striding up and down the street, with Manikyam bouncing behind her like a trailer van. Saroja was a popular and well-liked young woman and was acquainted with everyone in the neighbourhood. She could always be relied upon for any kind of assistance: free tuition before final exams, unpaid babysitting, or accompanying a patient to a specialist’s appointment. The kids in the area addressed her as Akka — elder sister.

  Manikyam was a wiry, leggy creature of an indeterminate breed, having white and brown fur and a thin firm tail shaped like a reclining question mark. He’d been adopted by Saroja a few years before, when he was a mewling puppy just a few weeks old. He’d slid through the gap under their gate, and sat on his haunches, staring meditatively at the front door.

  When Saroja opened the door to step out, she nearly stumbled over the pup which she initially mistook for a soft toy dropped by a child. It shocked her when the small ball of brown fur let out a weak cry and skittered away. From a safe distance, it gazed up at Saroja with beseeching eyes. Saroja rushed back into house and returned with a chipped china saucer holding two idlis, the only food she could lay her hands on at short notice. The ravenous way in which the puppy pounced on the food, bland south Indian vegetarian fare, moved Saroja no end.

  With the clockwork precision that would have delighted a Swiss or Japanese watchmaker, the pup turned up every day, giving a confident, friendly yelp to announce his presence. Without fail Saroja would open the door and feed him scraps of leftovers, more of the bland south Indian vegetarian fare. But the puppy lapped it up without complaining. Though this ritual was followed for a long time, it remained a kind of arms-length masterpet relationship because Saroja’s family thought it unclean to let dogs into the house.

  A few months into the semi-official adoption, Saroja gave the latte brown Manikyam a bath, tying him first to the slender trunk of a guava tree growing in their front yard. She directed a ferocious jet from the garden hose at the panic-stricken puppy and then scrubbed him with Lifebuoy, a raspberry-red carbolic soap. When the last of the lather was blown away by the Niagara gushing out of the wire-wrapped black hose, what was left standing was not a coffee coloured animal, but a sodden dusty-white one with a large tan coloured patch on his back, as if somebody had spilled a cup of Hyderabadi chai on him. But for his uniquely shaped tail, epitomising the mystery of the universe, even Saroja, his arms-length mistress, would’ve been hard put to recognize him.

  It was around this time, when he received his baptismal bath, that Manikyam acquired his name. The name had suggested itself to Saroja’s mother, a lady whose sole source of entertainment and enlightenment was the cinema and the periodicals devoted to it. At that time a popular Telugu film called Mattilo Manikyam was running in the local cinema halls.

  Mattilo Manikyam meant “the jewel in the dirt.” He was unquestionably a jewel, as the subsequent events bore out. Despite being under Saroja’s care, he lived in the open, growing up foursquare to the elements. Yet, he grew so attached to Saroja that, whenever she stepped out of her house, he left whatever he was doing — rummaging in the garbage or even wooing she-dogs — and followed her to the main road like a bodyguard. He waited patiently, chasing his tail or licking sundry parts of his body, until Saroja got into a bus or an auto rickshaw, and only then did he return. In the same way, whenever Saroja appeared at the top of the lane, he’d race up to her and welcome her with ecstatic barks. He’d escort her home, his interrogative tail wagging with excitement. A true knight in shining armour, even if a four-legged one.

  There is a task, however unwelcome, that she can’t put off, either yielding to lethargy or lassitude, or whatever label she chooses to give. She has to call the Raos, and make an appointment to visit. The Raos, a stupendously successful immigrant family, always make her feel nervous and inadequate. They’re all well settled, have good jobs or are comfortably retired. They eschew Bollywood films, the grandchildren attend expensive private schools, and are into hockey and lacrosse. Some of them ski, or have at least taken lessons, she was told.

  When she thinks of the Raos, she pictures them as a perfect family: Mr. and Mrs. Rao seated in ornate chairs, flanked by a daughter, her husband and two children on each side. The two spaniels are curled at their feet. It’s very much like the actual photograph on the Raos’ mantelpiece, displayed in the gilt-edged photo-frame bought at the Bombay store. It was a good picture, imbued with traditional family values — all the people in it looked personable and successful. The only shortcoming was that the photographer couldn’t quite capture the haloes around their heads.

  She calls, but it goes into the voicemail. Calling a bereaved family is always a tricky business, and leaving a message in such circumstances is even more so. She records her message, feeling highly self-conscious:

  “... I hope Uncle has not taken it too badly …”

  Why wouldn’t he take it badly — he’s been married to her for over sixty years, for Chrissake! Ramya is suddenly overcome with a sense of ineptitude; flustered, she aborts the message.

  She could be neither kind and deferential like Sudhakar, the elder son-in-law, an import from India, nor urbane and savvy like Jayanti, a product of the Canadian education system. She was a first-generation immigrant, the nowhere woman.

