A dog's day, Wodehouse style

It took me a while to appreciate the subtleties of British humour

Our English lecturer once remarked in our PUC class, “You’ll be rolling with laughter if you read P G Wodehouse.” None of us had heard of Wodehouse before, but we decided to give it a try. As we were used to the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, we didn’t find any humour in Wodehouse, let alone rolling down with fits of laughter.

However, we were still wet behind the ears when it came to subtle British humour. We couldn’t fully appreciate his quips, such as ‘Honoria Glossop laughed like a cavalry of horses galloping on a tin bridge’, or ‘Jeeves served him excellent eggs laid by contended chickens.’ 

As the years went by, I devoured all of Wodehouse’s works and even had the opportunity to dine with Tony Ring, a committee member of the Wodehouse Society, thanks to Guru, my British friend. In times of the worst depression, Wodehouse became my panacea.

Recently, I read the ones where he talks about the life of a dog in the first person. Taking a cue from that, I write: 

“I am one of the million dogs called Tomy, and I behaved like one. I loved everybody, showed a semblance of loyalty to the household, and stooped to any level for shelter and belonging. I don’t know how, as a street puppy, I landed in front of their gate. Appa kicked me off in his polished shoes on his way to the office. Big Anna ignored me, and the young Anna played with me, which was very hurtful. He made me run around the house and closed the back door for me to dash against it. It produced peals of laughter, and I was expected to take it as a game. Well, why not? After all, Amma allows the akka to put plates of food for me. Akka loved me. So I used to sneak into her bed when the lights were off. Appa, the latecomer, would notice that and shoo me off to my den. Only for a while. When the lights were off, I would go back to my comforting Akka. 

“When the household was travelling, I invited myself to grandma’s house for lunch. After a grudging bone or two was thrown at me, I ran back to guard my house, outside the compound, of course, as I was locked out. No shame here. I can’t afford such sentiments, you see.

“Then there was the occasion when my loving akka was all dressed up and seated in a chair with lots of people around, and then there was this fellow also dressed up, whom I suspected would take away my akka. I didn’t like him at all. The whole lot of people were happy and fixed a date when Akka would go away to that fellow’s house. My sorrow was temporarily compromised when the leftover snacks were available to me.”

Well, that’s the story of Tomy. But sadly, he didn’t live to see his Akka married to my friend, and misses him even today.