Download PDF Here Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2022.
TARA, The Dog Who Always Was – Guest Editorial by Randhir Khare. Excerpt from still to be published novel.
So, hissed the tom with a bitten ear, as he balanced himself in the fork of the Neem tree, where exactly do you live? I’ve seen you around here but I’m not sure where you live. I suspect with that arty fellow. Am I right?
I live with a poet, up on the third floor.
There. I was right. A poet. How boring, he hissed again. Up in the air with no idea what it’s like to be close to the earth.
But I do go for walks and I run around in the garden.
Yes, run around in the garden, big deal. You chase that silly rubber ball and carry it back to that poet.
I do more than that, she corrected him.
For instance? The tom leaned forward with his good ear. What?
I chase birds and eat cat’s poop as an after-meal snack.
You’re the pits, he said. Doesn’t that poet give you an after-meal snack?
Don’t talk about my eating habits. You’re in the garbage bin all the time.
My diet is nutritious. I get the best of stuff; that’s why dear girl, my poop is so tasty and packed with energising vitamins.
Who gave you the permission to call me a girl? She glared at him.
Then what do I call you? Old lady?
I’m Tara.
Ha, Tara. There comes your poet. Go on, waggy waggy your tail…. Saying this, he did the Leap of Death and sprang on to the roof of the Security cabin and limped off. I’ve lost my touch. There was a time I could do the Leap of Death with my eyes shut.
I told you, said the poet, no chasing cats Tara. No chasing cats. He slipped on the choker leash and led her off for a walk, out of the main gate.
Ah, I love it here, she said to herself. The smells are delicious. Dog’s pee, cat’s pee, poop, smelly torn clothes, rotten vegetable and look there’s even a boy peeing into a bush. And it’s particularly lovely today because it has rained and there’s slush everywhere. Before the poet stops me jumping into the muck I’m going right in. Wheeeeee.
Hey Tara, no, no. The poet yanked her out. That’s slush, now look at your paws.
Big deal, what’s wrong with my paws? I’ll just twiddle them around in my drinking water basin when we get home and they’ll be clean. AND the water will be tasty.
Of course, the poet couldn’t understand what she was saying, because he was slightly deaf and his mind was always somewhere else. If he cared to, or could, be in the present maybe he would discover that Tara was no ordinary creature. But she didn’t bother herself with that too much. He was a good guy, the poet, because he didn’t mind her sleeping in his bed. When he was not in it of course. Besides that, he never forgot to give her titbits, an occasional bowl of buttermilk and chicken liver.
More recently he had taken to giving her a raw carrot now and then. She carried it around the apartment like a bone, hiding it in unusual places. Once she hid it under his pillow and then in the middle of the night wanted to munch it. Getting it out was a hair-raising experience because the man talked in his sleep and threw his arms around this way and that. The only way to get at it was to do the Tara Bark. So she’d rush to the front door and start barking as if someone was outside. That would get the poet out of his bed. She’d pull out the carrot from under his pillow when he was at the door then walk past him sheepishly. He was gullible without even a streak of street-smartness. Tara wondered how the fellow had even survived in a world that was crowded out with tricksters, fixers, sweet-talkers and shortcutters. Everything that he owned didn’t seem to belong to him – his money, his belongings, everything. He gave them away freely, smiling after he relieved himself of them, as if they were doing him a favour. Maybe that’s why I am so attached to him. He’s animal. Well, ALMOST animal. The only thing that sets him apart is that he’s a poet so all of him isn’t in one place. Not that I understand a word of his poetry but being a poet softens his edges and makes him almost one. Most other people aren’t almost one. They are threes and fours and fives and sixes, some are even more. Animals are one. Look at me. I’m one. Just one – right here and now.
I’ve been thinking about my chat with the Tom up in the Neem tree this evening. He seemed to think that living in an apartment up in the air was no good and that one has to be grounded down there and smell the earth and feel the realness of everything. Well, I feel the realness of everything thrice a day when the Poet takes me for a walk and when I am up here there’s realness all around me. The plants, the birds, the insects, the geckos, the Vaghdev totem brought all the way from the jungles of the Dang by the poet….it smells of the wild. The crows and kites that sit on the ledge of the roof above remind me of my babyhood in South Goa. That’s where I was born, beside the sea in a resort. When we’d sit outside the kitchen waiting for snacks to be thrown at us, crows and kites would hover overhead. They scared us silly. But we were happy and didn’t care.
My mind is drifting now. Just a thought – it’s not where you are that makes you one, its what’s between your ears.
Great, the poet is giving me chicken liver for dinner. The aroma is killing me. I wish he’d hurry up.