  Instead of trying again and leaving a more cogent message, she decides to call later.

  Despite his reservations, Daddy agreed to buy Ramya a pet dog for her 10th birthday. Agreeing was one thing, but actually acquiring a puppy was something else, which Daddy discovered quite early in the process. Buying a dog wasn’t as easy as entering a shop, choosing a canine, coughing up the money, coming out with the article perched on the
crook of your arm, and with an invoice along with a two-year warranty safely tucked into your pocket.

  For starters, he couldn’t locate shops actually selling pet animals in Hyderabad. He rang up all his friends who had pet dogs, and naively enquired whether they had any puppies to spare. While some of them promised to give Ramya one when their she-dogs conceived, none of these animals were pregnant at that time. Many dogs Daddy discovered to his disquiet were neutered so they could have no progeny at all. One of his friends advised him to look in the classifieds of Sunday papers where private sellers advertised.

  But there was a hitch. Unfortunately, Ramya’s birthday fell well before the weekend. So to make up, Daddy ordered a birthday cake in the shape of a cute, cuddly lap dog — never mind that the baker of Golconda Bakery used turquoise blue and strawberry pink icing to decorate the cake.

  This was the only birthday when Ramya showed no real interest in the proceedings — all her thoughts were focussed on the upcoming weekend, when she would be presented with a puppy. She cared neither for the party nor for the cake, nor for the various gifts her classmates and friends from the neighbourhood brought her. The only thing she wanted to think about and speak about was the unique if delayed birthday present her Daddy was going to give her.

  On the following Sunday, a tense Daddy woke up early in the morning and waited for the paperboy to coast down the lane on his bicycle, jingling the bell. No sooner than the boy yelled, “Paperoo!” with a Telugu accent, that Daddy rushed out to fetch it. Normally it would lie on the front veranda, the sheets all higgledy-piggledy, the way it was tossed by the indifferent paperboy, until retrieved by a servant maid, reassembled, re-folded and placed on a teapoy in the living room.

  Daddy riffled the paper, and pulled out the classified section, neglecting the weighty developments in the international scene, news like a natural disaster in Mexico and a political coup in the Middle East. He ran an unpractised eye over the page unsure where in the serried arrays were the ‘Puppies for Sale’ ads. The only time he’d scanned the classifieds was when he’d been searching for a groom for his sister. But that was aeons ago.

  “There it is!” he yelled, like a castaway who has sighted land in the distant horizon, much to Ramya’s delight. She’d been seated on the sofa, with bated breath, watching her father clumsily turn the pages of the newspaper. She’d defied Amma’s orders to go and brush her teeth, preparatory to having breakfast and a glass of Ovaltine.

  Ramya ran up to her father, as he folded back the newspaper. He looked at her and said: “There’s a man in Mehdipatnam who sells puppies. Let’s pay him a visit right after breakfast.”

  Ramya was so excited that she could hardly touch her food even though it was her favourite — crisp-roasted dosas stuffed with sautéed potatoes and served with cocoanut chutney. But when Amma threatened her with dire consequences, saying, “Enough is enough!” Ramya managed to swallow a few shreds of the rice pancakes. Left untouched, the Ovaltine went cold, and a skin of cream, as wrinkled as Amma’s cheeks, formed on its surface. Soon Daddy put down his coffee cup, and said: “Let’s go!”

  The game was afoot. An excited Ramya scrambled into the passenger seat in the front, wishing the car was a helicopter. They also took with them the servant boy Sailoo, who sat at the back, as was his wont, striking a princely pose, shoulders pressed back, and arms splayed out in a casual fashion. Amma had given them a wicker basket, lined with a folded piece of an old worn out bedsheet. Sailoo took custody of the basket and placed it next to him on the seat, as a king may do with a royal orb.

  It took them a good half an hour to reach Mehdipatnam, and an equal amount of time trying to locate the house. Daddy stopped often to ask passers-by for directions only to discover that many of them were new to the place and were looking for an address just like him. Such was Hyderabad! Eventually they reached the house, after going this way and that, guided and misguided by wellmeaning but ignorant residents of the locality.

  There was a high compound wall, with only the roof of an imposing building and some tree-tops showing above it. The enormous gates, clad with metal sheets, were left open, and they drove up the semicircular gravel drive to the portico. The house, despite its magisterial size, appeared marooned in the large compound. The portico looked over a pond with a fountain that threw up debilitated jets of water, like wobbly silver strings, its pipes clogged with years of lime deposits.

  The owner of the house and Daddy had much to talk about as they had many friends in common, some of whom were Daddy’s patients. An old manservant brought tea in rose-patterned china. When Ramya shook her head, he asked: “Would baby like to have a soft drink?”

  “No,” Ramya said, shaking her head violently as her impatience mounted.

