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9.18
The Canine Coup
A Memoir of Four-Legged Guests Who Never Left
An Invited Arrival (1994)
In 1994, a dog entered our home not by accident, but by invitation. Until then, dogs belonged to other people’s houses and to the street, not to ours. This first entrant was a white Pomeranian, promptly christened Zombie—a name that made sense to no one outside the family and never needed explaining.
The idea, as with many domestic revolutions, began with Bhavana. She had always had a soft corner for animals, and when she finally voiced a desire for a pet, it found a sympathetic ear in Mr Ashok Bang at Gopuri. A family friend who already lived with four or five animals, he treated the addition of one more dog as a minor administrative task. He went to Gadchiroli to his younger brother, Dr Abhay Bangi, returned with a two-month-old Pomeranian, and handed Zombie to us as casually as one might offer a potted plant.
Zombie and the Years of Growing Up
Zombie lived with us in Vivekananda Colony, our rented ground-floor home in Sevagram, from 1994 to 2004—long enough to stop being a pet and start becoming family. Ashwini was eight, Amrita five. They grew up with Zombie underfoot, over furniture, and occasionally on their nerves. There are photographs somewhere of the three of them together, all looking equally convinced of their importance to the household.
An Ordinary Ending
Zombie died in 2004, suddenly and without warning, while I was in Berkeley. There were no signs of illness, no prolonged goodbyes—just a heart that decided it had done enough. Bhavana handled the aftermath with quiet efficiency. Bhaskar, the local electrician who helped us with most things mechanical and many things emotional, buried Zombie in the backyard. It was an unceremonious ending for a dog who had lived a thoroughly domestic life.
A House Without a Dog
For the next ten years, we remained dogless. The house adjusted. The children grew up. Silence reclaimed certain corners.
***
The Second Zombie (2013)
In March 2012, Ashwini—by then newly married—brought home a Labrador from Nagpur. Bhavana named him, fed him, groomed him, vaccinated him, and generally treated him as a four-legged extension of the family. The Labrador accepted all this without comment, as Labradors tend to do.
Diwali, 2018
It was this second dog—also, confusingly, called Zombie—who gave us an episode that refuses to fade.
It happened on Diwali evening in November 2017, around five o’clock. In an hour, we were to perform the Lakshmi puja. The house was in that peculiar Diwali state: flowers being arranged, lamps being tested, people half-dressed, half-devotional. In the middle of this controlled chaos, Zombie began barking. This was alarming. He was not a barker. He believed in dignity.
The barking led us to the kitchen gallery. When we opened the door, we saw Zombie and an eight-foot cobra across the steel criss-cross fence of our neighbour, Dr M. V. R. Reddy—almost face to face. The cobra raised its hood, aimed, and struck. Zombie swerved and escaped. Again the hood rose. Again it struck. Again Zombie turned away, missing the bite by inches.
For ten to fifteen minutes—though it felt much longer—we stood helplessly as this unlikely duel continued. By rough count, the cobra struck at least fifty times. Each time, Zombie ducked, twisted, or turned away—not aggressively, not triumphantly, but with focused calm.
We shouted. We tried to pull Zombie away. We tried to shoo the cobra out. Nothing worked. Eventually, the cobra tired of the exercise. It lowered its hood, turned with what looked suspiciously like irritation, and slipped into the garden bushes. Zombie remained where he was, victorious without knowing it.
The sarpamitra could not be reached—it was Diwali. By the time help arrived, the cobra had vanished and was never seen again.
Zombie survived that Diwali. The puja happened, slightly delayed and noticeably subdued. The lamps were lit with gratitude rather than enthusiasm.
The Labrador stayed with us until March 2018, when he died suddenly—once again, presumably of a heart attack. He died young. He was buried in the open space in front of our home, a quiet neighbour even in death.
***
A Grandchild’s Persistence
The third arrival came not through adult deliberation but through the steady persistence of a grandchild. He arrived in 2023 and was bought from the same pet onwer from Nagpur who gave us Zombie junior. Hedo, a Golden Retriever, was named by Diti, who had just begun reading mythology and found the word irresistible. We resisted at first. Diti was given a lecture on shared responsibility—feeding, cleaning, walking, the endless small chores animals impose on humans. She listened patiently, agreed to everything, and wore us down.
Becoming Part of the House
Today, Hedo is two years old and no longer “the dog.” He is part of the house’s fabric. We take him for his morning and evening walks, feed him, and negotiate with him. Diti plays mother to him. Nivi, the moment she returns from school, seeks him out.
A year ago, when Ashwini and Shaily took the children on a ten-day trip to the Konkan, they took Hedo along. Finding hotels with “Pets Permitted” signs proved difficult, but that inconvenience mattered more to the humans than to Hedo. He enjoyed both the road trip and the holiday. More recently, he accompanied them on a trek near Chandrapur, a two-hour drive from Sevagram, which he enjoyed just as much.
A Daily Transaction
Several times a day, when I am at my computer, he pads over and positions himself near the table. He then signals—politely but firmly—that his back requires stroking. I oblige. He sits still, absorbs the attention, looks at me with what I choose to interpret as gratitude, and walks away, his business concluded.
It is a small, wordless transaction.
But then, so are most lasting relationships