I remembered Ruby today morning. He was my childhood companion during the years I lived with my maternal grandparents. He was a dog. The first and last dog in my life… I was probably four/five at that time. Ruby belonged to one of my uncles. He was a huge Alsatian, probably 11 years old at that time. Mom tells me that he felt comfortable at our home and when I was born, he took a particular interest in me and came over every morning from my Uncle’s house to be my watchdog! I don’t know how much of that is true but a couple of photographs of me in the cradle have some part of Ruby in it… a tail or an ear or paw…
There was a reason why we were staying with Mom’s parents. My father was working quite far away from home in those days. He was sent away by the management to teach in some college in the foothills of a mountain were sighting snakes in the corridor was as common as sighting moon at night. When he was battling snakes there, my grandparents decided that I and Mom should be in a safer place and we moved into their house. Dad was unhappy because he had to travel 8 hours in a rusty train to get a glimpse of me in the weekends! The first time he came to see us after we moved in with my grandparents, he found Ruby under my cradle. I was sleeping and so was Ruby… for him Dad was a stranger. He growled at Dad and jumped at him. Now, Dad has this bad history with dogs… (Even if he is driving a car and a dog barks at it, you could feel the slight cut he does on the steering.) So, Dad jumped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He was angry and expressed it at anyone came across him that night. He thought everyone was being careless leaving a small child with a mad dog (And, every dog is mad, according to him!!!). It took Ruby a couple of days to accept Dad’s presence around me and vice versa.
Then, a couple of months later I was taken away from Ruby when Dad got a transfer to a civilized place with towns, shops, markets and all. My visits to Ruby were reduced to weekends. There is a photograph I unearthed from my uncle’s album recently which had a little me walking (probably when I was learning to walk) holding Ruby’s tail in my hands. It looks like Ruby was teaching me to walk. There were other photos which have me lying on Ruby, trying to sit on him, playing with him, the both of us looking at each other etc. I couldn’t pluck the photos out from his precious album; otherwise they would be uploaded here. Let me see… if I can do it later…
I don’t remember how he died. When I returned to grandparents for one summer vacation, he wasn’t there. My Grandfather told me that Ruby went somewhere and nobody could find him. During my evening walks with Grandfather to the vast fields, I used to look for Ruby.
- Manu.
