When dogs go on war

Swalpa connect maadi...

All 65 kgs of him. He makes a lightening dash for any available lap, toppling the startled lap owner. His obsession is food.

Nimboo is a mongrel who is nobody's dog. No amount of scratching behind the ear reduces him to a wobbling mass of ecstatic dog flesh.

His primary obsession is sex. He spends all his time lusting after an aging female stray who carries on her person the seductive waft of a dozen garbage bins.
To prevent two very different canine personalities from getting into a headlong clash, we thought we would divide their territories.

Nimboo is on the outside, the designated guardian of gate and garden. Friday looks after the interiors.

Which he thinks makes it his bounden duty to shed hair on sofas, hide bones in shoes and clamber all over beds…preferably with the sleeping occupants in them.
Like the British, we never guessed that a division of territories would lead to a lasting feud in the Indo-Pak mode. We call it the ‘Battle of Peeing Rights’.

Friday is required to go outdoors and pee. So naturally Nimboo thinks it is his right to come indoors to pee. Which is not allowed.

So here we have all the makings of a family feud. “(In the genre made famous by Ambani siblings) Nimboo sets up a neighbour rousing protest in the deep watches of the night.” How come he can pee in my territory and I cannot pee in his?”
I try to talk it over, woman to dog, how it’s just not practical for him to come in to do his job. “But this is not fair,” he yelps.

“Life is not fair,” I tell him. It’s something we all accept. “Unfortunately philosophy is not Nimboo's strong suit. Not for nothing have his breed, for generations evaded BBMP dog squads and lathi-wielding watchmen and lived to procreate in the lanes of Ulsoor.

He is a fighter, a rebel and he is angry, “I’ll drag you through every court in the country,” he says. “Surely there are fundamental right for dogs in the Constitution.”
“I hope you know that courts take their own time,” I inform him.

“Well, then I will go to the media. I will talk to every TV channel and give interviews about my peeing rights being violated.
Except for Maneka Gandhi, no one gives a woof about dog’s peeing rights.” “You've been bought over,” he says accusingly. “You are as corrupt and partisan as all those politicians.”
“Please understand, Nimboo, that we love you just as much as we love Friday and this is not about caste discrimination or racial profiling or corruption.”
But he is not listening any more. He has just discovered a weapon just recently launched.
“I will take full page ads in all the newspapers to tell the world just what is going on around here,” he growls.