Miss U Chintu

Chintu

For a long time, I did not realise the love I had for animals. None of us at home had any aversion towards animals, but with a huge family, there was no question of a pet at home at all!

My eldest sister, Sujatha, has a few dogs at home. These are quite huge and though they are quite friendly, I get a bit scared by their size.

When my third sister Jayashree took in a stray dog, I realised that I liked Princy very much. In fact, I have become so close to Princy, that nowadays when she sees me, she wags her tail so much that Jayashree keeps saying that with so much of wagging, the tail may fall off! As soon as I go nearby, she jumps on me and licks my hand.

For a short while, my second sister, Sundari, had a cat in their house in Bombay and it was a friendly one.

My eldest sister-in-law, Saraswathi Manni feeds a cat which comes home 4-5 times to her door and calls for attention. Manni does not allow the cat inside the house and the cat also understands her terms and conditions perfectly. Only I try to go near her and touch her, but she shies away.

A couple of months back, my second brother-in-law, Nagaraj Anna brought a 45-day-old Labrador from his friend’s house. I went to see the puppy only two days after he came. He was such a lovable baby! I was there for more than an hour and half the time he was asleep. I put him on my lap and he went to sleep there. He was so small and cuddly. Even my husband, who does not have a great love for animals, was fascinated by him. He had such lovely grey eyes. Anna and family named him Chintu.

The following weeks saw us making frequent visits to Anna’s house to see Chintu. Each time we could make out that he had grown up a little more and had become more and more adorable. He was growing rapidly and became too heavy to lift after 3-4 weeks. His eyes also changed to such a lovely shade of honey brown.

He loves people so much. He is crazy about any visitor and ready to jump, lick and also mildly bite them. He barks so sweetly. When my sister-in-law, Indra Manni, scolds him for biting people, it is great to see him objecting (by barking) to her scolding. Anna says that there is a constant fight between Manni and Chintu and he is the peacemaker between them. Though Chintu loves both Karthik and Krishna (Anna’s sons), Krishna is his favourite and he listens to whatever he says. Krishna also allows him to do all the jumping, licking, biting and playing that he wants. He is allowed to roam around the house freely except the kitchen and he has a great time playing around. He hates to be alone and loves having many people paying constant attention to him. It is a lovely sight to see him waiting to greet you when you enter the house.

Yesterday Anna gave us the sad news that he had to give away Chintu to his friend as the people living in the neighbouring flat were objecting to having a dog in the building. Others in the family were too upset to even talk to us. Can’t blame them, my husband and I also got so upset!

Good bye Chintu, hope you have a great life in your new family!