“His Ladyship”
Part I: June
The vacuum cleaner whirred into maximum mode. As it was ‘soundless’, the resultant sound was a mix of a muffled blow drier and a piped down mixer, the manufacturer had cleverly managed to tone them down so the sound was nowhere close to Hoover-level. Somewhere below the dining table a kerfuffle ensued, a flurry of long legs and sliding talons, slipping on the tiled floor. Babugosha heaved himself up and managed to hop, skip and jump away towards the safety of the futon in the living room, a corner behind the futon would be perfect to eye the clean up operation and emerge from, once all the commotion was over.
The user of the vacuum – self – me, observed as I flailed and waved its snout around the room. From the corner of my eye, I could see a pair of slits, another pair of eyes, eyeing me from another unmanned corner of the futon. On the other end, stood the-human-the-creature-feared-most. A woman of Nepali origin, of medium height, wearing lots of flashy bangles in mirror and glass and a neon blue ikat printed kurta. The woman simulated my cleaning gesture and turned towards him. The creature let his front paws and legs slide as they softly hit the patch of tiled floor he sat on. Along with legs and paws, the head and long nose, disappeared underneath the futon temporarily as ‘the-human-the-creature-feared-most’ laughed the laugh of a lazy, living room dictator as she took the vacuum from my hand, fake-flailing it at the creature before moving on to another room to deploy its relatively sound deadened motor around there. Hearing the fading sound, another flurry of slipping paws and sliding legs as the creature emerged from behind the futon and managed a number eight formation around my legs without falling or slipping even once. His comatose brother, fast asleep on the other end of the futon, lifted his head and opened one eye to check what the commotion was about. It took him an instant to work out that the excitement had been on account of the vacuum cleaner leaving the room, he put his head down and sighed. I placed the base of the vacuum cleaner down on the floor and the thud it made was enough to make the number eight maker jump and bolt towards his corner of the futon again.
**
Part II: May, One week ago
Self, creature and his alpha brother on evening walk. All on leash, including self, tangled up in the two leashes I am trying to manage. Each dog pulls in a different direction at the same time. When someone passes by, they twirl around me like I’m the centre of a merry-go-around and pull again, in opposite directions. A large yellowed frond of a palm falls to the ground. The creature jumps up shocked and scandalised. A smaller fern beneath the palm also sheds a few leaves and now the creature is truly horrified, he hops around and looks at the falling leaves in shock. The slightest bit of movement of noise scares him. The brother, alpha that he is, hasn’t even noticed. He pulls us all towards an attractive girl with a sling bag crossing the road. He wants to tell her he is here. Right here. Her best option as far as males, and him, go. My leash, and his brother’s paranoia, leave him panting and pulling, pulling and panting, until he gives up. Image is important and how would it seem to the pretty girl, her handsome match and paramour acting desperate like that. He stops in his tracks. I tug at him tug pull him to one side, the side his brother is on, as the brother, hearing another leaf fall, hops and half-trots, lunging towards his brother, in the process peeing a few drops here and there. I get a look of sheer disgust from the suave brother. This is not on, he says to me with his molten honey melting eyes.
A neighbour asks me what I call them. I tell her the alpha is Boomerang and the fearful one who barks from behind the alley, Babugosha. Babugosha because he can pee from his ears, his tail, his back. He is a pee-err. She laughs. I laugh. Babugosha listening in as always, smiles his crinkly smile for once.
**
Part III: December, Six months before one week ago
I slam the door of my apartment and noisily clamber down the stairs. The bowl of food in my hand excites the creature no end and like a horse he semi gallops, never folding his hind legs as he jumps towards me and the bowl. He is huge, and tall. His coat is the colour of soft, mulled beige leaking ever so gently into a kind of creamy tone, like milk foam in cappuchino – he is tender of colour if such a thing is possible. Sensitive, thin skinned, the skin on his insides -his stomach, legs is pale and nearly white with pink spots. For a panicmeister, he wolves down the food and without bothering to make eye contact, rushes towards his brother bowl to see what he can get at there. The brother is a dignified eater, none of this sloppy and slovenly eating for him. He has eaten most of his food without spilling the rice and vegetables around his bowl. As his brother approaches, he deftly side-steps him and head to inspect his messed up bowl, leaving a portion of his own meal for his brother to polish off. Looking with a tinge of disgust at the brother’s scattered leftovers, he looks up at me and shifts his gaze to the small gate that opens up towards the stairs. He means to say, let me go up in exchange for being a good eater and sharing my food with my slovenly brother. As I pick up the bowls and open the latch on the gate with my elbow, the brother pushes his nose in and opens the gate good and proper so that both alpha and the-creature-who-is-scared-of-everything-including-falling-leaves bound up and are inside my apartment before I can get in. At the door, drops some pee out of excitement and before I can clear it all up, my cat, Garfield’s bowl has been attacked and all her food eaten. At the store the shopkeeper chats with me. I tell him about my twins: one fearful of a falling leaf and the other, fearless as the devil himself. The shopkeeper says the other one isn’t a brother. I get annoyed. How is that even possible. He is a boy. A big boy. He is just shy and fearful. The shopkeeper is amused but unconvinced.