Tara sneaked into the poet’s room to check if he was aware that the liver was ready. Instead, it appeared that his poem was almost ready. Hunched over the keyboard with his eyes a few inches way from the screen, he typed away furiously, stopped and stared into space then back at the screen. As much as she wanted to let him be with his muse, she rushed to the front door and barked hysterically to get him out of his chair. On the way to the front door, he stopped by the kitchen and realised that the liver had almost burnt so he rescued it, added a bit of water, put on the fan full speed to cool it down and returned to his poem, quite forgetting about the front door. So, Tara did the front door act again sometime later when she had to remind him that her food had cooled. The wait was worth it.
After dinner, she sat outside his room, watching him write. He had become much quieter, almost still like a Pond Heron as if he was watching fish in the water, waiting for the chance to strike. She noticed that at such times he’d either burst into a rage of keyboard strikes or simple peck at the keys, gaining momentum on the way. But that evening, whilst the birds were restless in the trees outside his window, he seemed to be listening to someone speaking to him, tilting his head slowly from one side to the other. He started typing again as if he was taking dictation. Some one was dictating something to him. It was so spooky.
Tara looked around the room but saw no one and nothing. She switched on her sixth sense radar, sending out waves that returned to her like ripples. Her body tensed. There was someone in there, she was certain. Lowering her body as she entered the room, she peered under the bed, over the bed, behind the bed, outside the window. Stopped, tensed. There was someone out there speaking to him, she was sure.
He suddenly stopped writing and leaning back in his chair, listened with his eyes shut. What is he listening to? Who is he listening to? Tara watched him respond to the invisible presence in the room or was it outside the window? She couldn’t tell. He leaned forward and stared at the laptop screen then began to speak, loudly. She hadn’t considered that he could be reading aloud the poem to see if the flow and rhythm was right and the pauses were appropriate. What better way to find out than to read aloud? Who knows – maybe he was reading the poem aloud to the presence in the room. She couldn’t understand what he was up to and it spooked her.
Creeping out of the room, she headed for the terrace and the comforting fragrance of the potted plants, as far away as possible from the poet’s voice. Dark clouds gathered overhead, slab upon heavy slab, each nudging the other, quickly filling up empty spaces. There’s going to be a thunderstorm. That should stop the poet from talking.
Rain always reminded her of the resort by the sea and the spirits of drowned people who would come out of the water to talk to her. One of them was a woman who would gather her up in her arms and take her to the waterside. This is the sea, Tara, she would say, sky water. All water is sky water. In the beginning there was only sky. Water was part of the sky. Water is pure. Water is precious. Water is blessed.
The hair on the back of her neck bristled. There was the presence of someone behind her. My radar tells me that there’s someone here. Someone different. Someone familiar. I can smell her, sense her, hear her breathing. She turned around but there was emptiness behind her. Entering the apartment, she sniffed the air. It smelled of the sea, weeds, sand and shells. I know she’s here.
She stalked the dark, her radar scanning the interiors, from room to room, even the kitchen and the corridor that led to the front door, but no sign of anyone. The poet was talking to himself as if he was addressing someone else or so it seemed. She stepped in to check if indeed there was no one else. He was staring intently at the screen. Was there someone inside the machine, someone who she couldn’t see?
The overpowering fragrance of the sea was everywhere.
That night, as she lay asleep in her cot near the Poet’s bed, enveloped by his comforting nearness, a terrible storm crashed over the city and churned the air to shreds, sending giant buckets of rain down on the streets and fields and parks, turning shanties into slushy islands and manicured gardens into swamps of flower beds.
Each time, the dark was torn open by lightning and the air burst with peals of thunder, she shivered and curled deeper into herself. When she couldn’t curl any deeper, she climbed into the poet’s bed and tucking her head deep into his arms, felt safe. In the middle of the night, she opened her eyes and saw the shadow of the Sky Water Woman standing at the foot of the bed and watching over them. She sensed her smiling, so she smiled in response.
For the first time, that night she dreamed of her long journey from life time to life time before she reached the resort by the sea. She travelled through strange lands, saw herself as a wolf in the wilds, as a husky in the arctic, as a mine sniffer during the Second Great War, as a hunting dog of the Mullu Kurumba tribesmen of South India…as life after life unfolded, she lost consciousness just when she began to see herself in human avatars. But the next morning when the Crow Pheasant started whooping in the bamboo thicket outside the window, the window to deep memory quietly closed and a new day intruded with an explosion of light and early birds.
