THE BLACK BEAUTY

On a cold winter evening, seventeen years ago, my elder sister and brother got home a Labrador pup cuddled into the jacket of my brother. My father was strictly against keeping a pet and we guys really wanted to keep this one. So now began the process of chalking out ways to make her stay. None of us had the courage to tell dad about it or to ask him if we could keep a pet but now the issue was that we had brought one and now where to keep it!

We made a bed for her in a corner of the washroom attached to my sisters’ room. Every now and then when we moved out from home, we would take her along cuddled in our pullover or jacket. But it had to come out someday. One night, while we were all asleep, dad heard some whooping sound upstairs. Wondering what it could be, dad went upstairs and followed the sound to the washroom and there she was, looking at him with her face turning all around.

Next morning when we got up and went to the washroom to fetch her, she was not to be found! We could smell what would have happened and went downstairs terrified. Sheeba was sitting next to my father. Yes, that’s what my mother had named her eventually as she was black in colour, our black beauty, though this all was after we got a good scolding from our father. That was the day when Sheeba became a part of our family.

Sheeba soon caught the attention of all our friends and people in the neighborhood. People might forget to enquire about how we were, but they would never forget to enquire about her. Though she was an animal but she definitely had a real sharp brain. She would understand whatever we said, never had a formal training, could express herself, the only difference being that she could not speak. Her sixth sense was such that whenever I used to come home from work or play, I would find her wagging her tail at the door even before I could open the gate of the house.

My father, who was initially not willing to let us keep her, would take her out for a walk every morning and it was he whom she never disobeyed. If she was scared of someone, it was my father and obviously so, we all were! 

Sheeba stayed with us for fourteen long years. During these years, she meant family to us. Wherever we used to go, she would go along. Whatever we ate, she would eat the same. She would climb onto our beds or to the sofa and spend the whole night tucked in and the moment dad got up in the morning, she would cautiously move back to her bed.

She was really fond of non-vegetarian food, as all dogs probably are, but there was something she was more fond of than that too, and that was raw potatoes and maggi! Every now and then she would go into the kitchen and pick up a potato. There were times when one of us would come home in a bad mood, or we would have a fight at home, and then Sheeba would come up and stand in front and it all used to vanish. The very sight of her made us forget all our blues and we would move out to the lawn and start playing.

Three years back she died of cancer, but, to this day, when I reach home, especially when I am feeling low, I wish her to be there at the door, to receive me and to make me forget my melancholy, and my craving remains so till date though I know it will not happen. The night she bled to death due to her tumors haunts us all, deep within, till date.

It was no less than a mourning at home for days and days. Until then, I had heard that love and attachment can change your life, this was when I experienced it. Now I have endless number of dogs outside my home to whom I feed but Sheeba was for sure much more than a pet.