Teddy

I was in the midst of writing another poem but one of my friend's comment on the previous poem really discouraged me. But I am not done. I will publish another poem very soon.. :P However this post was long overdue I felt. For a while now, I have held back my emotions about Teddy, can't seem to do so anymore.

Ah well..you guys who read my blog are well accustomed to bearing my occasional outbursts of nervous energy..which is the "normal" me most of the time. But this post is special. It is special because it is about my brother. My brother who has now been gone for a year and two months. We were so similar, my brother and me. He took after me. I remember writing about Kaluram (a poem, this one too) who was his cousin (I believe) from the same street from which we picked Teddy up. But Teddy's demise left such a huge gap in our lives that I did not quite know how to fill it up with one of my meagre pieces.

Then why now? Because I was going through the photos of a Prof. in FB and she had this cute little puppy...he is so much like my Teddy. He yawns, spreads his feet and his body and is soo small. Seeing him reminded me of Teddy so much that I had to write about my little brother who is now in heaven.

On a wintry November night, Teddy came to our house. He was small and black. My sister and brother-in-law brought him to our house and then bathed him with warm water. He had many worms on him. The most surprising thing about him was that though we brought him up and bathed him with water, he did not utter a single sound. He was visibly uncomfortable and did not appreciate the dampness of water. But not a single sound.

It was then that I put forward a question. "Is he dumb?". No one answered. My brother-in-law said that in this species dumbness is not seen generally. So they took him home. Next day my sister called. "You know Ma, last night we were afraid that he was dumb. After bringing him home and keeping him for one night, we have realized that it would be much better had he been dumb." Her happy words said it all. Teddy had cried so much after staying one night in their home that their landlord had come and complained about it.

He was a handful, my little Teddy. Since both my sister and brother-in-law worked, he had to stay alone in the house and he would complain about it by shouting at the top of his lungs. So my sister requested us to take him home. I am not a very friendly person, as my friends know and though I love animals more than people, I was against keeping an animal in home. They require a lot of work and attention and I was simply not comfortable with it. So they left Teddy from where they had picked him up and went away crying.

My mother, a very gentle and compassionate lady found this to be unacceptable and went off to search for him. I guess some of my humanity awoke inside me and I went to help her. But we could not find him. Later that evening we were going to my tuition classes. The path which led to the main road was where I saw a little black figure jumping around. It was small and I was not sure whether or not to call it. My mother too saw and pointed it out to me. It was then that I called. But even before I called, he saw me and came running towards me. It was then that I knew that that was Teddy.

Since then he spent the rest of his short life with us.

(to be continued)