**
Part IV: July, Six months before six months ago
I get out of my car. Two beige blurs spin dizzyingly around my side of the window. I roll it down and as they leap frog towards my arm at the window, my parking sensor goes wild as one of them jumps around the back where I am trying to park the car. A few weeks into this parking routine I find I have two mobile, dedicated parking attendants in the brothers. As my car drives into the neighbourhood, they know, they find a spot and jump there to tell me I should drive up there. As I slide the car in and park, they jump around some more until its well and truly parked, spot on. The beige blur follows me up to the stairs interrupted sometimes by a passing stranger or a known person when the creature – the fearful one- leaps up when any sound or steps or motion occurs around him. Like a hound on a race course, he flashes past us towards the alley at the back and disappears around the corner and watches, barking wildly as me and his brother go upstairs. A few minutes later, he is at my door. But unlike his brother, he doesn’t come in, he goes to the balcony at the front of the apartment and sits there. His brother meanwhile is inside, snug and tucked in to the futon or one of the sofas. I dash off to the pet store and get a dog bed for the creature. I pull out some old cushions and arrange them around the bed. The bed itself is placed exactly where he likes to sit on the balcony. In his corner. I leave him to make friend with his bed and close the door.
An hour later. The cushions are inside out. The fluff inside them is inside out too. The creature sits in between all the fluff arranged around him in his dog bed like a white fluff ball gown. He looks up at me. When I get close he wags his tail and his pee sprays in multiple directions. As I clear up the mess, he nuzzles his long nose in my neck and ear and licks my earlobe. I give him a hug and he hugs me back- squeezing his long slender arms around my shoulders and rubbing them all the way up against my head and my hair until his paws make a blessing kind of `namaste’ formation on the top of my head.
**
Part V: June, Two weeks ago
We are walking in the lane inside the colony. For the brother, there are no limits to points of interest: a car tyre, a plastic bag, a pile of dry laburnum flowers piled up in one corner, construction rubble, a flower pot, the side of a metre box. Alpha male walks and stops, checks and inspects, sprays a bit of his signature pee to mark his territory and pulls us all ahead, collectively moving forward. The fearful one walks with me. Out of deference to his brother’s superiority, he follows in his tracks to chase a smell every few minutes after his brother – by which time his brother has cocked one leg and spraying his signature stuff there. Sadly for the fearful one, the spray lands his kneeling head each time as he is always a few minutes late to the sniffing party. A few such episodes lates, the fearful one loses it. In a fit of rage, he lifts his wet head and snarl, pulling madly at his brother, a few drops of pee fall to the ground as he does this. Then, like a sweet little girl, he pees squatting and without cocking his leg up. A few steps further, we are at rubbish heap full of sand dump. The fearful one now cocks one leg and pees elegantly and trots on. This dance continues as we walk around the colony for an hour. Sit-and-squat pee and cock-a-leg. Cock-a-leg and sit-and-squat. The brother is curious and follows his sibling around to check and smell. I am curious and follow them around to check but not smell.
That evening I give Babugosha a good long bath and comb him with a neem comb. Then when I scrub him down it dawns on me. He has no testicles. He’s never had them. He has boy and girl parts. He really is a she inside and he loves me both ways as him and as her. I pick a fallen leaf and tickle his ear with it. He wags his flat down tail that I have never seen up and erect ever. He has to protect himself on both sides, I think. In the process, while performing his biological duties, he protects me as well.
Babugosha trots off, his tail down and leaving a few droplets of pee for me to clear up after him. I wipe the floor happily knowing now why he is the way she is.