  Despite her saying no, the servant brought her a tall glass of iced Rooh Afza, a traditional rose-flavoured summer drink. Ramya wanted to weep; drinking up the tall glassful of sherbet would only delay her mission further.

  “Try it, baby. If you don’t like it, you can leave it.”

  Arbitrarily, Ramya decided to dislike it, and after taking a couple of sips set it down on the end table. The glass began to sprout beads of restless sweat, as Daddy and the owner continued to engage in small talk. A peeved Ramya stared at the condensation on the tumbler — as more droplets formed, the smaller ones coalesced with bigger ones, and then suddenly and quickly slid down the side like a tiny rivulet.

  Then at long last they all came out of the house and went around to the back where a series of kennels had been constructed against the rear wall. The backyard was shady with ancient trees brooding over it. The kennels were clean, but the smell of animal urine and dog-food fluttered in the air like a banner. Also wafting towards them, like rollers from an ocean, was the strong spicy smell of non-vegetarian cooking from the kitchen of the main house.

  There were at least a dozen pups of various ages up for sale, in groups of threes and fours clustered around their mothers, in separate enclosures. When the dogs heard them coming, some of them snarled, as if calling out a warning, and then turned their heads away with indifference. A few puppies ventured out of the kennels, unfearful of strangers, and approached them as if they were old friends. Ramya, being unused to pets, was frightened of animals in general; she would scream when even a kitten brushed past her.

  Some of the bigger dogs in the kennels looked fearsome, with their mouths open, and wet tongues lolling out. But the friendly puppies won Ramya over completely with their convivial curiosity. Picking up a small reddish-brown pup which looked so angelic to her eyes, she said: “Can I have this one?”

  “Are you sure?” the owner asked.

  Ramya nodded her head vigorously. The puppy was already licking Ramya’s face with clammy painterly strokes.

  Before the man could complete the sentence, Daddy interrupted him: “Let her have it, if she likes it so much.”

  “It’s only a few weeks old … but it is a Doberman, and it will soon grow up to be a big, strong dog,” he said, more as a warning than just providing product information.

  While Daddy settled the commercial aspects of the deal, Ramya and Sailoo placed the puppy in the open basket and clambered into the back of the car. The excited puppy got out of the basket and ran over their laps and was in danger of falling into the gap between their knees and the back of the front seats. Soon Daddy returned and got into the car. As he turned on the ignition and pulled at the starter switch, he asked: “Happy?”

  “Yes!” Ramya said, as she tried to evade the generously sticky licks from the puppy.

  “What are you going to call him?”

  Tommy? Rusty? Brownie? Bruno?

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think of a good name.”

  Casting a glance at the rufous puppy, Daddy said: “What about Reddy?” And laughed uproariously.

  When the car had gone a few miles, the puppy changed its mood all of a sudden, and began to mewl. It grew restless and jumped from one lap to the other, yelping so
piteously that Ramya was quite alarmed.

  “Daddy, the puppy is missing its mother, I think. Let’s go back! He looks so miserable.”

  Her father slowed down the car, and would’ve heeded to Ramya’s plea, but for an unmoved Sailoo’s wise counsel: “Don’t worry so much, Ramya-amma. He might miss his mother right now, but if you look after him well, he’ll forget all about his family in a few days’ time.”

  When they reached home, Ramya carried the whimpering puppy into the drawing room. No sooner had she set him down on the floor than he passed water. A servant maid was sent to bring a mop and a pail to clean up. By then Amma had brought some warm milk in a bowl, and instructed Ramya to feed the dog. The puppy waddled over, and noisily began to slurp up the milk. After he had his fill, he seemed to be satisfied and didn’t look so woebegone.

  In the first few weeks, Ramya devoted all her spare time to the care of the puppy. When Ramya left for school every morning, the puppy mewled heartbreakingly. In the afternoons, it would hang around near the open front door, waiting for Ramya to return. The moment she appeared, in fact well before that, when the puppy heard the metal gate creaking open, it would hurry outside taking fragile mincing steps, its eyes afire with adoration.

  Without waiting to get the overloaded canvas school bag off her back, or kicking her dusty leather shoes away, Ramya would scoop up the puppy and coddle him, muttering sweet nothings. Thus, she would break the age-old house rules to change out of her uniform and wash her hands and feet the first thing after returning from school.

  Ramya even neglected to have her afternoon tiffin, usually a light snack of bondas or samosas or curry-puffs, something she would’ve pounced on hungrily the minute she’d washed her hands. She had to be reminded umpteen times by Amma, her voice growing sterner by the minute, to change into civvies and have a bite. Ramya stopped going out in the evening to play with her friends or take her small bicycle for a spin. If she went out at all, she took her puppy with her, cradling it in her arms, much like an ayah taking her ward for an outing. The children playing in the street would abandon their games and come up to her, some of them begging Ramya to let them carry the puppy.