When I left home to come to Delhi never did I fathom the tragedy that was about to alter the very fundamentals of my life.
Life as I knew it had died. Suffocated by the carpeted floors and summoning bells of the bureaucracy. I would wait listlessly for the time I could leave the house. The heat would sear my skin but the freedom to run, shout or even talk above 5 decibels thrilled me and allowed me to continue the life I had left off, waiting but not forgotten, at the entrance of No.3, The President’s Estate.
As I turn the circle that hails the edifice, the hands go for my pipes and an avalanche of a million tiny pebbles of fear automatically land-slide in the pit of my stomach. I can feel every constriction in my throat in between the futile attempts I make to desperately find the air that eludes me.
I enter the antechamber, and the folded hand greeting of a man, two score older than me ensure that the supply of blood has been cut off to the capillaries in my chest. I make my way into the house, and the carpeted floor muffles any sound that might have helped shatter the silence that seems to have permanently damaged my auditory organs. Over-stuffed furniture, upholstered in bitchy beige silk welcome me with a smugness that made me want to set her on fire.
The only being in that house that seems to share the same joi de vivre and enthusiasm for life as me, or in the entire household shows any excitement of my being there is Ruby, the pet pug, who I highly suspect feeds on Gatorade and Snicker bars (if this is true, her affections for me don’t count). If you thought the Energiser bunnies were annoying, she is a thousand of them encased in pug’s clothing, and she loves me. She follows me around, jumps into my bed, licks my face when I’m sleeping, and nibbles at my toes under the dinner table.
I hate her! I hate the feeling her teeth leave when she gnaws at my shins, I hate the wetness of her nose, I hate the sound of her perpetual panting, and the pinkness of her tongue that can’t find any place inside her mouth. I hate the warmth of her body, and her excitement when she runs around in circles trying to snap off her tail.
I envy her! I envy the fact that she pants louder than the decibel level maintained for speech inside the house, I envy that a twig can entertain her for at least four hours, I envy that she can run around the house not giving a damn that someone might think of her as uncouth, and most of all I envy the fact that she doesn’t need to feel judged when she picks up the wrong fork to eat dessert.
Everything about her sends me into an almost post partum-esque tizzy. She means well, she does, and it’s not her fault. “It’s not you Rube, it’s me.”
