A Son, My Mother Never Had (Part II)
Pandu The Toddler
We always had pets in a pair, but we never tried anything other than canine. We were scared of cats as children, all credits go to the mean hag—my neighbor, whose old house was adjacent to my compound wall, for instilling that fear. She was stout in stature, but even looked shorter with that acute stoop at the hip, which made her belly never see the sun, anymore. She was all gray, and had more folds on her face than wall nut. She was always followed by two equally mean black cats. She would be in a perennial bad mood, and there was none that didn’t get charred with her foul mouth, in my neighborhood sometime or the other. At the frolicking kids, she would brandish her cane, and shout, “machikne! anikal ka beu haru,” her curses muffled between her gums without dentures, lost its vileness and almost sounded cute.
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On retrospect, I presume, all those bitterness of failures, hatred, disgust accumulated over the long journey gets brewed in the pressure cooker– life. And, when one is not bound by any civility and moral codes anymore, or may be the pretension of such social protocols become obvious at the old age, they just let it go like a whizzing whistle—all those pent up emotions. It must be pretty exhilarating to just let it go, at anyone, anywhere, anytime, that’s their prerogative, and they have earned that right.
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All the children in the neighborhood thought she was a boksi, and her two cats– agent of devil. So, the question of cats as pets was never there. Besides cats are ungrateful animals.
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As I said, we always had pets in a pair, a month before we got Pandu, we had a son and a mother of Tibetan Apso, and the mother had just died of old age, who we had brought from some Rana Sahib’s Darbar, keeping their aristocratic traditions, they had appropriately named her—Sashi. Believe me, she had the most elegant name in my whole family, including maternal and paternal sides, among Bir, Pancha Maya, Birke, Mahili, Sante and others. Damn dog wouldn’t eat until given an adequate reverence almost in the manner of— vuja kai baksiyos hajur!
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When she had puppies, we gave them away, but kept one—smallest of all, the weakling, we thought he wouldn’t survive, but he did, and we named him Kale. It was almost in reprisal and contempt to get back at Sahsi’s aristocratic heritage and her snobbishness, so we found the most quintessential Nepali bourgeoisie canine name—Kale, doing so, we made Kale one of us, and razed the wall of aristocracy between us. Sahsi wasn’t happy, and she never took Kale as her son.
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And, we always wondered, what would Rana Sahib name a male dog? Pratap, Randhir, Shakti? Imagine a sign reading on the gate, “Trespassers Beware! Randhir Bites”, now, who would cross the property, if the proprietor were to bite offenders himself?
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When we got Pandu, he could fit between the palms—a furry white little ball, with large black patches, around his eyes and back, looked like a baby Panda, so we baptized him—Pandu. But, there were few elements of society, who weren’t happy with his nwaran. One was our long time family friend, with his last name– Pandey. Every time he would visit us, he would complain to my dad, “heterika, Golay Ji, couldn’t you find any other name?” And, he would say to his children, “lau aba Pandu kaka lai namesta gara,” and cute little girls would bow down to Pandu, and the happy dog would smother the girls, get on top of them and lick their faces all wet. The other was a self proclaimed Vedic scholar, who thought; we were soiling the Pandav Brothers, who were affectionately known as Pandu too, and admonished us for a heresy. We told him to fuck off! Once, he visited us, and one of his shoes got lost, he thought it was a prank by the kids, but we never took his shoe, to this day we suspect it was Pandu– after all no one likes asking their names to be changed.
To be continued…..
Women like cats, men say they like cats, but when women aren’t around, men kick cats.
First two paragraphs - awesome dude.
aahh … the anti-feline culture we seemed to have grown up in. I was a big dog-person myself. I have spent nights underneath the stairs, hugging my knees, while in a gray cardboard box sat a little black pup on top of some pieces of blanket. Its whining was finally dying down. On the first night at our house, he had been whining constantly for over an hour, giving my parents and siblings more grounds for complain, as they had been against the idea in the first place. I had gotten him from a friend of mine, his mother was an elegant slim alsatian of some sort. We never knew who his dad was, but he turned out pretty funny. He was all black, and he was much shorter than any alsatians, yet just as long, hair on his upper back were thick and stood up like spines on a porcupine when he was excited. He looked mean, and would bark and growl with his teeth showing at strangers, in his lifetime he never bit anyone. And he was fast, one of my favorite past time was to run around the yard with Rocky on my toes. Yes, Rocky, and I was never comfortable calling him by his name, yet, with two sisters, I had little say on what name he would get.
Cats were never thought of as pets in my household either, and I hadnt thought much of them till my roommate got a cat. She is this tiny little thing, and is completely black. I am fond of animals, so i was excited at the idea of having a pet, yet i couldnt help wishing it was a dog. The first impression I had was, arrogance. How dare she just stroll around in my room without so much as a second look ! Slowly she started warming up, and every once in a while, she would come close to me and meow, and gently scratch me, ofcourse she would run away when i tried to grab her. Slowly, she started climbing up on the couch and sit by my foot, gently purring. For someone who was used to a rushing barking furry body, the gentle purring thing with its subtle hints was different, but exciting and nice. Slowly, she started bringing bottle caps to us, we were supposed to throw them and she would chase it and bring it back to us. Yes, the cat plays fetch with me, something I was never able to get Rocky to do. These days, I enjoy Nancy’s company (yes, Nancy, the bad name streak hasnt gone, roommate’s choice), and i think she doesnt mind having me around either.
When I sent a digital camera back home, I took some pictures of the cat and sent the camera with the pictures in it. My mom wasnt all too thrilled at the idea of a black cat being in something her son sent.
I would prefer pusses over horndoggies any day. Besides the fact that i suffer from dogphobia unlike Napolean who had catphobia. Listening to friends talking about their pet dogs always lessened my fear, But the very next day I would see one on the street barking at me only while there are an ample number of people around more ugly then me , and as always I would ask myself why me?
This is what I call class and elegance…
Classy writings indeed!!!
From Dogs to dictators;
and Sex to religions!!!!
A Great blog indeed; a masterpiece!!!
Kudos to you!!!
Was just my opinion…and very few had impressed me as ur writing has does!! You certainly have knackfor it!!!
beautiful malady,
things we do for women, they are no better than cats…hehe…
pake,
i agree with you totally there…if lived together for long, you can bond with anything– two legged or four, for that matter tables and chairs too….
barber,
that’s why the hound doggies are chasing after pussy, be it again two legged or four legged, pussies are always chased, can’t say so about tables and chairs here…..hehe……
juggy,
i will say balls to my modesty for once, and bask in the glory….hehe….thanks anyway, you find my writing interesting, but don’t go at length of calling them masterpiece…please!
Hahaha
I don’t feel worthy enough to say anything here . But Yah Isn’t this what we call Masterpiece? 
maile comment padera matra lekheko..yet to go through it! but i already know! hahaha Tapain lai ta “Masterpiece” sanga allergy cha jasto cha ni Golji!
One might wonder, what precisely IS a masterpiece.
… dont mind me, just being a smart-ass. 
Golay dai,
Now that bonding with our cat has been complete, I am working on doing the same with tables and chairs in the apartment (not that there are many of those), will let you know how that works out.
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