Vaseem was immensely proud of his work and couldn’t stop smiling. I appreciated the Wooden room. I reminded him that we needed curtain rods, everything above waist height being glass. The Wooden room was only half wooden. Privacy wasn’t at stake. Nobody could look in since the room was at the highest point in the house but there was a reason for curtains. The November chill was already verging on unpleasant and we still had to get through December and January. I later found out that February is winter too. Unlike Delhi, where February is a time of flowers, of shedding winter layers and breathing easier as the pollution gets less bad.
The room needed curtains. The Cha Cha Cha between the carpenter and me began. This time Vaseem had a new excuse. He had broken his collarbone. He’d sustained this injury by falling off his motorbike. Falling off a motorbike anywhere is a terrifying thought, but on the hairpin bends of the Kumaon, it made me shudder even more. It wasn’t an excuse because he really did have a broken collarbone. But he didn’t tell me about it when he took on the job.
Once the curtain rods were up, after ten days of Cha Cha Cha I urgently needed a wooden kennel. A lovely black and white dog with floppy ears and a gangly gait had attached himself to me in the summer. I allowed him to sleep inside at night.
No dog, cow or goat can sleep outside in the Kumaon. The Kumaon was Tiger country, most of Jim Corbett’s adventures are set in the Kumaon and the eponymous Corbett National Park is on the way up to Sage Cottage. There may not be any tigers up here now, although I doubt that they have confined themselves to the National Park, but people don’t talk about the Tigers as much as they talk about his spotted cousin, The Leopard. We definitely have leopards roaming the oak forests, and snacking on mountain rabbits at their least harmful. The people who live here refer to them as The Leopard. It can’t be the same leopard from Bhimtal to Ranikhet, Nainital to Mukteshwar but it is The Leopard who is a danger. As in The Leopard will eat the dog. The Leopard walked through the garden. I met The Leopard on the way home in the dark.
Photo by Prashant Saini on Unsplash
The Leopard was the reason why the dog had to be allowed inside after dark since his careless owner hadn’t herded him home. Enquiries revealed the dog’s name was Sheru (an affectionate name for Tiger, Sher). Sheru belonged to a man the mention of whom had people lower their voices. What is wrong with him, I asked. Does he beat the dog? No. Has he left the area? No. Then, reluctantly they would say, He drinks. I confirmed this with more than one person. Drinking isn’t unusual in the hills. Whenever I hire a car, we have to do the hiring the day before. So that the driver lays off the liquor the evening before and is in a condition to drive the next day. This is perfectly acceptable, and there’s no judgement around it. It’s like beer in Bavaria, wine in France and G&Ts in England. Social drinking, not a big deal. So if Sheru’s owner was whispered about it meant he was an alcoholic. He clearly couldn’t look after a dog, let alone a dog like Sheru.
Sh
Sheru on my porch, phone photo by Kalpana
I’ll fill you in on Sheru later, how he came and went and all my attendant emotions. We had a rocky relationship and he was the bad boyfriend to a T. Promising the moon, making googly eyes and then exhibiting a hidden streak of independence that he had never admitted to when he wanted to be let into my warm house.
Sheru sneaked up on the couch, taking advantage of his brown-eyed cuteness - Phone photo by Kalpana
Anyway, Sheru had reappeared with his joyous leap, one floppy ear and brown eyes. I fell in love again. I was at the cottage with my cats. In the first experiment of cohabiting with the cats, Sheru chased Rosie up a Himalayan Oaktree, barked furiously at Daisy and ran after Bilbo, who scaled a wall like the gymnast he suddenly turned into. Clearly, Sheru and the cats couldn’t live in harmony. But Sheru wouldn’t go home. All the other people who’d fallen in love with him too had wised up to his tricks and wouldn’t take him back. He slept on my porch. He barked all night, letting The Leopard know his exact coordinates. I was afraid for his life.
Vaseem was summoned. I think he forgot the steps of Cha Cha Cha because he arrived within the hour. He agreed that Sheru’s life was in danger. He promised to make a kennel by the evening.
Then he remembered the Cha Cha Cha.
He neither made the kennel nor answered my calls. Sheru slept on the porch on the fleece I gave him, as protection against the cold, if not The Leopard. I left the porch light on to dissuade The Leopard from coming near the house. I was torn between my responsibility to my cats and my responsibility to a poor defenceless, homeless animal. Even if that animal had toyed with my affections.
What was I to do?