Dog-in-Law

I have a friend who’s a documentary filmmaker with a wild passion for dogs, conspiracy theories and vampire tv series. That should be enough to know that nothing she ever says isn’t as wise as it’s entertaining; nothing that can’t make even your most outlandish thought seem pretty regular. She told me recently, “Everytime we hit a deadlock in an interview, I always tell my colleague, ‘Just follow the pet of the house with the camera, and we’ll find a way to a good quote.’ And it always works!” There was a time when I’d have smirked at that; now it makes me laugh like crazy. There was a time when I could’ve said there are people who love dogs; and then there’s me. Then there was this one day, ya see, when god laughed a wicked laugh and I got married to my husband; thereby inheriting his dog, Maximus, whom I refer to (sometimes) jokingly, as my dog-in-law (and secretly, as Essence de Husband).

In case you haven’t seen this coming, let me confess: I have a dog, and I’m not a dog-lover. There. I’ve done it; I’ve brought absolute doom upon my social life. I’ve alienated friends, been blacklisted by strangers, killed all potential party entertainment, made the spouse sigh. All that remains now, is to wait for the abysmal drop in my FB friends’ list, suffer the silent analysis of my humane quotient, and wait out the wild anti-Dilliwali campaigns of the SPCA.

It’s not easy anymore, to be a non dog-lover in this city. The only time Dilli alienates the Dilliwali is when we’re on the topic of dogs. They say Dilli is unfriendly. People don’t talk warmly; no, they don’t say hellos to strangers on morning walks; no they don’t smile, not even if you hand them freshly baked cupcakes on a Monday morning. I say, bullshit. All you need to do is say the magic three-letter word. Not god, you non-believer; spell backwards and say it out loud. In a minute you’d have a dozen conversations; frowns shall expand into smiles and ohhh!s, or wide story-hungry looks. Ever since that silly Hutch ad with the pug, I see that Dilliwaley have grown hitherto unseen massive dog-appreciating glands, the kinds that go ‘aww!’ at the drop of a hat, so what if they’ve never owned anything resembling a quadrupled and are oblivious to the existence of dog tantrums. Dogs are these sweet, furry, expensive toys that talk (if you’re a non dog-person who just said ‘aww’!) or walking, jumping evidence of the deep goodness in their owners (you know who you are, dog-person you).  

Things have been ever so lucid since there fell upon me this third rock from the sun, this earthshattering phenomenon, this non-totalisable element in my life: Maximus, my husband’s dog. He of the deceptive bovine langour, the gajagaamini gait, the lotus-eyed innocence that hides a wily manipulator, a keen opportunist, a wack jumpiness. During the early attempts at my ‘initiation’, being home was a lot like being a sober person in a party-ful of drunks. They’d say ‘Aww, just look at Max’s tantrums, so cute!’, I’d say ‘Drama queen kahin ka’. They’d say, ‘Oh he wants to eat with you!’; I’d say ‘I ain’t giving haftaa at every mealtime to this goon!’. They’d say, ‘Oh he’s not barking at everybody from the balcony; he’s expressing himself.’ I’d say, ‘He’s a senile old khoosat on a khaat, grumbling at every passerby – bird, monkey, kid, god.’ They’d say ‘Look how happy he is to meet you every time you come home!’; I’d say ‘Amnesiac hai saala.’

So they gave up on me (my mother merely said, ‘he’s your past life karma, beta’). Which was worse. Now it was all a bit like having an obnoxious colleague (like, from hell) whom you can’t get fired. The kind that does nothing except bark, sit around naked all day, lick his balls, and fart away in his sleep from an unshiftable perch in front of the single source of cooling. When he's not doing that, he's shoving his mouth into your lunch or bugging you to take him to the balcony where he does things that fill up your entire office with the foulest smell of that chemical manufactured in laboratories located in doggie bladders. The kind no Employee Etiquette Guide could ever imagine.

I lived, I learnt (Alanis, your song dawns so late upon me). I realised that English is a phunny language indeed, for having ridiculously ironic phrases such as ‘work like a dog’ and ‘dog-tired’. I rehearsed my Max hate-list so many times that the unthinkable happened - my biggest source of disgust became my biggest obsession. Like an absolutely parasitic, coldhearted writer, I now observe Max as if he’s a catalyst bringing avalanches in the Dilliwali’s life-plot with every fateful twitch of his. The ‘Circus Maximus’ of our house is now an excuse for me to observe not just others, but also, me. To examine my narcissism, ad nauseum. That sobering glass of water when I’m drunk on myself.

For instance, there was a time when I thought everybody else was a prude. Then I began living with naked Max. Regular events in the day were made shocking by the brazen display of his genitals. I mean, I walk into the room and there are his balls. I’m staring into space and my vision is blocked by yawning and stretching Max’s double-barrelled asshole. “Can we make him wear panties, please” I said to the Husband one day, then balked at my own words. (The husband merely said, ‘Guys don’t wear panties.”)

There was a time when I thought I was just fine with my and everyone else’s sexuality. And then I began to live with shag-for-no-reason/season Max. We’re watching family tv; Max is grunting like sex. We’re eating family dinner; Max is grunting like sex. Max is always grunting sex and I’m always screaming like a nun warden, ‘Chhiii! Stop! Stop! Someone say something!’

There was a time I thought I had absolutely no second-sibling complex. Then I found myself behaving exactly like the bully older sister. I mess with Max as soon as he descends into deep sleep; I scream random things at him while passing from one room to another; I splash water at him after washing my hands; I pretend-slap him endlessly. My killer move: I embarrass him by telling everyone about ‘that time when he behaved so stupidly’.

There was a time I thought I was this take-me-at-face-value woman who didn’t care two hoots about what people thought of her. Then I found myself using downright dirty Max tactics to endear self to others. I now introduce myself according to readings from my inbuilt dog-lover radar; the slightest indication of doglove and, I begin sharing Max mannerisms cutely; the slightest teetering towards pet-averse, and I regale with loony Max habits and secrets.

There was time I thought punctuation was the ultimate code of sanity in the universe. That the world would always fall into sense if you made certain wild bifurcations with the side-slash. And there is a time such as now, when I sit precariously on a wobbly side-slash between Dog Person and Non Dog Person - one that not so long ago, was an invincible one. Max and all the Dog Persons of the world watch with glee below; I teeter untidily, holding onto my perch like it’s my last chance at some kind of warped self-vindication. Call the dogs off, people; this Dilliwali ain’t jumping yet!

WHAT'S KEEPING THE DILLIWALI SANE

Watching a movie with absolutely no dogs in it; I cope, thanks. When you've had enough of dogs, or movies, I'd suggest watching the ultimate movie about movies, Man with a Movie Camera. an experimental 1929 Russian documentary film with no story, no actors, just pure brilliance. An inexhaustibly creative way of telling the story of how cinema comes into being and what it does to us - how the movie camera has changed our lives forever, not just in the theatre, but in life, in the mind. Dilliwali can watch this movie a zillion times and not fail to be thrilled and rocked and made truly, truly wondrous. 

(Swaati Chattopadhyay is a writer, dancer, compulsive analogy-weaver, who has a happily complicated relationship with her frog-in-a-Delhi-well life. There’s nothing she’d love more than a piece of your mind in her inbox, at delusionaldilliwali@gmail.com).