My daughter has a new superhero. Or super heroine. Every night I tell Myra stories of this super heroine and she is all ears, picking every word, wide eyed, watching the pictures unfold as I tell her one of the many adventures of Zeboo. Yes, Zeboo, my pet dog, my friend, my sister.
Years ago, eighteen years to be precise, I fell in love with the world’s most adorable puppy. It was love at first sight for me. As I was walking up to my friend Prashant’s room, there by the stairway, Lucy, his cute Spitz, and Ricky, his giant Alsatian, sat with their litter. Lucy was fiercely protective of her pups. Seven of them, all white and brown, and Zeboo slept her time away. The next day I returned to see her, sleeping again, curled up by her mom. As much I hated taking her away from her Lucy, I was thrilled that Zeboo was going to be with us.
Zeboo was immediately accepted in the family, she didn’t have to try hard, the moment she looked at you with those puppy eyes, you would fall. Then began her many adventures, growing up in a over-protective family. It helped her that we lived on the ground floor, and has the whole courtyard and mom’s garden to play in. For a untrained canine, she was immaculately well behaved. She never messed up the house; she would always use the bathroom, always ate in her bowl, slept in her rug and knew all the communication skills well.
She knew the good guys from the bad, and always reserved her fiercest barks for the real nasty guys. And she knew friends. She could be as playful as she could be shut off. And then she did all the cute stuff like chasing sparrows and crows, running after the cricket ball and growling if anybody wanted it from us. She even played cricket with us three brothers. She’d ride on us on the bike, she would pressurise my dad for the walk every night, even if it was raining. Yes, she could be pushy. And she could be a vegetarian for days at end, devouring tomatoes, cucumbers and bananas. She’d stay up late in the night till she was convinced that there was nobody coming to harm us and then snuggle up close with one of us in our beds.
Of the many stories that I tell Myra about Zeboo, the one she has decided to call “Zeboo and the dirty boy”, the one where she fought a boy bravely who had broken our window pane with a cricket ball and snatched it away from him. The other one is “Zeboo and the crow” where, Zeboo chases the crow that is damaging mom’s garden. And when I tell her “Zeboo and the doctor”, Myra is pained because the doctor gives her a big injection. She looks forward to a story every night, and it is not difficult for me to narrate one to her, because Zeboo has had so many wonderful tales.
Zeboo left us six years back, before my daughter was born. And every time I saw Zeboo’s photograph, or watch a canine movie, I can’t help having tears in my eyes thinking that she is no more with us.
But she is there; she’s still with us. She belongs here. And she lives on. In the stories I tell Myra, and in Myra’s heart.
