A Dog's Death

Earlier this week, I was awakened by a wretched, inconsolable wailing, the kind my noise my mother made after my 12th-standard examination results came in. I knew at once that it could not be coming from the home of my aged neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. M; had either of them keeled over, the survivor would more likely than not have been breaking out some of that exceptional 1999 Barolo-Ciabot Mentin Ginestra kept in the cellar for just such an occasion.

It turned out that a loathsome couple who live across the road – you know the type, 1.83 children fed on organic groceries, two cars, $90,837,468,947,567.99 post-tax annual income, makers of regular tax-deductible contributions to the famine-stricken in Ethiopia – had lost their prized Pomeranian bitch. Having come under the wheels of a large four-wheel drive Mercedes, the beast was flat as a sheet of cardboard. By the time I showed up to see what the to-do was all about, Brat 0.83 was being carted off in a straitjacket for psychoanalysis (Brat 1.0, having been lobotomized with generous doses of Prozac some months earlier, was wearing his usual manic grin but was otherwise placid). Daddy Dear, as is de rigueur for New Men, had tears rolling down his cheeks; Mommy Dear, as befits a New Woman, had an ashen but firm-chinned look, like Cary Grant in The Lonely Heart.

Now, I’ve seen perfectly sane Hindustanis get all tight about Pomeranian bitches, so I wasn’t as taken by surprise by this tamasha as you might imagine. My sometime friend General B., who possessed two of the finest, was deeply concerned about the threat to their chastity posed by the virile street-dogs of Leh. Using his considerable influence, he had what appeared to be an entire regiment of Naga troops posted around his home, thus ensuring any roadside dogs who attempted to outrage the modesty ended up up as dinner. I have to add, though, that General B.’s concern was purely pragmatic: he didn’t want his daughter’s chastity violated, since she’d then cost him a prettier-than-usual penny on the marriage market; and he didn’t want the bitches’ chastity violated, since he needed pure-bred puppies to pay for beti-jaan’s dowry.

What did startle me, though, was that the to-do wasn’t about the fact that my neighbors’ Pomeranian had died without becoming the mother of a thousand sons, thus robbing Daddy Dear and Mommy Dear of the means to gather the vast loot they will without dispute have to cough up to get their idiot offspring into Harvard. It was grief, plain and simple. In between bouts of sobbing, what conversation there was centered around the grim business of the mortal remains the kuttiya-jaan. It turned out Daddy Dear and Mommy Dear couldn’t abide burying the dead beast, while 1.0 and 0.83 had a problem with cremating it. I helpfully suggested that they try selling the carcass to the Korean restaurant up the road, and thus make the best of a bad deal, but what seemed to me to be eminently pragmatic elicited only disgusted looks from the goras.

“Why not freeze-dry it”, someone suggested? What? I gagged on the fourth single-malt I had helped myself to in an effort to still my grief at my neighbors’ loss (ahem, ‘nuff said), certain that if my humble suggestion had seemed tasteless to the natives, this would without doubt lead to violence. To my horror, promptly everyone agreed that this was a wonderful idea. It turned out there are a large number of establishments that specialize in freeze-drying dead animals, so that their owners can gaze upon their amazingly life-like corpses with love and tenderness. Half an hour later, some ghoulish-looking fellow showed up to do the needful, bearing with him both the implements of his trade and a large numbers of testimonials about the joys his company had provided to hundreds of bereaved pet-owners. “We loved him so much”, one couple had written of their dead cat, Snuffy, who is perched for all time to come on their mantlepiece, “and to have him back is great!!”

I asked my native guides to make some discreet inquiries about the costs involved in this bizarre enterprise. Starting at $375.99 for a carcass weighing up to 1.5 kilograms, the price can run up to $ 575.99 for a beast of up to 5 kilograms, and an additional $ 100.99 for every additional kilogram. Apparently, each year thousands of loved pets are by this means restored to life, or a sit-in-one-place fashion of it (which is arguably better, given the manners of some animals and their people). It also turned out that Jesustanis lavish on live dogs as much as they do on dead ones: people buy dog toothpaste ($4.99 each, $47.99 for a dozen), dog cosmetics ($39.99 upwards), dog jewelry ($69.99 upwards) and even the services of plastic surgeons to address their self-esteem issues. There are dog psychoanalysts, dog stylists, and dog…

No, wait a minute, there aren’t!!!!!

Unlike in Hindustan, Jesustanis do not allow their dogs to copulate in public, which does rather open up the question of how these poor animals ever get any, you know, relief. I mean, being taken to the breeder once a year for a soulless five-minute fuck wouldn’t bring any joy into your life, would it? Just ask the millions of women in Hindustan condemned to precisely that fate. Opportunity knocks! I remember this fine young woman at an agricultural fair in Chandigarh some years ago, who was demonstrating the means used to obtain semen from pigs for the purposes of artificial insemination (for those of you so inclined, it involved a lubricated rubber tube, 'nuff said, again). She was surrounded by hundreds of mesmerized peasants, all in advanced stages of pig-envy. I’m sure I have her number somewhere. All I need is a financier, and then I too will be well on my way to a wife, 1.83 brats, and a post-tax income of $90,837,468,947,567.99.