Down in the garden that morning, Tara met Captain Lazybones, the black Pug. Actually, his name was Blackie. What an original name, heh, Blackie. The fellow was scared even of his own shadow. When his Mum put him down to walk on the lawn, he tottered over to Tara and stared at her with his bug eyes. What’s your problem? She asked.
Just saying hello.
How come you’re out of breath?
Because I’m tired.
Come on, shake a leg, it’s early in the morning when all creatures are done with their rest time. Didn’t you sleep last night? Or did you have nightmares of mice chasing you around the house?
That’s being rude, I just came over to say hello and you’re making fun of me. Breathing heavily, he sat down and continued to stare at her.
Stop staring at me, said Tara, say something.
What do I say?
Pssst, pssst, signalled the tom from the wall. Want to chase me? Its good exercise Lazybones. The more you run, the more energy you churn up and the more energy churn up, the happier you will feel. And the happier you feel the friendlier you’ll get. The friendlier you get…
Why do you talk so much? Asked Captain Lazybones. Your constant lectures tire me out. I’m already half asleep.
Stop being such a wet rag, hissed the tom. Come on now, chase me. I’ll run slowly, I promise.
My Mum is watching.
So what if your Mum is watching? He snapped. She’s always watching. She’s the watching kind. I bet she’s watching even when she’s fast asleep. She’s watching even when she’s dreaming. She’s…
There you go again, interrupted the Pug.
Stop telling me what to say and how to say it. You’re lucky that I’m willing to let you chase me, the tom sneered.
Go on Lazybones, go for him, Tara tried to sound encouraging. I’ll join you. All you have to do is take a deep breath and move your little legs as fast as you can. They’ll carry you along.
The Tom feigned a limp and staggered up to the Pug, come on, get me, he said.
Gathering all his courage and weight, Lazybones flung himself at the Tom, bowling him over, then sat on him with a smirk. Well? He asked.
Now get off me, mutt.
I got you, didn’t I?
Yes you got me. But this is no exercise. I let you get me. You have to chase me….now get off me and chase me.
Ok, have it your way. Lazybones rolled off and sat up and the Tom broke into a trot.
Go on Lazybones, go for him, go for him, shouted Tara and the Pug actually took off, first stumbling along and then actually running as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him, round and round the garden. When his Mum realised what he was up to, she was frantic.
You, stop. Stop. No chasing cats. You hear me Blackie? No chasing cats.
Let him be, the Poet interrupted her. No one is getting hurt. They’re just playing. It’s a good way for your pug to get some exercise.
What do you mean by that? She challenged him. He has all the exercise he needs.
But you’re carrying him around like a Pasha all the time, he corrected her. Why don’t you let a dog behave like a dog?
This is my dog and not yours. Besides, this is no ordinary dog, she shot back, he’s a Black Pug, an American breed.
Fair enough, said the Poet. Sorry for offering an opinion.
That’s ok. But at least you can help me stop the chap. Just look at him, he’s gaining speed every moment. There now, he’s even trying to scramble up the sandalwood tree.
The Poet turned back to revising a poem in his notebook, ignoring the grumblings of the Pug’s Mum.
Tara was astonished by what she saw. Where had the Pug garnered all that energy from? What had inspired him? Who had inspired him?
When his Mum grabbed hold of him to carry him home, he wriggled out of her grasp, landed on the grass and chased after the tom who by now was running in circles on the lawn.
The chase finally ended and Lazybones was carried home. The tom and Tara slipped off to confer behind the Club House.
What exactly got into the fellow? Asked the tom.
He must have got spooked.
What? Spooked? How did that happen?
It happens, said Tara knowingly, there’re all sorts of energies floating around the place and if one manages to catch hold of you, well – anything is possible.
Ha, the tom grinned, seems like a Grey Hound spooked old lazybones. If it hasn’t left him as yet then he’s going to drive his Mum crazy. After a pause, he said, I’ve never seen your place up there. When are you going to invite me up? The night’s have been awful and there’s not much the bins have to offer.
You are welcome tonight, she replied. I’ll see what I can rustle up for you.
And so that night, when the storm broke loose again and the Poet was busy clearing the pool of water from in front of the terrace door, the tom slipped in.
This way, Tara led him on. The house rules, no stealing food, no rummaging in the dustbin and no sleeping on the couch.
Seems more like a prison.
It’s just common courtesy when you’re in someone else’s home.
Fair enough, I’ll try my best, he assured her. But unfortunately his best wasn’t enough and he ended up inside the dustbin and after a hearty meal of food scraps, curled up on the couch and fell asleep. He was lucky that the Poet was busy talking to himself and hadn’t noticed his presence.
The tom surfaced in the middle of the night when the dark outside was being battered by thunder, lightning and rain. He saw Tara sitting near the big glass door that led on to the terrace garden, looking out at the night. Behind her stood the shadow of a woman. His feline radar told him that it wasn’t usual. She was no ordinary presence but from somewhere else. His coat turned bristly just the way it had done a long time ago when he saw a dwarf climb down from his neem tree and walk off whistling in the night.
He hopped off the couch and stalked towards Tara and the woman but when he neared, the shadow had dissolved. What are you doing up so late? He asked Tara.
It’s a strange night.
Spooky, you mean, he corrected her.
Maybe.
Not maybe. Spooky for sure. There was a shadow standing behind you.
Must have been The Sky Water Woman, she replied.
Now WHO is that? He wanted to know.
It’s a long story. Let’s just say that she watches over me.
You have a spook watching over you? I’m impressed. A long time ago when I was a kitten, a spook watched over me too, he whispered. She lived in the Ramphal tree near the main gate.
Then what happened? Tara wanted to know.
She vanished one day.
Why?
Because I stole eggs from a myna’s nest.
Didn’t you apologise?
There was no need to apologise, I was hungry and because there was no one to take care of me I had to take care of myself. That’s the law of the wilds, he replied.
But these aren’t the wilds, she corrected him. We live in a city.
You live in a city in a home, someone takes care of you, you don’t have to rummage around in dustbins and steal bird’s eggs and pick at rotten food by the roadside. You get hot fresh food to eat, a bath, a clean bed, company and the safety of a roof over your head in bad weather. You aren’t attacked by other free creatures outside. I am, all the time. You’ll never know how tough life is for me.
Can’t I help you find your spook? Maybe if you apologise, she’ll forgive you and take care of you then life won’t be so tough.
Stop feeling sorry for me. I don’t like the way you talk. You have everything you want here so you think you have the right to give me advice. Let’s get it clear here and now. If you think you are doing me a favour by letting me stay here, you can stuff your favour. It doesn’t suit me. I’m a wild cat. Your house rules don’t suit me…..don’t sleep on the couch, don’t rummage in the dustbin, don’t this and don’t that and don’t the other… life is tough anyway without you making me feel small. The tom paced the room irritably, flicking the tip of his tail this way and that. Don’t get me wrong, he said, but you are sounding more human than animal. Behave like an animal, Tara.
I am an animal but since I live with a human, I have to follow his rules.
You don’t have to follow his rules. You don’t have to follow anyone’s rules but your own. You have the spirit of a free animal. You aren’t one of those powdered and shampooed and brushed huskies who trot obediently beside their owners, nor are you that Yankee Pug or that oh so bouncy and glowing golden retriever – they do what they are told to do, behave the way they are expected to behave. You are a free soul. Come on Tara, stop being so stuck up.
He sat at the open glass door and stared into the rainy dark. If I’m irritating you, I’ll leave. Don’t bother to let me out of the front door, I’ll scale down the water pipe. I’m good at that. Listen, I know when I’m not wanted…
Suddenly the light in the hall was flicked on. The poet had entered the room. What’s going on here? He asked himself confused. There’s a cat in the house. The ginger cat with a chewed-up ear who is always up the neem. Heh you spooked the Pug today, good boy. He cautiously approached the tom who had frozen in his tracks and was too shocked to move. Leaving the room, he returned with a large bowl of warm milk. Here, Hero. Warm milk. It’s a cold wet night. He walked over to the couch and patted it, you can sleep here.
That was the start of a lasting friendship between the poet and the tom. Tara wasn’t sure what to feel about it.
That night when the poet retreated to his room and started talking to himself, the two free souls reclined on the couch.
Guys like me, said the tom, can’t remain in one place for very long. We’re here for now, enjoy the company, we play kitty kitty then wake up from a nap one day and don’t like what we see, don’t like what we feel, don’t like the routine, don’t like the discipline, don’t like doing the same thing over and over again and feeling the same feelings over and over again. We’re adventurers who can’t sit still.
© Randhir Khare
Randhir Khare is a distinguished writer, artist, teacher and theatre personality. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for his unique contribution to culture and education. His 37 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, translation from tribal dialects and other writings as well as his seven solo exhibitions all explore themes of identity, belonging and the struggle to stay human in a violent and fragmented world. His memoir THE FLOOD & AFTER: A Memoir of Leaving will be appearing soon. He has spearheaded an initiative to enrich formal education through the experience of the arts. Randhir is a founding contributor to Live Encounters Magazine. https://randhirkhare.in/